While reading out his letter, my heart is touched. However, an easy step should not be taken whether to let this guy go free or remain in the jail cell. It could be true that he has been rehabilitated and he is no longer threat to the society. But, what is the purpose of the punishment? Throughout the history, the punishment was focusing on restitution which adopts ‘an eye for an eye’ theory. When you caused the pain of another, you should feel the pain. Later, people became to believe focusing on the restitution solely is not effective and some researches supported it by claiming that recidivism rate is so high when such application was employed. Then, they focused on rehabilitation side. A theory which emphasizes on people who can be changed was supported, again, some studies which showed the recidivism rate became lower when the incarceration facilities used methods to rehabilitate them. The one thing that must be taken into consideration is ‘deterrence’ purpose. This purpose is divided into two sub-categories called ‘general deterrence’ and ‘specific deterrence.’ While former focuses on general public the possible punishment that they would get if they commit the same crimes as the criminal did. It raised the fear of the community members so that they will avoid breaking rules and latter claims on the criminal so that he or she would not come back the prison. Well, this person who wrote letter would definitely say that he would not come back to prison since he knows what it means to be behind the bars. But, how about others, general public? If we let this guy to go free, then I wonder what is the standard would be like to free other inmates with similar convictions as well. The basic concept of law, or judiciary at least, is justice and fairness. Where did the fairness go? It would be ok to let these guys go because it is special case? Then, which cases are not special? Furthermore, who is going to decide that? It is really easy to say that a special committee can be formed with many experts. If I agree that one, I should wonder what the general public would think about it as well. Would it be really OK to let murders who were sentenced life in jail without the possibility of parole? When this question rephrases like: Would it be OK to let the, somewhat, good persons in the letter be freed? For latter, many of us would say ‘yes’ but how about the former question? Most on inmates have reasons that forced them to commit the crimes. But, what reasons would be OK or not OK? As an alternative, I propose an idea where these rehabilitated persons, as they claimed, could have little bit of more freedom than other ‘Bad’ and ‘heinous’ inmates. For example, they could have extra hours to be on yard or some recreational services can be provided them. Where the money comes from? It’s from them. They should work such as making products with abandoned woods or concrete. They are paying for their extra freedom.

I believe free market economy doesn’t work is that there are some public sectors that privatization does not work so effectively. In terms of goods, some private products such as soda or an automobile, it is good to let private companies take the charge since the competition would result better products with lower price. However, something like police resources or fire stations should be provided by the government since a nation stands there to protect its citizens. They cannot get security due to the lack of the money would be a disaster and a tragedy. Furthermore, I don’t think we have worse economy system, yet another improvement can be made. Medical insurance privatization, in my opinion, should be provided by the government. I know this one proverb famous among immigrants. The best way to save money is being healthy.

It’s true that one’s financial situation forces them to cross border illegally. However, there are other available means to immigrate to United States without paying a large sum of the money. For example, H-1 visa (sometimes referred as ‘investment immigration’) requires at least five hundred thousand dollars to invest any business in United States but there are other ways that requires much lesser than that. However, there are two problems exist with such method as well. There should be at least a couple of thousand dollars required at minimum to process the fees and the quotas are so small so that applicants must wait at least 3 years to enter United States. I believe there Is noting that can be done since we cannot control the demand.

This is a sad and shock situation. I can neither justify the woman’s bombing nor criticize it. Same thing applies to the Russian government, too. I want to discuss about this problem within the perspective of international law and the steps that United States took back in Cold War period and now.
In international law, there are four factors that must be satisfied in order to be considered as a Nation-state and they are 1) self-governance (government), 2) territory, 3) sovereignty, and 4) population. In this case, the woman’s original nation had its own territory and population for sure, and administration unit, maybe since it was under Russian’s influence, but I must doubt whether it has had sovereignty.
In the real world, it is even possible for geographic region which insist on its characteristic as a nation-state. One of the clear examples is Taiwan. This nation was founded when people who sought democracy in Chinese main land’s escaped from communists during Chinese revolution period (‘civil war’). This nation actually had its own government which can be proven by the fact that there were some nations that had established diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Secondly, it had its own population and territory since there were people living there for a relatively long time. Thirdly, it had its own sovereignty and it can be again proven by the fact that, after China insisted on “open door policy”, China established diplomatic relations with countries as long as they cut off the relations with Taiwan. However, what is happening right now? Because of China’s big influence, many nations try to avoid talking about this problem even though Taiwanese cry out for their status as another ‘nation-state.’ There are some nations that still have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, but it is too small in comparison with the time period before China’s active diplomatic activities. In the United Nations, Taiwan is not claimed to be a country, but rather a part of China. Besides Taiwan, how about Tibet? or Uighur? Back to our original posting, how about those nations who were unable to be separated from Soviet Unions after the collapse?
As we have learned from U.S. history class in high school or college, there was once a time period called “Cold War” and this period produced many terms which caused students pain inasmuch as they need to memorize it for a quiz or an exam. Maybe, you are familiar with ‘Iron Curtain,’ or ‘containment.’ Yes, this period can be explained very well with a single phrase, i.e. Communism v. Capitalism. Some may claim that it is better to say communism v. democracy but I want to point out both communism and capitalism are the theories in economic system while democracy is under the category of politics. Anyway, where is the spirit that U.S and other western powers (NATO) had during the cold war? I meant they used tons and tons of money for propaganda that Redwing agenda is so wrong and even used some geographic regions in disputes to fight. Vietnam was the product of that time period. Does United States no longer wish to help weak nations because communism was proven to be ineffective and there are very few communist nations left in the world? I feel it is the time that United States withdraws from its position as the World Police which US claimed back in time and start to avoid the problems other nations have. Obviously, United States, then, must stop giving pressure or tell other nations what to do. The basic principle of this nation should not be forgotten. And, when that principle once became a live heart of this nation, it is time to be the leader.
The lack of support from other countries made these terrors to be occurred. Having an interest about these cases would be little bit of hope for those people in the article.

It was a quite refreshing moment when the class was told to be ordinary college-age students living I Middle East. When other settings were remained in same, the only issue was that they do not understand each other. (US vs. Middle East) From the mass media which usually talk about the extremist or radical people even though these groups takes only a few percentages. Lack of knowledge and failure to see the whole picture rather than parts led this kind of conflict. If there was enough communication going back and forth between these nations, it would not be this serious. However, our leaders and their leaders used religions to keep their pride which made the situation worse.

Yes, I believe there should be a way of co-existing, in other words, living with harmony. Even though the harmony might not be perfect mainly because of cultural difference, we should try to minimize the cultural conflict (or gap). It was Missouri compromise which reduced bad noise of North vs. South in U.S. history. By the way, I am not implying such compromise was a great deal, I am just seeing it from the conflict resolution perspective. But it seems like it will be very hard to achieve such thing. Yes, easier to say, harder to be done. Just one thought though – what if radical religious people are kind of reduced and the religious exchange is going between Christianity and Islam? I mean many leaders use the religion as the biggest reason for propaganda purpose.

It has been quite long that since the Hentai culture has been established. I read a book regarding culture in Japan and one unique characteristic of this nation is that some wives actually let their husbands to have sex with a prostitute. In this example, it is easy to say the cultural conflict exist in terms of Western vs. Eastern. However, I believe that the issue cannot be easily determined to be that. Before doing that, the comparison between two nations is necessary.
In the video, there was a couple and the girl agreed that the game is not that offensive to her. It is true that criticizing one’s decision of choosing types of games that he or she plays would be limiting one’s freedom. Let’s just think of United States as well. Pornography is allowed and they are even divided by some categories – X, XX … (the increasing numbers of X means the more hardcore that the pornography would be) By the way, I learned this from Communications Law class, so don’t get me wrong. Back to our topic, Japanese pornography usually has mosaic on actors’ and actresses’ genitals while United States does not prohibit it. Furthermore, Oregon is known for having generosity toward obscene industry while Japan is famous for it as a nation. My question is that can we really make the criticism about it? I mean, obscene materials are consisting of the ‘real’ people in United States as well and some of them have stories including most kinds of situations as the Japanese game in the question had. Well, you can claim not all people watch it but only few. Same rule applies to the game in question on CNN. Not all Japanese people buy those kinds of games and play them, but few manias or so-called ‘O-ta-kus.’
No matter what the similarities and difference Japan and United States had in terms of obscenity, this news was like a bad sign of our future. The focus should be made not on whether the game is cool or reluctant but whether what does this incident mean. I do not know why but people are becoming immune to those from old times such as movies and games. Since they were not feeling enough pleasure, manufacturers or producers are trying to make their products as violent or sexual as possible to make the most profit as possible. Both United States and Japan are capitalist countries so they are not really there to be criticized. The most crucial part of this news is that those games can be transferred digitally – this means that anyone in the World who has internet access can play this game. This is bad for both manufacturers and us (I mean ‘we, the people’) since ‘they’ miss the potential customers and ‘we’ feel reluctant about it.

Yes, I would not eat the chocolate if the slaves are sitting next to me. The more important is, however, it is very hard to recognize and feel with the heart in America. For example, if we go to many bakeries, cafes, or even restaurants, they have at least one menu that is coming with chocolate. Chocolate frosted doughnut (DD), Java Chip Frapuccino (Starbucks), and even Chocolate shakes(T.G.I). We have two scenarios whether the owners of slaves somehow feel sorry for the slaves and improve the working conditions including the pay or we change our appetite and force every food-serving business to exclude any menus with chocolate. Sound somewhat unrealistic to me. I think we can begin to raise the awareness of this fact by choosing the stores employing fair-trade products – meaning they purchase their ingredients from those who treat the workers sort of “fairly.”

Stop buying clothes? I mean it seems like the best solution since it will decrease the demand in the economy and give pressure on clothes manufacturer to invent additional strategies by a more aggressive marketing or else. After having the pressure for long time, the manufacturers will be in a situation whether they choose to close the factories or not. However, stop buying clothes are so painful. It is because of the mass communication media. For instance, there was a new movie or TV show came out where your favorite celebrities wear new styles of clothes. How many people can be completely free from the temptation to search for the clothes and buy it?

I cannot even think about using the term ‘Negro,’ or other N words, in front of others including African-Americans and even non-Black people not only because I was taught that his term has very offensive meaning but also the environment that I was put in, United States, had a cultural norm or mutual agreement that the use of this term is prohibited. I think I saw this issue from one previous blog posting. I remember I criticized Census Bureau for having that term as well as its reasoning for using this term. It may be true that there are other African-Americans who would like to describe themselves as ‘Negros’ because they assumed that the answer must be filled in perspective of the government who used to call African-Americans as ‘Negros.’ It makes sense. I never said that Census is idiot but that was a stupid excuse. I would rather spend the money given for this “survey instrument” for educating them. Let’s take a close look at it.
Sam said “If it[the term Negro]is not there, they’ll be confused and not mark anything.” (Sam) It is true. But, couldn’t they be more proactive? They will be ‘confused’ if the term is not on the list. Why would they be confused? It is because, in my opinion, Census, or the government in general, did not take enough actions to acknowledge those people who are still concerning the perspective of government first not their own thoughts. It would be self-contradictory in the event that Census reasoned that they did not expect people still like to be described themselves as ‘Negro. ’It would cost much to let those people to describe themselves as ‘African-American’ or ‘Black’ rather than ‘Negro.’ That is why it must be done gradually. We should not expect to remove these words in the next Census survey. Rather, targeting for 2030~40 Census would be appropriate.
Some people may not understand why they should be bothered with these things. But, let’s take our time back to mid 20th century. It was natural for persons of color to use separate facilities including bathrooms, seats in the bus, and even educational institutions and these facilities usually have worse conditions in comparison with those for Whites. Nobody could dare to complain it until the movement began. Everything comes from a small, tiny thing. This thing can be idea, event, and so on. For example, it was one event Boston Tea Party that Americans made their minds to fight for independence. Furthermore, it was a Stamp Tax which Britain imposed taxes on every product they are selling in America that led American colonists to make a famous phrase “No Taxation without Representation.” A sequence of such events led the freedom in this country. When the small thing is ignored or not cared, then our next step forward better society would take so long.