Kenzaburo Oe, RIP “Kurt Vonnegut once said he was an agnostic who respects Jesus Christ. I am an anarchist who loves democracy.”

"The Brooklyn DA’s office said Thursday that detectives, prosecutors & the original trial’s judge knew from the outset that the photo in the array wasn’t actually of the man they wanted to arrest, but they proceeded anyway." So - what price will they pay?

Easy to forget (or never have really thought about) the fact that thw I in FDIC is for “insurance”- banks pay in to it and when it invokes “systemic” failure it can pay out without reaching into tax payers’ pockets.

Oe’s memories of WWII were those of a terrified, disillusioned schoolboy. His teachers would ask the students what they would do if the emperor commanded them to commit suicide. They had to answer, “I would die, sir. I would cut open my belly and die.”

then again, wasn’t Dole the only former Republican nominee to attend the 2016 Republican Convention where Trump was nominated

Oe lambasted Japanese troops for having pressed civilians into committing mass suicide [to avoid capture by US forces]… An ageing veteran of the battle sued him, loudly supported by ultra-nationalists. But Mr Oe won because he was telling the truth

“The most valuable thing in war is combat experience,” said a Ukrainian battalion commander… “And there are only a few soldiers with combat experience. Unfortunately, they are all already dead or wounded.”

Washington Post headline pretty existential

wild to think about the Indian Ocean coming to landlocked countries—but this article wrongly counts DRCongo as landlocked. Much of eastern DRC feels that way in absence of interior infrastructure connecting to the Atlantic coast, but that’s another story.