裸になったは何が悪い？

The past week has seen much discussion of the SMAP "cavort" across the Japanese media, who are equally as rabid, and perhaps more condemning, than the media in England.  If you click the link above you can read all about it.  I personally find it highly amusing that people clutch their metaphorical pearls about a drunk guy getting naked by himself in a park at 3am.  As the article itself states, his behaviour is hardly outlandish in comparison to pretty much any other pop star.  What I would like to see is the Japanese communications minister denouncing the men who go home drunk and abuse thier wives as "bastards", but I'm pretty certain he'd classify that as unworthy of his attention. 

Anyway, I've been attempting to engage my students on this subject, and actually managed to get a good discussion going on it last night.  Except that when I challenged them upon any of the stuff they had pretty much repeated verbatim from the press, I was met with silence and incomprehension.  This has happened before.  Another student was talking about how the North Korean media was biased against Japan because he had seen a documentary about in on NHK.  When I asked him if NHK was biased against North Korea he replied:  " But it's NHK", as though that alone would be enough to gaurantee their impartiality.  I'm quite sure that you are well aware of the danger of believing what you see and hear from the media, so I need not go on.  It just got me thinking about how ready people are to believe what they are told.  Particularly interesting on Japanese news shows is the incidental music playing in clips to help the viewer determine who the bad guy is.  Normally it's some kind of sinister synth music.

Anyway, I'm rambling. 

Other than that little highlight, I've spent the past week and half moping.  I've found that being on my own creates the tendency to brood on things and make myself angry, so I've been seeking out company.  Being at work keeps my brain busy, and allows for almost constant company, but it's when I get home at night and wake up in the morning that I feel pretty miserable.  Anyway, there's nothing to be done about it, so I'll just have to put up with it.

I got some photos back from my holiday.  The photo lab had a fit with my slide film, so much so that they put in a little note telling me about problems with fogging, of which I was already aware.  The sponge cushions inside my camera somehow came loose and got stuck to the inside of the film so when I took the film out, all of the pictures got more than a little bit of sunshine thrown down upon them.  Still it looks cool, when you can see pictures at all.  I'm tracking down a scanner so I can put some of these pics up for you all to see.  My slide film, despite a few "accidents" came out with some brilliant images which I hope look as good printed as they do on negative.

Today, BTW, is the first day of the Golden Week holiday.  It's gloriously sunny.  After going to bed at 3am and getting up at 8am, I attempted to remove more dust from my apartment, cleaned everything, and then cleaned myself.  Now everything is done, including a nice dose of yoga, I'm at a loss for what to do with myself.

And finally, I became a aunt this week after my sister gave birth to Louis George Lovelock who, despite his newborn- alien- like countenance, is pretty damn cute:

I've been showing him to everyone, which has resulted in many a  high-pitched sqeal of "かわいいいいいいい！”  Everyone calls him "Louis-kun". "Kun", if you don't know, is added on to boy's names as a term of endearment. 

As for the kanji at the top of this entry, and as Louis might say himself:  "What's wrong with being naked?"