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The East Asian Textbook Issue
Historical Background and Current Status

The Textbook Issue and International Relations in East Asia

The textbooks used in Japanese schools are drafted by private-sector publishers, but they are subject to approval by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). In April 2011 publishers submitted their proposed textbooks for use in high schools starting in 2013. On March 27 this year, following completion of the authorization process, the contents were released to the media. Stories about the new textbooks in the domestic media have focused on their references to the March 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and nuclear disaster and on their bulked-up curriculum—part of a swing of the pendulum back toward a more rigorous approach to education. But on the international level the main subject of attention has been the treatment of historical and territorial issues in the new textbooks.

Why are international observers so interested in the contents of Japanese textbooks relating to these matters? It is questionable how much of a real impact these contents have on ordinary Japanese people’s views on history and territorial matters. Middle and high school social studies courses tend to be seen as exercises in rote memorization; once the exams are over the material generally vanishes from students’ heads. But partly because the textbooks are subject to official authorization, people outside Japan take their contents to express Japan’s “official” view of historical and territorial issues—notably, the history of Japan’s expansion into East Asia starting in the late nineteenth century and the territorial claims that overlap with those of Japan’s neighbors.

( The content of the textbooks is not just a matter of interest on the international level. The subject is also closely related to domestic political issues. )

In the months leading up to North Carolina’s vote this month to ban gay marriage, most of the state’s business leaders were conspicuously silent. While some executives spoke out against it as individuals, not one Fortune 500 company based in North Carolina, including Bank of America, Duke Energy, VF Corporation and Lowe’s, opposed it.

But one company did: Replacements Limited, which sells silver, china and glassware, and is based in Greensboro. Its founder and chairman, Bob Page, is gay. The company lobbied legislators, contributed money to causes supporting gay marriage, rented a billboard along the interstate near its headquarters, and sold T-shirts at its showroom. Its experience may explain why no other for-profit company followed its example.

Hostile letters and e-mails poured into the company from customers canceling their business and demanding to be removed from its e-mail list. “I understand that your company donated $250,000 or so to the effort to ban the marriage amendment,” read one. “I am very concerned that with an increased visibility and acceptance of the gay and lesbian lifestyle, one of my children, who would have grown up and been happily married to a husband, could be tempted to the lesbian lifestyle.”

Another read: “I was excited to see your wares and expected a pleasant shopping experience. Instead I was accosted by your political views, which I do not share. It was very uncomfortable and unpleasant browsing with all those signs and T-shirts against amendment one, to the point where I had to leave.”

A third said, “Money you used to support this opposition came from my many purchases from your company and that is not O.K. with me,” adding, “I will look for my replacement pieces elsewhere.”

Several writers seemed more sad than angry. “Visiting Replacements Limited has always been one of my favorite treats,” said one. “I had the privilege of experiencing your beautiful store firsthand,” began another. Both said they would never return.

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read the entire article at the source

The Pope's butler has been charged in connection with the Vatican's inquiry into a series of media leaks.

Vatican magistrates have named 46-year-old Paolo Gabriele as the suspect in their investigation, saying he illegally took confidential documents.

A series of leaks, dubbed Vatileaks, has revealed alleged corruption, mismanagement and internal conflicts.

Last month, Pope Benedict XVI set up a special commission of cardinals to find the source of the confidential memos.

Mr Gabriele is the pope's personal butler and assistant and one of very few laymen to have access to the Pope's private apartments.

He lives with his wife and three children in an apartment within the Vatican walls, where Italian media report that a stash of confidential documents had been discovered.

"I confirm that the person detained on Wednesday for illegal possession of private documents is Mr Paolo Gabriele, who remains in detention," the spokesman for the Holy See, Father Federico Lombardi said, according to Italy's state broadcaster, Rai.

The Vatican's judge, Piero Antonio Bonnet, has been instructed to examine the evidence of the case and to decide whether there is sufficient material to proceed to trial.

Mr Gabriele has nominated two lawyers capable of representing him at a Vatican tribunal, and has met with them.( Read more... )
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source

By Farhana Dawood ; BBC News, Hebron

It is rare to see women police officers on the streets in any part of the Arab world.

But in the Palestinian territories where civil police are themselves, a relatively new concept, concerted efforts are under way to bring more women into the force.

( read more )

source has 3 pictures

This is some good news, however, I do feel as if the only reason for female police officers is because it is convenient during the raids, not because they are so big on equality..

Vice President Biden, speaking Friday to families and friends of military personnel killed in action, gave a powerful retelling of the death of his wife and daughter 40 years ago — saying he'd realized then how grief might push a person to suicide.

"For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide," Biden told a meeting of the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors at a hotel in Crystal City. The group offers counseling to relatives and friends of military personnel who have died. It was holding its 18th annual military survivor seminar.

"Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts," Biden continued, according to a transcript. "Because they'd been to the top of the mountain, and they just knew in their heart they'd never get there again, that it was never going to get — never going to be that way ever again. That's how an awful lot of you feel."

In 1972, just after the Delaware Democrat was first elected to the Senate, his wife, Neilia, and his 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car crash. Biden's two sons — Beau, then 3, and Hunter, 2 — were grievously injured but survived.

On Friday, Biden told the military families how low the crash had brought him. "I probably shouldn't say this with the press here, but — no, it's more important — you're more important," he said.

Biden had actually told the story before, on page 80 of his 2007 memoir, "Promises to Keep."

"I began to understand how despair led people to just cash it in," Biden wrote.

On Friday, that story was a powerful section of a speech that illustrated Biden's particular style of rhetoric: frequently meandering, slightly pompous but movingly personal.

Biden often veered from the topic at hand — once, to tell the story of how he proposed to his current wife, Jill, five times before she said yes. He referred to himself, oddly, as "one of those folks they called the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee."

And, in a manner as unpolished as a living-room conversation, Biden told of climbing back out of grief.

"I have to tell you, I used to resent — I knew people meant well. They'd come up to me and say, 'Joe, I know how you feel,' " Biden said. The audience laughed.

"Right?" They clapped.

"You knew they meant well. You knew they were genuine. But you knew they didn't have any damn idea how you felt," Biden said to laughter. "Right? Isn't that true?"

Biden talked about his internal conflicts, as he tried to start another relationship after his wife's death. "You're going to go through periods when, after a while, you'll see somebody you may have an interest in, and you're going to feel guilty as hell. You're going to feel this awful, awful, awful feeling of guilt," he said.

Biden did not look like a vice president giving a speech: He hunched over, he looked down at his hands, he spoke at times haltingly and at times through clenched teeth.

And he told the story of his slow recovery — relying on family members and calling other people who’d been through the same kind of loss.

Biden said another elected official who had suddenly lost his wife advised him to start keeping a daily journal.

Write a "1" for the day, he advised Biden, if it feels as bad as the first day of your grief. For other days, write down a number that corresponds to your feelings — all the way up to 10.

"He said, 'You won't have 10s for a long time, but measure it, just mark it down.' And he said, 'After two months, take out that calendar and put it on a graph, and you'll — you'll find that your down days are just as bad as the first day,' " Biden said. “But here's what happens . . . they get further and further apart. He said, 'That's when you know you're going to make it.' "

Biden said he meant to offer these family members the same kind of hope.

"There will come a day, I promise you and your parents, as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen," Biden said.

"My prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later," he continued. "But the only thing I have more experience than you in is this: I'm telling you it will come."

source

Feeling a lot of Biden love lately. Who has gifs/macros to celebrate all the things he "probably shouldn't say" and yet need to be said?

EDITED TO ADD: FULL VIDEO OF THE SPEECH AVAILABLE.



I cried watching it.

Deltona, Floriduh - Volusia County School officials stand by a Deltona High School nurse's decision to refuse a student his inhaler during an asthma attack, citing a lack of a parent's signature on a medical release form.

"It's like something out of a horror film. The person just sits there and watches you die," said Michael Rudi, 17. "She sat there, looked at me and she did nothing."

He said the school dean found his inhaler during a search of his locker last Friday. The inhaler was still in its original packaging -- complete with his name and directions for its use; however, the school took it away because his mother hadn't signed the proper form for him to have it.

School leaders called Sue Rudi when her son started having trouble breathing. She rushed to the office and was taken back to the nurse's office by school administrators and they discovered the teen on the floor.

"As soon as we opened up the door, we saw my son collapsing against the wall on the floor of the nurse's office while she was standing in the window of the locked door looking down at my son, who was in full-blown asthma attack," Rudi said.

Michael Rudi said when he started to pass out from his attack, the nurse locked the door.

"I believe that when I closed my eyes I wasn't going to wake up," he said.
The Director of Student Health Services, Cheryl Selesky, said that parents must sign the medical release form each year, which allows students to carry their prescribed drugs with them in school.

This year, the district had no record of his Rudi's signature, said Selesky.

"I mean its common sense if I saw an animal on the street in distress I would probably stop to help, why wouldn't she help a child," Sue Rudi said.
But Rudi is a senior, and his mother said the district has had records of his asthma throughout his years in the school.

She thinks her son could have died because of a technicality.

"How dare you deny my son something that we all take for granted, breath," said Sue Rudi. "Why didn't someone call 911?"

Selesky said the district is looking into whether proper procedures were followed by the school, and while nurses can't give medications without the proper authorization, it is district policy to call 911 when a student cannot breath.

Selesky could not explain why 911 was never called.

"I understand if you can't give it to him call 911," Sue Rudi said. "Why did you not call 911?"

Sue Rudi said she worries about the next student caught in a similar situation, and has filed charges against the nurse with the Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

"I want to press child endangerment charges for something they did to my son," Rudi said in the 911 call.

Local 6 reached out to the school district officials for more information, but they declined to interview.

WKMG Orlando

Trigger warning for suicide, bullying
( Read more... )
Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20120525/NEWS01/205250449/7-year-old-s-suicide-shocks-community

OP Says: Tears. Just... tears. That poor family. That poor girl. That poor boy.

TW: transphobia, mentions of suicide/self harm

If you've never seen the hammer throw up close, especially during a New England winter, the most arresting part of every heave is the conclusion: how hardened earth erupts when the metal comet splits the ground. Weighing nearly nine pounds with a four-foot wire tail, the stainless-steel ball is menacing enough that airports ban it from carry-on luggage. And on a brisk February morning in Williamstown, Mass., every toss by Keelin Godsey offers further proof of its violence.

At 5'9" and 186 pounds, Godsey is tautly muscular. He wears glasses and is dressed in black from his sneakers to his knit cap, which sheathes his blond, spiky hair. Over and over, from in front of a chain-link backstop, he grips the hammer's handle and whirls in accelerating circles until it's no longer clear whether he is spinning the ball or the ball is spinning him. His target distance, 226'4½", is out on a gravel path beyond the frost-covered craters. That's the qualifying standard for the London Games—a mark Godsey finally surpassed last month (with a throw of 227'8") at a meet in Walnut, Calif. With a top three finish at the trials in Eugene, Ore., in June, he will realize his lifelong dream: to make the U.S. women's Olympic team.

For transgender men and women, the physiological traits that distinguish them as male or female don't conform to how they feel about themselves. Some have undergone sex reassignment surgery or hormone therapy to make their biological and gender identities match. Others, such as the 28-year-old Godsey, have not: He was born as a female and therefore competes as a female, but he identifies as male. Imagine a body, especially one as finely tuned as an elite athlete's, feeling inescapably foreign—as if it were intended for the opposite sex. "I take a lot of pride in the fact that I have a good amount of muscle mass, and I've done it naturally," says Godsey. "But in some ways, this is the last body I would ever want."

A physical therapist who was known as Kelly until his senior year of college, in 2005, Godsey is the first American Olympic contender in any sport to openly identify as transgender. When not competing he dresses and lives as a man, renting a ground-floor duplex in North Adams, Mass., with Melanie Hebert, his fiancée of three years. "I'm a female when I compete," Godsey says. "Every day I have to sweat, stress and freak out. How do I look? What is someone going to think of me? Is someone going to say something at a track meet?"

( Consider something as simple as going to the bathroom. )

Source
NPR

A surprisingly good article from Sports Illustrated.

HOUSTON—A judge threw a 17-year-old 11th grade honor student from Willis High School in jail after she missed school again.

Judge Lanny Moriarty said last month Diane Tran was in his Justice of the Peace court for truancy and he warned her then to stop missing school. But she recently missed classes again so Wednesday he issued a summons and had her arrested in open court when she appeared.

Tran said she works a full-time job, a part-time job and takes advanced placement and dual credit college level courses. She said she is often too exhausted to wake up in time for school. Sometimes she misses the entire day, she said. Sometimes she arrives after attendance has been taken.

The judge ordered Tran to spend 24 hours in jail and pay a $100 fine. Judge Moriarty admitted that he wants to make an example of Tran.

“If you let one (truant student) run loose, what are you gonna’ do with the rest of ‘em? Let them go too?” Judge Moriarty asked.

Tran said she is working so hard because she is helping to support an older brother who attends Texas A&M University and a baby sister who lives with relatives in Houston. Tran said her parents divorced “out of the blue” and both moved away, leaving her in Willis. Her mother lives in Georgia, she said.

“I always thought our family was happy,” the teen said tearfully.

Tran lives with the family of one of her employers. They own a wedding venue. She works at the Vineyard of Waverly Manor on weekends and at a dry cleaners full time.

“She goes from job to job, from school she stays up ‘til 7 o’clock in the morning,” said her friend, co-worker and classmate Devin Hill.

There's also a video at the source

Credit goes to layweed for sharing the article.

A political debate over whether to enshrine Russian as an official language in much of Ukraine brought lawmakers to fisticuffs this week, playing on enduring divisions in the country over cultural identity.

The scuffle, caught on tape Thursday, was followed Friday by lawmakers blocking the podium to prevent the start of a parliament session. Hundreds of protesters gathered outside, and the spat even led the head of the Ukrainian parliament to call for dissolving the body and holding early elections, Ukrainian news reports said as the furor stretched into a second day.

The Russian tongue has been a sensitive subject in Ukraine sincein gained its independence just over two decades ago, said Damon Wilson, executive vice president of the Atlantic Council. For some Ukrainians, the push to protect their language has become enmeshed with protecting the nation.
( more under cut )

Source has video of the fight.