Paper Moon

Follow-up to this:

The Foreign Ministry of Japan has formally apologized (Japanese link).

Anime News Network does an English write-up that includes the phrase "Muslims' feelings that were hurt by images deemed inappropriate."

Muslim's feelings that were hurt. Wow. Just wow. Could that phrasing be any more dismissive and juvenile?

Meanwhile, the previously quite progressive and open-minded denizens of the ANN forums smear xenophobic, anti-Muslim, and outright bigoted fecal matter all over the board and call it a "discussion." I read the thread, my jaw dropped, and I am never going to look at certain posters the same way again.

Nothing like Islam to bring all of the closeted bigots out in all of their arm-flailing, mouth-frothing glory. Farewell, ANN discussion boards. I hardly knew ye.

Edited to add: And this just showed up in my blog reader. How timely.

Edit the second: In the interest of fairness, a link to Jeffkun's post.

The Hathor Legacy has just completed a fantastic series of posts about Stephen King's Dolores Claiborne.

Also, WTF, I had no idea that Kigankai was "based" in Nagano City. Hmm, shows what I know. And "just north of Tokyo" is more like a five-hour drive even going at 110 km/h the whole way (*cough*). And yes, I know that 400 police officers was overkill. But this is Nagano-ken, and our police officers have nothing to do. It's not unusual for five or six squad cars to show up even when there's a minor traffic accident, because really, they have NOTHING better to do. I wish I could feel angry about 400 police officers raiding an entirely female group centered around fluffy-sounding concepts like "healing medicine," but really, Kigankai is just about as benevolent as Scientology. Which is to say, NOT. And I hate to pass judgement before I've heard all of the facts, but Okuno's death sounds awfully similar to the death of Lisa McPherson. Ugh.

And now, for some good news. And this is some REALLY good news.

More linkspam! Yeah, some of this is old, but I've been out of the loop for a good two weeks, so nyah. So here we go.

Proof that Oh My Goddess! volume 25 was actually written by Chris Claremont.

If Shakespeare had an online fandom in the sixteenth century...

A metaphor that is so universally useful that it's scary.

This made me cheer. For Fox News. Yes, I actually cheered for Fox News.

And in the "How to Not Be Kenneth Eng" files: An excellent post about writing CoC.

Memoir Week at Slate. Really great stuff, but it all just confirms my conviction that I am never, ever, ever going to write a memoir. About anything. (Er, that other blog about my real life doesn't count because I say that it doesn't.)

Last bit of writing-related spammage: Despite its flaws, I really do like this post by Keith DeCandido about profic versus fanfic. For those of you not following metafandom, the post has inspired a lot of reaction, some of it very smart and well-written and thoughtprovoking, some of it extremely wanky. And a lot of strawmen. But what really made me LOL was the "Soul of a Writer" BS that kept popping up in the comments on Keith's post. Because apparently, if you're paid to write fiction you're a hack, but people who write it for free do it because we have the TRUE ARTISTIC SOULS of writers!!1!11! Um, memo to fandom select idiots in fandom: Isn't this exactly the type of language that we usually mock Lee Goldberg for? You're not doing anyone favors by arguing that amateur fiction is always an act of pure, inspired, deeply arteesteec passion, whereas writing that you actually get paid for is just a job that you do to put bread on the table. Um. You do realize that DaVinci and Shakespeare got paid for their work, right?

And finally, here is a piece of news about Anna Nicole Smith's surviving family that actually brings hope to my heart.

Meanwhile, this is what I have to deal with on a daily basis: Japanese customs that Japanese people think are most difficult for foreigners to understand. Look at the winner. Go ahead, look. Look at the by-far-and-away clear winner, I should say. How difficult, exactly, is it to explain to foreigners "Well, we give gifts to people at the end of the year"? (*headdesk*) Although the cynical part of me is suprised that "chopsticks" didn't end up on the list. The cynical part of me is NOT surprised, however, to see "Not wearing shoes inside houses" in the top ten. A couple of Japanese people that I've talked to about this seriously believe that Japan is the only country in the world that does this.

Today I totally heard background music from Tsubasa Chronicle being used on a television news program.

To put this in context: The news program was one of those human interest stories about a woman who got a blood infection from her dead toenail and ended up having to get her leg amputated at the knee.

As I actually have a dead toenail on my foot right now, I found this program slightly disconcerting, use of recognizable anime music or not.

Oh Japanese television, please never change.

PS, for those of you watching Code Geass: Most hilariously awful love confession since Star Wars Episode II? I think a solid case could be made.