"A torrent of government investment has improved the buraku* so they are no longer slums. Yet average income for buraku families is still only about 60 percent of the national average, and social problems are proving to be far more persistent than discrimination. Buraku leaders acknowledge that alcoholism is a disproportionate problem in their ( Read more... )

Found through BoingBoing:

"Next time President Bush tells you he's going to Crawford to be with "real Americans," remind him that there are more World of Warcraft players in the USA than there are farmers (though of course the two aren't mutually exclusive ( Read more... )

"I feel naïve for absorbing the idealistic, end-of-history notion that we humans are all universally alike, just yearning for some freedom. The people of the middle east are not just a bunch of good folks oppressed by brutal dictators. They are ridden with some very deep pathologies. We kid ourselves by thinking that they're just like us - only ( Read more... )