Hi your Interview articles are all due tomorrow. That's a reminder. I have a number of things to discuss in class and would like you to read the following articles and think about what they mean:
BIOTECH CRITIC DENIED TENURE AT UC BERKELEY
http://spinwatch.server101.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=312
Dr. Ignacio Chapela, whose research revealed contamination of native
Mexican corn with genetically engineered DNA, taught his last class
at University of California, Berkeley. Chapela was denied tenure at
Berkeley, despite "overwhelming support from his own department and
from his academic peers," GM Watch founder Jonathan Matthews
writes. Chapela had also been a critic of a $25 million research
deal between UC Berkeley and the Swiss biotechnology company
Novartis (now Syngenta). Chapela supporters believe he is being
retaliated against for his criticism of the biotech industry.
SpinWatch's Andy Rowell and Matthews exposed how Monsanto's Internet
PR company, Bivings Group, was at the very heart of the campaign to
vilify Chapela and his research.
SOURCE: SpinWatch, December 14, 2004
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3119
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
DARK DAY FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISTS
http://www.alternet.org/election04/20742/
"In 1996, journalist Gary Webb wrote a series of articles that
forced a long-overdue investigation of a very dark chapter of recent
U.S. foreign policy â?? the Reagan-Bush administrationâ??s
protection of cocaine traffickers who operated under the cover of
the Nicaraguan contra war in the 1980s," Robert Parry of Consortium
News writes. Webb paid a high price for his "Dark Alliance" stories
written for the San Jose Mercury News. He was attacked by
journalistic colleagues and demoted by his paper, causing him to
quit. Despite CIA internal investigations that later validated much
of Webb's reporting, his career never recovered, and on Friday, Dec.
10, Gary Webb, 49, died of an apparent suicide. "Unintentionally,
Webb also exposed the cowardice and unprofessional behavior that had
become the new trademarks of the major U.S. news media by the
mid-1990s," Parry writes. "Foreshadowing the media incompetence that
would fail to challenge George W. Bushâ??s case for war with Iraq
five years later, the major news organizations effectively hid the
CIAâ??s confession from the American people."
SOURCE: Alternet, December 14, 2004
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3117
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MILITARY IS THE MESSAGE
http://nytimes.com/2004/12/13/politics/13info.html
Should "deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to
confuse an adversary" be adopted "for covert propaganda campaigns
aimed at neutral and even allied nations"? Last year, Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld accelerated "a plan to advance the goal of
information operations as a core military competency." Pentagon
spokesperson Lawrence DiRita said, "Where the enemy is clearly using
the media to help manage perceptions of the general public, our job
is not perception management but to counter the enemy's perception
management." Critics warn that the distinction between supposedly
truthful public affairs and psychological operations will be lost,
that "misleading information and falsehoods" intended for foreign
audiences "could easily be repeated by American news outlets," and
that "such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's
credibility."
SOURCE: New York Times, December 13, 2004
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3114
======================================================
SNEAKY PEET'S
http://www.cmomagazine.com/read/120104/under-the-radar.html
"Four years ago, Tom Duganâ??s company did some work for Peetâ??s
Coffee & Tea by covertly plugging a Peetâ??s promotion online,"
writes Deborah Branscum. "Heâ??d love to share the names of more
recent clients, but none of them, he says, want to speak on the
record." Stealth marketing is growing both online and offline to
promote products ranging from martinis to cell phones to TV
programs. According to Shawn Prez of the marketing agency Power
Moves, stealth techniques are especially effective with teens. "By
the time the message gets out, they donâ??t even know theyâ??ve been
hit; they donâ??t know that theyâ??ve been marketed to. All they
know is that their interest has been piqued."
SOURCE: CMO Magazine, December 2004
For more information or to comment on this story, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/node/3110

Hi just a reminder that your first copy of your completed interview article or tape should be turned in for next class. Could you also bring it on a floppy disk or a CD. Thanks. See you next Thur.

Confusions with Headlines:
WHO SAYS BIRD FLU PANDEMIC COULD KILL MILLIONS
The regional director of the World Health Organization's Western Pacific
Regional Office says the bird flu virus is proving far more lethal than
the SARS virus that struck Asia and other parts of the world last year.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/11/29/birdflu041129.html

6. CITIZEN JOURNALIST IN THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA?
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/stopthepresses_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000724065
"'Citizen journalism' is one of those buzzwords that's hot in our
industry right now," writes Steve Outing. "While some journalists
might hope it's a fad that will go away soon, I don't think that's
likely. Inviting the public to participate in online news
publishing by contributing articles and photographs is likely here
to stay -- indeed, it might allow journalism institutions to renew
some of the public trust they've lost in recent years by inviting
the public in instead of keeping them outside the ropes."
SOURCE: Editor and Publisher, November 19, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1100840404

Here is a review of two movies about two very bad journalists who I mentioned to you before. Both showed a failure of morality and ethics that betrays a trust that their fellow works and readers had in them.
Getting tangled up in the deadline

By KAORI SHOJI



Shattered Glass

Rating: * * * * (out of 5)
Japanese title: News no Tensai
Director: Billy Ray
Running time: 94 minutes
Language: English
Opens Nov. 27

[See Japan Times movie listings]

Truth may be more interesting than fiction, but try telling that to a reporter on deadline, while he or she sits in front of a blank screen in the wee hours. At such times, fiction (or fabrication) seems much more glamorous, entertaining and, most importantly, easier to write. "Shattered Glass" is based on the true story of a reporter who succumbed to that temptation, and his subsequent fall from grace.

Hayden Christensen in "Shattered Glass"


In 1998 Stephen Glass was a hotshot staff writer for The New Republic, who also had bylines in magazines like Rolling Stone and Harpers -- that is, until it was discovered that he had cooked up more than half his articles and he was subsequently run out of journalism.

At the time of the movie's release in the United States last year, Glass was awaiting the results of his bar exam in New York, and it's a mystery whether the irony of his newly chosen profession ever struck him. How was he going to take "I swear to tell the truth and nothing but . . . " day after day? Since then, he's written an autobiographical novel called "The Fabulist" (for which he got a handsome advance) and made an appearance on "60 Minutes." A similar resurrection is in process for Jayson Blair, a star reporter for The New York Times who also fabricated dozens of articles and was exposed in 2003. The definition for the moniker "great pretender" should include something about journalism.

Written and directed by Billy Ray, "Shattered Glass" is high on dramatic density and revealing psycho-dialogue, delving not just into the characters of Stephen Glass (Hayden Christensen) and his office nemesis Chuck Lane (Peter Saarsgard), but everyone on TNR's writing staff. Witness, for example, how the underconfident and slightly overweight Amy Brand (Melanie Lynskey) is always moaning about how she can't write or get any good stories, casting a brief, tortured glance at Stephen as if to say: "What would you know about my suffering?"

Probably nothing. Stephen is everyone's talented darling, who pads around the office in his socks (as if the place were a college dorm), pays lavish compliments to every female on the premises ("That lipstick is so you!"), and is adept at appearing conscientious, asking "Are you mad at me?" to anyone who gives him less than a beaming smile.

Chuck Lane, on the other hand, is serious and laconic, too proud to stoop to self-promotion tactics. He seems to be the only one immune to the charms of Stephen. So when TNR's beloved editor Michael Kelly (who later died in Iraq -- in the movie, he's portrayed by Hank Azaria) is ousted by the magazine's eccentric publisher and replaced by Chuck, Stephen is even more unsettled than the others. Here's one person on whom his wide-eyed "Are you mad at me?" has little effect.

Chuck, however, turns out to be a fair and even-handed boss, who never lets personal issues override his professional concerns. When he's alerted to Stephen's fabrications, he painstakingly investigates and researches the stories at every step and withholds judgment until hard evidence is staring him in the face. It is only then that he unleashes some well-deserved fury at Stephen, who just seems to melt into a puddle of sweat and humiliation.

For all that, "Shattered Glass" is not an indictment of Glass; rather, it scrutinizes the ecosystem of a magazine office -- and remember this isn't just any magazine but The New Republic, "the in-flight magazine of Air Force One." The intense interoffice competition and the pressure to come up with better, sexier stories every week (by way of salutations, everyone is perpetually asking one another what story they're chasing) turns editorial meetings into veritable auditions: The reporter with the zippiest topic takes center stage.

Of course, this was likely to be Stephen, who struts his stuff with the timing and bravado of a stand-up comedian. And when his colleagues sigh in awe and envy ("I don't know how he does it"), he follows it up with an act of mock humility: "Nah, it's nothing, I stumbled on it by accident."

We see Stephen also as a byproduct of our times, when the approach to fame and success shifted from, say, hard work and industriousness to a "whatever it takes" mentality. The most interesting aspect of Stephen's character is that he seems to think his greatest mistake was in getting caught -- there was very little moral compunction involved, and right up to the end he shows signs of hoping that others will see his point of view: that it was ultimately OK to do what he did, that success was its own justification.

The Japan Times: Nov. 24, 2004
(C) All rights reserved

Here is the interview help notes. See you on Thursday. Remember you should have your interview subject selected.
Can’t think of what to say next when your source stops talking?

Don’t worry. Here are a few strategies that may help you.

Responsive: “Oh Really, please tell me more. How interesting.” Use animated facial expressions.

Mirroring: Repeating pertinent pieces of information tha the source has just stated. The idea is to repeat the words of your source while taking the time to collect your thoughts and to think and frame your next question.

Silence: If the interviewer pauses the interviewee is likely to take note that he or she is still supposed to say something. Often this is how more details are gotten from a source. Essentially, you are pretending that you are still listening to what the source has to say in hopes that the source will continue to speak.

Developing: “Tell me more about this issue.” Asking for more information without specifying exactly what you are looking for. Using open-ended questions, questions that beg the interviewee to explain further his or her points with as many details as necessary.

Clarifying: Restating again what was just said but with a phrase such as, “Let me get that straight you just said that… It also helps you form in mind and memory a quotation that can be used later.


Active Listening Means:

Thinking on Your Feet


1. Listening for differences between what your source says and what you believe.

2. Listening for differences between what your source says and what other sources have said. Asking follow-up questions when you notice these differences.

3. Being willing to weight the sources’s answers based on what you know is true and what you don’t know is true. Listening again for clues until yo know the answer.

4. Listening for major points: listen very carefully to the speech following certain phrases: “I think; My point is; the idea is; the goal is…”

5. Listening for supporting evidence: Once the interviewer makes a point, listen carefully to the details he or she provides to explain the reasons for having that viewpoint.

6. Listening to what has not been spoken. Observe emotions and facial expressions for clues. Many Americans , for example, use sarcasm and expressions to reveal other messages. Listen for them. Often voice sound will change as well.

7. Asking a source to repeat or explain a point you don’t understand.

8. Asking a source to slow down his speech if he or she is talking too fast. If you are using a recording device it is better to let them continue talking rather then interrupt the flow.

9. Being and looking attentive: look like you care about what your source is saying.

10. A sneaky one is to misquote to your source and have them clarify what they have to say in different words or in more detail.

Well government bureaucracies seem to be the same everywhere. Busy making everyone else busy on your yen and producing a product that no one is interested in. What do you think?

Monday, November 22, 2004

JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES

Firms think little of government statistics, questionnaire shows

By YOSHIO NAKAMURA

Among government statistics detailing the condition of the Japanese economy, the Cabinet Office's quarterly estimates of gross domestic product, the Finance Ministry's report on corporate activity, and the "tankan" survey by the Bank of Japan are widely known. But there are many other economic statistics that are compiled by government ministries and agencies, and not all of them are useful.

Due to the sectoral division of the bureaucracy, a number of examples exist whereby very similar types of economic data are being compiled by different government bodies.

Many of these statistics concern corporate activities, and the companies that cooperate with the government surveys bear the heavy burden of responding to each inquiry from the bureaucracy. This has become an increasingly serious problem for companies that have streamlined operations in recent years, and the Keidanren is making efforts to minimize their burden.

At the same time, statistics compiled with cooperation from the corporate sector are public goods that should be used as widely as possible. However, a recent survey of member companies conducted by Keidanren shows that even major firms -- which are supposed to be sensitive to macroeconomic trends -- do not pay attention to many of the statistics.

In the questionnaire, Keidanren selected 72 government statistics that serve as short-term economic indicators and asked its members how much they use them in their operations and what they think of such data.

Each set of statistics was given a grade from 0 to 100, and any that were used by all the surveyed firms received a full 100 points. Those that were ignored by all of the firms got 0 points. As it turns out, many of the statistics received a score of between 15 and 35 points, while the average score was 38.8 points.

Many of the surveyed firms also expressed discontent with the statistics they use. Some companies complained that: a) they doubt whether the data compiled are precise enough; b) that the explanations by the bureaucracy on how to interpret the data are insufficient; and c) that the data should be released more quickly.

Many of the firms who said they do not use certain statistics said either that they were not interested in the government's data in those fields or that they did not even know such data were being compiled.

Statistics that draw no attention from relevant parties are of no use, and we must say they are being compiled merely for the satisfaction of the bureaucrats who make them. Also, lack of public knowledge about these statistics indicates that the officials who compile them are not making sufficient effort to publicize the data. I hope the government bureaucracy will take such opinions seriously.

What is important is to abolish economic statistics that are not needed, and to shift budget and personnel for researching data that are. Specifically, greater efforts are needed to improve government data on individuals and households, which are often criticized as less precise.

The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy has set up an expert committee to scrap and build government statistics, and I hope the panel will provide good direction on the issue.

Yoshio Nakamura is a senior managing director of the Japan Business Federation (Nippon Keidanren).

The Japan Times: Nov. 22, 2004

Writing, writing, wrighting where do we find stories. Were do we find good stories. Who decides what is an important story and what is a good story. Well in our class I decide. Just as an editor would decide in the real world. If you can convince me that your story or world view is important to the public good then you win. I like this. What is happening with this same problem in Japan? We know about Minimata which is quicksilver and water and the rumour is that 50% of the solid particles air pollution in Tokyo is from China (Is this true?) How can you check? What is the source of this information. Do some research and write me a story conected to the above and the below and you will earn 50 extra points, and some of you really need them. See you next week. Clark

GIVIN' THE SMOG A BONE
Huge new study shows that smog does, in fact, kill

The largest study ever conducted on the health effects of smog, or more particularly, ground-level ozone, concludes that, well, smog kills people. Published in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the study found that a ground-level ozone rise over a week of roughly 10 parts per billion (ppb) increases a given person's chances of croaking by roughly 0.52 percent -- higher for cardiovascular and respiratory deaths, and higher yet for senior citizens. This means, says study lead author Michelle Bell, "if ozone levels were decreased by 10 ppb, about 4,000 lives would be saved each year in [the 95 urban centers studied]." The U.S. EPA is currently reviewing its standards for maximum daily ozone levels, which were tightened in 1997 to 80 ppb over an eight-hour period. The study could lead to a further tightening of that restriction, as it shows that mortality rates rise even when ozone peaks below legal levels.

straight to the source: New Scientist, Maggie McKee, 16 Nov 2004


straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Marla Cone, 17 Nov 2004


straight to the source: MSNBC.com, 16 Nov 2004

Being Chipped:
Just Another Chip in the (Privacy) Wall
Went to the supermarket, but left the wallet at home? No problem! Flex your bicep and the smiling cashier passes a scanner over your arm. Voila—identification chip recognized; problem solved. Passed out during a sunrise jaunt on the top of Haleakala Mountain in Maui? Fret not! The hospital down below is on the case. Arm please. Scanner! The readout on the computer is fine--you just have a little altitude sickness. Key to the safety deposit box weighing you down? Chuck it! Next time you’re in the bank, give the teller a friendly wave—and watch the doors open to greet you! After decades as the stuff of sci-fi novels and anime movies, the age of chipped humans is finally a reality. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of an implantable ID tag that can store everything from medical records to financial information. The technology could be a gold mine for the company that makes the chips--but a civil liberties nightmare.
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/04/11/wo_kushner111804.asp?trk=nl

Update on Japanese government censorship. Perhaps there is hope for the country after all.
Hacker's talk on Juki Net flaws banned?

A citizens' group charged Wednesday that the government pressured organizers of an international security conference to cancel a lecture by an American computer expert who performed a security audit on the government's online resident registry network on behalf of Nagano Prefecture last year.

The group supporting lawsuits to suspend operation of the network, known as Juki Net, said in a statement, "The Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry cowardly suppressed free speech in an attempt to block a move to show Juki Net is full of flaws."

The group is led by Chuo University professor emeritus Narihiko Ito, Sophia University media law professor Yasuhiko Tajima and five other university professors.

The American computer security expert, Ejovi Nuwere, whose autobiography is titled "Hacker Cracker," conducted the experiment on Juki Net for Nagano Prefecture and said the prefectural government can alter private information in the system.

He was scheduled to speak at a seminar on information security held Nov. 12 in Tokyo Friday that drew around 160 security experts from eight countries.

Nuwere said on his Web site, however, that the Japanese government prevented him from speaking at the PacSec security conference.

The ministry "prevented my talk by threatening the Japanese . . . who currently are seeking contracts from the government," he said.

When asked about the accusations, one ministry official said: "We have requested that (the engineer) refrain from exposing specific vulnerable points of the system. We have not heard anything about the cancellation from the organizers (of the seminar)."

Under the network, which was launched in August 2002, each resident is identified by an individual code and personal details, including name, address, date of birth and sex, that are registered by municipalities, via prefectural governments, in a database run by the central government.

The Japan Times: Nov. 18, 2004
(C) All rights reserved

Censorship is government control of a free press it is an easy equation to make censorship = loss of freedom.
. IRAQ: CENSORSHIP FOR THE GREATER GOOD
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-media12nov12,1,1174231.story
Iraq's Media High Commission, established by the United States "to
encourage investment in the media and deter state meddling," warned
media organizations in Iraq to "set aside space in your news
coverage" of the Fallujah assault "to make the position of the
Iraqi government, which expresses the aspirations of most Iraqis,
clear." The statement continued, "We hope you comply ... otherwise
we regret we will be forced to take all the legal measures to
guarantee higher national interests." The commission also urged
journalists to "differentiate between the innocent Fallouja
residents who are not targeted by military operations and terrorist
groups that infiltrated the city."
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, November 12, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/November_2004.html#1100235602
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1100235602

Now this seems to be heavy handed censorship by the Japanese government. This is from The MIT Technology Review Bog site:> Security and Defense
Japanese Government Bans Speech by Security Critic 
posted by Simson Garfinkel @ 11/13/2004 11:19:09 AM

JUKI net is Japan’s national ID system. Ejovi Nuwere performed a security audit of the system for Nagano Prefecture one year ago. Recently Ejovi was invited to speak at the PacSec security conference about JUKI net. Soumushou, the Japanese government agency that maintains JUKI net, prevented his talk by threatening the Japanese event sponsors who currently are seeking contracts from the government.

I sure wish that this really were the general Japanese perspective. Nice editorial piece. Clark
JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES

The importance of questioning fearlessly and answering honestly

By NORIKO HAMA

"Any damn fool can answer a question. The important thing is to ask one."

These truly insightful words were spoken by Joan Robinson, easily one of the most celebrated economists of the 20th century. Her words of wisdom are many and varied. The very title of one of her pieces of writing in 1932 states that: "Economics is a Serious Subject: The apologies of an economist to the mathematician, the scientist and the plain man." Anyone with the perceptiveness and courage to write something like this is bound to be a questioner par excellence.

Such a person however, is clearly not welcome in the eyes of politicians, policymakers, bureaucrats, CEOs and other people in positions of responsibility. This is certainly the impression one gets as one watches those responsible people in action in the media and elsewhere. That impression, alas, is most acutely felt when those people happen to be Japanese.

The question-averseness was painfully in evidence as the first news of the Niigata earthquakes hit the nation last month. The very body language of the officials supposedly in charge conveyed, as no words can, their terror of questions, their paralysis in the face of them, and their deeply rooted suspicion of ulterior motives.

To be sure, Japanese officialdom does not have the monopoly on the general dislike of questions. Indeed, had Joan Robinson been present today to watch the winner of the most recent U.S. presidential election, she would surely feel compelled to admit to erring in parts of her sagacious statement. At the very least, she would feel the need to qualify it and say something like: "Any damn fool can answer a question, provided he is carrying a strange oblong object on his back, strategically concealed under his jacket."

That said, the feeling still remains that Japan is the place where questions tend to be most widely abhorred. Those in the position to answer them seem to regard questions as accusations, if not inquisitions. Questions make them feel threatened. Or humiliated. Or both. That psyche makes them paranoid. They become totally defensive. They try as best they can to get away with saying nothing. Alternatively, they become totally vicious and vindictive. If they have a nimble tongue, they fight back with facetious cynicism, as is the case with the guy with the top job in Japanese government at present.

Such attitudes are off-putting for the questioner, too. The more feebleminded will tend to forego asking the question, for fear of what revenge may be in store.

None of this, of course, is at all helpful. In times of crisis, we all just want to know what is going on. Nobody is accusing anybody of anything. Nobody wants to hear excuses. Nobody is trying to make people say things that they do not know. As yet another high-ranking U.S. official once famously observed, the known unknowns can be very significant. Not to say the unknown unknowns, of course. Here, clearly, is somebody who does not need the aid of strange objects concealed about his person to tackle tricky questions.

The supreme question-dodger is somebody who ignores the question and chooses to answer an unasked question of his own making. That way, any damn fool can, unquestionably, always answer a question. But that brings us no nearer to the truth under any circumstances. When lives are at stake, which is unfortunately and increasingly the case in this time of typhoons, earthquakes, terrorist attacks and hostage-taking, what we need more of are good questions and honest answers.

May Heaven send us more questioners of Joan Robinson's caliber. And people with the courage to respond to them.

Noriko Hama is an economist and a professor at Doshisha University School of Management.

The Japan Times: Nov. 15, 2004

Here is someone that doubted a news article and did a little research. That's what we all should do with stories that just don't sound right:


Flarey Bird

On birds bursting into flames
By Umbra Fisk
11 Nov 2004


Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

I saw the following on the CNN website. Can this possibly be true? I see birds hit, land on, peck at, and poop on power lines all the time, but I've never seen one burst into flames.


LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Weather forecasters predicted little relief Monday for firefighters battling wildfires that have scorched thousands of acres and forced hundreds of people to leave their homes in California.

Firefighters tackling the 5,700-acre Foothill blaze, about 25 miles north of Los Angeles, said they hoped to contain it in a canyon Monday afternoon.

The wildfire began when a red-tailed hawk hit power lines and caught fire, said Jim Dellamonica, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The bird fell to the ground, setting plants on fire, he said.
Karen
Murfreesboro, Tenn.



Hot off the wire?
Dearest Karen,

Yes, and it's of high concern to avian advocates. If a bird on a wire brushes against a second wire or the ground, end of bird. Birds can short electrical systems, keel over dead, or burst into flames.

To understand electrical flow, imagine for a moment the European settlement of the Western United States. Masses of electrons seek new lands where fewer electrons dwell, and they seek the path of least resistance. Pioneer electrons will choose to ride through an open valley rather than scale a sheer cliff; hence electrons encountering two sparrow feet on their copper wire will choose the wire as the path of least resistance. No benefit to be gained by going up and through bird when metal is available.

If, however, a larger bird should provide a bridge over the chasm between two wires, the eager electron explorers ride right across, sensing open lands on the far side. In other words, electricity, seeing a chance to complete a new circuit, will use the bird as a conductor. That's bad news for the bird, as you might imagine. The voltage in electric high wires is high enough to cook (and, yes, possibly ignite) a bird.

Apparently, fire-starting is most frequent with larger raptors whose wingspans are big enough to bridge wire gaps and who are likely to live in arid fire-prone regions. Bird advocates work to adapt and insulate wires and poles, but it's slow going. Poor birds. As if human settlement hadn't made their lives hard enough already.

Flightily,
Umbra

What is the similarity between these two news items?

State urged to pare, eventually end yen loans to aid-donor China
An Upper House report says Japan should reduce its yen loans to China with an eye to abolishing them because such official developmental assistance is no longer needed.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041111a2.htm

---

Five-day-week schools get shorter summer break
To make up for classroom hours lost since the introduction of a five-day school week, students at the 24 junior high schools in Tokyo's Katsushika Ward will lose one week from
their summer vacation beginning next year.
[MORE] ->
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20041111a3.htm

What is wrong with the following 'news' report? The BBC has a very good reputation for good reporting but the following item is a shameful joke, Why?

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Last Updated: Saturday, 6 November, 2004, 02:54 GMT

E-mail this to a friend
Printable version

Massive haul of Colombia cocaine



By Jeremy McDermott
BBC Colombia corrrespondent




Colombia has fought a long war against cocaine
The US authorities have just unloaded 37 tonnes of Colombian cocaine seized at sea over the last two months.

The hauls represent the largest quantities of drugs ever captured and are worth over $2bn.

It is the greatest run of success in recent times for the US Coast Guard, which worked with other US agencies and the Colombian authorities.

If the drugs hadn't been intercepted, the proceeds would have fuelled Colombia's 40-year civil conflict.

The US Coast Guard, working with the US Drug Enforcement Administration and Colombian authorities, arrested 31Colombians during the operation.

The latest seizures bring the total of drugs captured over the year to a 110 tonnes.

The sheer bulk of the seized narcotics was astounding, piled up on wooden pallets chest-high.

The seizures also account for a sizeable chunk of Colombia's annual drug production, put at around 400 tonnes - almost 10%.

The Colombian cocaine trade is now controlled by Marxist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and the shattered remnants of the great drug cartels.

The proceeds from drugs mean that the Colombian rebels are the richest in the world.

We talked about slant before. However this is heavy slant which has another name 'fiction'.
6. EXPERTS MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR NEWSPAPER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/weekinreview/31bott.html
New York Times ombudsman Daniel Okrent has critiqued the practice
by his newspaper and others of relying on information from "expert
analysts" without informing readers that many of the experts
represent the interests of their financial sponsors. "Bad reporters
find experts by calling up university press relations officials or
brokerage research departments and saying, in effect, 'Gimme an
expert,'" he writes. "Really bad reporters, paradoxically, work a
little harder: knowing the conclusions they want to arrive at, they
seek out experts who just happen to agree with them. Give me a
position, and I'll find you an expert to support it - and not just
an expert but one with an institutional affiliation sounding so
dignified it could make a nobleman genuflect. Give me a Center for
the Study of ..., an Institute for the Advancement of ..., or an
American Council on ..., and often as not I'll give you an
organization whose special interests are as sharply defined as its
name is not." Worse yet, some reporters seem to simply invent
anonymous experts as a way of inserting their own viewpoint into
the story. For example, Okrent took a look at the the October 26
issue of the Times noticed that 17 articles in that issue "cited
the wisdom of 'experts,' 'industry experts,' 'military budget
experts' and the like, but failed to name - or even describe - a
single one."
SOURCE: New York Times, October 31, 2004
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1099195200

'Simpler' here is bad as well as 'elegant pontificate', so what does this mean?
"In journalism it is simpler to sound off than it is to find out. It is
more elegant to pontificate than it is to sweat." (Harold Evans)

Read the following and be ready to tell me what it means for next class.
DEAD CODE, IN ALL RESPECTS
In Dayton, Ohio, at a cemetery called Blocker Hill, there's a group of
tiny graves in which programmers at LexisNexis bury their dead programs.
Doug Perseghetti says: "The code wakes us up in the middle of the night.
Some things die gracefully and other things we've had to kill." In 1992,
dozens of mourners followed pallbearers who carried a wooden coffin
containing a printout of the former Database Update Control System, while a
trumpeter played "Taps" after eulogies were spoken and chocolate cake
served. Requiescat in pace. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 3 Nov 2004)

Lo has at least two meanings in English. The first in the Head Line means behold and is biblical the second lo is short for hello.


'Lo' and behold! The internet turns 35
Last Updated Fri, 29 Oct 2004 21:47:09 EDT

LOS ANGELES - Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles are celebrating the anniversary of the first message sent over what would eventually become the internet.

Leonard Kleinrock


In the 1960s, computer scientists at American universities and in the U.S. Department of Defence devised a plan for a network of computers that could all communicate with each other.

After the hardware was put in place, researchers at UCLA attempted on Oct. 29, 1969, to log in to a computer at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, Calif.

In an interview on CBC Newsworld, Prof. Leonard Kleinrock admitted researchers weren't exactly prepared for the history-making moment.

"[The message] wasn't anything like 'What hath God wrought?' or 'Come here, Watson. I want you,' or 'a giant leap for mankind.' We weren't that smart," he said, referring to the first messages over telegraph, over telephone and from the surface of the moon.

In order to log in to the two-computer network, which was then called ARPANET, programmers at UCLA were to type in "log," and Stanford would reply "in."

The UCLA programmers only got as far as "lo" before the Stanford machine crashed.

But Kleinrock put a tongue-in-cheek positive spin on the less-than-momentous message.

"The first message on the internet was 'Lo!' What better prophetic message could you ask for?" he said.

The two computers wouldn't successfully link up until Nov. 21, 1969, but those two letters are considered the first message transmitted over the fledgling network.

ARPANET would grow to include more computers at universities and military bases across the U.S., before expanding into today's internet, which connects millions of computers worldwide.

Kleinrock said he predicted in 1969 that the small network would eventually expand across the globe, making a vast amount of information accessible at any time from anywhere in the world.

"The part I missed... was that my 97-year-old mother would be on the internet today," he said.

Written by CBC News Online staff

Look this over carefully, it can help you. Clark
-- Online Editing Tutorial

Sonia Jaffe Robbins runs an editing workshop in
the Journalism Department of New York University.
She puts her course materials on line in what
makes a really interesting site if you want to
learn about the finer points of sharpening
your written style.

The site includes lots of downloadable guidance
notes and course materials. 'Banished words',
editing tips and issues, hyphenation, spelling
FAQs, plus lots of juicy links to quizzes and
tests, plus you can take the 'Gullibility Test'
at the Museum of Hoaxes, and you can even check
if people are dead yet or not.

Even if you simply read the course materials, you
will learn a lot about improving your writing skills -
and you should have plenty of fun too.

http://www.nyu.edu/classes/copyXediting/syllabus.html

This is part of the results from a servey on the publics perceptions of Gene Modified Foods. This is the paragraph on the European publics view of the media, which is critical in the same general way that the public is critical of the media. The point being that the media is recongnized as having an agenda too. That is selling more advertising and making a profit. How to do this. Simply sell more papers or get more listeners or viewers. The media has generally tried to do this with spectacle:

"In addition to being subtle interpreters of NGO agendas, people also tend to hold nuanced views of the media's role. Here, critical faculties are also prominent, as is a desire to see improvements. Europeans "...expressed great dissatisfaction with the way in which the media treated these issues. The media were criticized for their 'sensationalist' approach, which focused on scandals and controversies, rather than providing more balanced background information. [...] They also wanted to be told how a particular person had reached a particular position, rather than simply being presented with conclusions and entrenched views. Moreover, focus group participants clearly expressed the desire for information about the societal implications of GMOs, and not only about the technicalities of genetic manipulation" (Marris et al, 2001).

Here is an interesting interview from Powell's book story web site, with a writer Eric Hansen about writting. Clark

 


Eric Hansen

Describe your latest project.
The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer is a collection of off-beat non-fiction stories gleaned from the last thirty years of travelling to the far ends of the earth. Part memoir, part travel lit, but mostly about random meetings with strangers and unexpected experiences that have helped to give my life shape...and meaning. The book has been described as an assortment of memories polished by time. I like the sound of that. The book is the result of digging into my past in an archeological sort of way. Sifting through rubble, and sediment to uncover my past and its meaning (one of the great luxuries of being a writer). In a way these nine stories are what I think of as some of the significant building blocks which have made me the person and the writer that I am today.





The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer: Close Encounters with Strangers
by Eric Hansen


Writers are better liars than other people: true or false?
I think this all depends on a writer's skill at self deception. On the wall of my office I have a favorite quote by John Steinbeck. It reads: "The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty." I agree with this, but there are times when "truth of fact" and "truth of feeling" come into conflict. Good writing often favors truth of feeling. This defines the line between the craft of journalism and the fine art of writing and story telling.

What is your favorite sentence from another writer?
"Life is too short for dress rehersals."
— Robyn Davidson in Tracks

How did the last good book end up in your hands?
Waiting for the Barbarians, by J. M. Coetzee. Recommended by Leyla, the English Lit major/stripper/lap dancer/student of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas/devoted mother/new friend that I write about in Bird Man and the Lap Dancer.

What was the best breakfast of your life?
Well, the worst breakfast, or at least the most challenging one of my life, was a bowl of steaming bee larvae soup, served by a family of nomadic hunters and gatherers deep in the Borneo rainforest. At least the larvae was dead before I put them in my mouth. The taste was similar to scrambled eggs, but I had a problem with the presentation.

One of the best breakfasts was served at Les Deux Magots on Blvd. St Germain in Paris: Early Spring morning... slanting sunlight shining through a sprinkling of rain. Wet cobble stones reflecting the sun light. Fresh orange juice, cafe au lait... and two perfectly toasted and buttered oblong slices of pain Poilane topped with grilled and melted rounds of aged goat cheese. I can still taste it. A perfect way to start the day.

Why do you write?
Writing forces me to go deep within myself, to search for layers of meaning on a daily basis. To create beginnings, middles and ends from chaos. I am probably best known for my travel writing about journeys to far off places, but what I have finally come to realize is that one of the most interesting places on earth is my mind and where it takes me when I let it wander.

Well! You must have an opinion about this? What is it? Does the fool deserve to die by the hands of simpletons? Don't just re-act! Think about this from both sides and tell me what you then think. But please think first.
JAPAN SAYS KODA DECAPITATED
The Japanese government confirmed the headless body found in a Baghdad
field Saturday is that of 24-year-old Japanese tourist Shosei Koda, who
was kidnapped by a group linked to al-Qaeda.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/30/koda_hostage041030.html

. CHEMICAL INDUSTRY HELPS FUND EPA STUDY
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62569-2004Oct25?language=printer
The American Chemistry Council is giving the Environmental
Protection Agency $2 million for a study to explore the impact of
pesticides and household chemicals on young children. The trade
association, which represents nearly 150 chemical and plastics
manufacturers and has a $100 million budget, spent more than $2
million on lobbying in 2003. The EPA says the money will help the
agency conduct "groundbreaking work" on how chemicals are absorbed
by infants and children as old as 3. "Environmental Working Group
President Kenneth A. Cook questioned why an agency with a $572
million research budget needed to accept industry contributions to
conduct scientific research," the Washington Post writes. "This is
a government function; we should be investing government funds to
be absolutely sure it's independent," Cook told the Post.
SOURCE: Washington Post, October 26, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098763202
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098763202
---------------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times, October 23, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098504001
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098504001

10. BEEF: IT'S WHAT'S FOR THE ELECTION?
http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?id=0d055714-3b88-4293-8ad4-618c868aafff
"U.S. and Japanese negotiators struck a deal Saturday to allow
limited imports of U.S. beef into Japan," reports Canadian Press.
Japan imported $1.7 billion of U.S. beef in 2003, but closed its
markets last December, after a Washington state cow was found to
have mad cow disease. The chair of the Canada Beef Export
Federation called the announcement was "old news," saying, "The
Americans are trying to put a new spin on it for their election."
The head of U.S. beef producer Creekstone Farms, which
unsuccessfully petitioned the USDA to do its own mad cow disease
testing, said, "We would still like to test."
SOURCE: Canadian Press, October 23, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1098504000
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1098504000

Please take a look around afreepress.com and we will talk about it next week. Clark

Well recently we have had a few items about environmental pollution. The following is one of the worst such cases ever reported and it now seems to be the one that has affected the most people.
BHOPAL LOWBALL
Bhopal disaster victims seek to quadruple compensation

Victims of the devastating 1984 industrial gas leak in Bhopal, India, have appealed to the country's Supreme Court to quadruple the amount of compensation they will receive. They have long charged that the Indian government has been slow to distribute funds from a $470 million settlement paid by U.S.-based Union Carbide, owner of the plant, to the Indian government in 1989. On Tuesday, a favorable Supreme Court ruling ordered the government to release the money remaining from the settlement, some $330 million, and accepted a sharp rise in the estimated number of victims, from the 105,000 listed in 1989 to 572,000, accounting for new births and previously unreported cases. However, the victims are appealing to quadruple the amount, based on the higher number of cases, though it's unclear where the additional money would come from. At a press conference yesterday, victims pleaded their case and told their tragic stories, like that of 80-year-old Shanti Devi, who lost her husband and his two businesses and has been forced to spend her savings caring for her children and grandchildren. Devi is to receive $2,200 in compensation.

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, Mazhar Ullah, 29 Oct 2004


see also, in Grist: Rashida Bee of Bhopal, India, fights against the company that devastated her community -- by Michelle Nijhuis

Everything is not right not only here but everywhee:Canada slipping on environment: report
Last Updated Tue, 26 Oct 2004 16:47:02 EDT

OTTAWA - Canada's reputation as an environmental leader is slipping because most federal departments aren't paying attention to the impact of their policies, says a report released on Tuesday.

A report released by environment commissioner Johanne Gelinas says that salmon stocks are dwindling, oil is polluting the coasts and air quality is deteriorating – and all the while the government is failing to lead.

"I am concerned at signs that Canada's environmental status and reputation may be slipping," Gelinas said.

Canada's ranking on environmental objectives slipped to 16th place in 2003, from 12th in 2002, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

A cabinet directive issued 14 years ago, requiring all departments to assess the environmental impact of their policies, is not being followed, the report said.

"The overall results of our audit this year suggest that most departments still have not made serious efforts to apply the directive," Gelinas said.

There are no repercussions for senior officials who ignore cabinet directives on the environment, she said.

Gelinas said the tax system could be one of the most effective tools to promote environmentally sound behaviour, but the Finance Department has yet to try to determine how the system impedes or favours sustainable development.

Other problems identified in the report include:
• Three Pacific salmon populations designated as endangered.
• No decline in ground-level ozone, a component of smog known to damage the lungs and heart.
• Incomplete regulations on genetically modified fish.
• Oil pollution from ships in the Atlantic.

On the positive side, the report finds that Canada is meeting its target to reduce ozone-depleting substances.

Written by CBC News Online staff

Hi I know that with Minimata etc. there are some very big problems with chemical pollution in Japan. What chemicals exactly are being monitored and how? Take a look at the following:
CHEERS: WHERE EVERYBOY KNOWS YOUR GAME
Study of chemical impacts on kids raises questions

A study of pesticide and chemical exposures in children being conducted by government researchers is raising some disturbing -- and by that we mean "outright creepy" -- questions. For one thing, $2 million in funding will come from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group with, one might imagine, a vested interest in the results. While the ACC and the U.S. EPA both claim that the source of funding will have no effect on the study, enviros are skeptical of the whole deal. Also troublesome is the fact that children who participate in the two-year study must live in homes likely to be heavily polluted with pesticides (Hispanic migratory farm workers, perhaps?) and their parents must agree to have the home periodically sprayed with pesticides, for which they receive the princely sum of up to $970. So, what are they calling this exercise wherein the chemical industry pays to have poor kids up to three years of age exposed to chemicals and studied? The Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, or CHEERS.

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Juliet Eilperin, 26 Oct 2004


straight to the source: Chemical and Engineering News, Bette Hileman, 18 Oct 2004

Althogh this is all about a T.V. -PR scam this type of operation has been going on ..well.. as long as I have been involved in news reporting. The prewritten story which the hung over reporter rewrites a little or a lot but still tells the PR story rather then looking or finding their own.
VIDEO NEWS RELEASES: THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!
http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/001015.asp
Thomas Lang and Zachary Roth have done some further sleuthing into
the Education Department's video news release (VNR) that featured
fake "reporter" Karen Ryan and promoted the No Child Left Behind
law. "It turns out that the No Child Left Behind VNR, presented as
news, ran more widely than we had thought - it's just that it
didn't always include Karen Ryan," they write. "A number of local
stations ran the VNR as is, and added a local twist by simply
having their own reporter read the script. And in an indication of
just how confident the Department of Education was that news
outlets would fail to adequately scrutinize the content of the VNR,
we've also found that it included sound bites in support of the
tutoring program from two figures whose appearance in the video
might have raised eyebrows had anyone thought to check. ... The
stations that took the time to have their own reporters record the
script of the No Child Left Behind VNR had to have been fully aware
of what they were doing: knowingly deceiving their viewers about
the origins of the story - not to mention committing plagiarism -
by passing off as their own original reporting words actually
written by a PR company hired by the Bush administration."
SOURCE: Campaign Desk, October 13, 2004

. MISTAKES HAPPEN
http://www.regrettheerror.com/
A new weblog, "Regret the Error," is devoted solely to reporting on
newspaper errors

What is this all about?
.........hows like "Crossfire" or "Hardball" provide gladiator-style infotainment as journalists clownishly seek to amuse or rile viewers, not inform them.

OK here are two great things! The first is of course our tour of Asahi Newspaper this coming Monday. The other is a new and wonderful resource for Journalists and researcher offered free by the New York Times:
http://tech.nytimes.com/top/news/technology/cybertimesnavigator/index.html
Check this out! Go through a bunch on the items and familliarize yourself with this resource.
See you Monday.

NO CANADIAN TROOPS TO IRAQ: MARTIN
Prime Minister Paul Martin reaffirmed Ottawa's stance that it will not
commit troops to Iraq, saying Canada should instead play a role where it
can "make a substantial difference."
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/14/martiniraq041014.html

The Canadian Embassy, together with the Embassy of Ireland, will be holding
a Higher Education Fair at the Canadian Embassy on Wednesday, November 3,
2004 from 10:00 to 17:00. The purpose is let students and teachers know
about studying in Canada.

Institutions participating from Canada:

1. The University of British Columbia (Vancouver, B.C.)
2. The University of Toronto (Toronto, Ontario)
3. The University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta)
4. Acadia University (Wolfville, Nova Scotia)
5. The University of Manitoba (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

6. The University of Winnipeg (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
7. Kwantlen University College (Surrey, B.C.)
8. Simon Fraser University (Burnaby, B.C.)
9. Trent University (Peterborough, Ontario)
10. Langara College (Vancouver, B.C.)

11. Red Deer College (Red Deer, Alberta)
12. Nova Scotia Agricultural College (Truro, Nova Scotia)
13. Algoma University College (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
14. McGill University (Montreal, Quebec)
15. The University of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan)

16. Fleming College (Peterborough, Ontario)
17. Saint Mary s University (Halifax, Nova Scotia)
18. Brock University (St. Catherines, Ontario)
19. The University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario)


Canadian Embassy, Public Affairs Section
7-3-38 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-8503
Fax: (03) 5412-6249
Access: Exit #4 Aoyama Itchome station on the Ginza,
Hanzomon or O-edo subway lines
Map:
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ni-ka/site/images/tokyo_map-embassy.jpg

For fair enquiries and pre-registration:
Email: (English or Japanese) e-canada@zas.att.ne.jp
Website: (Japanese) www.canadanet.or.jp/study/univfair.shtml

--

This is an interesting article for many reasons. There is a strong reliance on "some people say" -were some people can say anything, but that does not make it true or even important unless some people listen and think it is. Again a discussion point for the class this week. Clark
This is from todays 'Japan Times' and well done.


Politicians block comic over 'fake' Nanjing Massacre tale

Shueisha Inc. said Wednesday it will halt publication of a "manga" comic featuring the Nanjing Massacre of 1937 in response to complaints by Japanese politicians who claim the slaughter never happened.

The comic series "Kuni ga Moeru" ("The Country is Burning"), authored by popular comic writer Hiroshi Motomiya, is a fictional tale about a bureaucrat in the turbulent times of the early Showa Era (1926-1989).

Publication of the series, which has been carried in Weekly Young Jump magazine since November 2002, will be temporarily suspended from the Oct. 28 edition. Weekly Young Jump is popular among Japanese men.

In the magazine's Sept. 16 and Sept. 22 editions, the comic described Japanese soldiers massacring civilians in Nanjing, China.

Thirty-seven members of local assemblies protested to the publisher on Oct. 5, saying the massacre was presented as if it really happened. They say the story deliberately distorted history by using a photo whose authenticity they claim cannot be confirmed.

According to the assembly members, there is strong evidence that the massacre never happened and that there is no proof that it did.

A Shueisha representative said: "Some people say the photo used for reference in the drawing cannot be authenticated. It was inappropriate to use such material."

"The parts related to the use of the photo as pointed out will be edited or deleted when the comic book is published," Shueisha said in reply to the complaint.

The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal concluded that more than 140,000 people were killed. Some Chinese historians put the death toll at 300,000 in Nanjing alone. Japanese accounts vary from several thousand to 200,000 dead.

The Japan Times: Oct. 14, 2004

Papyrus is a newsletter which is now coming from Japan which covers education and current affairs topics. Usually worth looking at. In this issue there are a lot of topics which touch on journalism and an informed press. We'll go over them in class today and next week as well. Clark
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This message was distributed by Papyrus News. Feel free to forward
this message to others, preferably with this introduction. For info
on Papyrus News, including how to (un)subscribe or access archives,
see: .
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.............................................................. now that big TV media are joining
the branches of government including the Supreme Court in being partisan
to the Republicans, the Democrats seem to have no opening to expose the
facts. My apologies that much of this may be tedious to non-Americans,
but the post-War international order is breaking down due to American
unilateralism, and the Goebbels playbook is proving again that it works.
Who but Orwell could have predicted that democracy in America would not
survive into the 21st Century? - Ed.]

* Periodical articles

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff
tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics
Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter, UC Berkeley, 27 October 2003
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

Peace Prize Goes to Environmentalist in Kenya
"OSLO, Oct. 8 - Wangari Maathai, a Kenyan woman who started an
environmental movement that has planted 30 million trees in Africa and
who has campaigned for women's rights and greater democracy in her
home country, was announced the winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize"
Patrick Tyler, New York Times, 9 October 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/international/africa/09nobel.html

The Verdict Is In
"Sanctions worked. Weapons inspectors worked. That is the bottom line
of the long-awaited report on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. ...
nothing in the voluminous record provides Mr. Bush with the justification
he wanted for a preventive war because the weapons programs did not exist.
And as the war continues to bog down, the power of nonviolent international sanctions looks more muscular every day."
New York Times Editorial, 7 October 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07thu1.html

The Battle of the Pump
By Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 7 October 2004
"The energy policy of President Bush and Dick Cheney is supporting the
worst Arab oil regimes and the worst trends."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/07/opinion/07friedman.html

Bush's Crimes
"Impeach the president? Yes. A well-documented case ties him to Abu Ghraib."
Bob Norman, New Times Broward-Palm Beach, Florida, 30 November 2004
http://www.newtimesbpb.com/issues/2004-09-30/news/norman.html

Insane reality spins the head
Jimmy Breslin, Newsday.com, 10 October 2004
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/columnists/ny-nybres104001677oct10,0,2659563.column?coll=ny-ny-columnists

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh spills the secrets
of the Iraq quagmire and the war on terror
Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter, UC Berkeley, 11 October 2004
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/10/11_hersh.shtml

President Bush Unfit to Command
Yoshi Tsurumi [Bush's former professor]
Japanese Institute of Global Communications, 7 October 2004
http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/colloquium/20041007_tsurumi_president/index.html

TV channels to rubbish Kerry on eve of poll
Julian Borger, The Guardian, 12 October 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1325120,00.html

Japan mulls multicultural dawn
Sarah Buckley, BBC News Online, 5 October 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3708098.stm

5. BAGHDAD CONFIDENTIAL
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2004/10/08/e_fassihi.html
"Can a journalist be too truthful?" That's a question that some
media pundits are asking after Farnaz Fassihi, the Wall Street
Journal's Middle East correspondent, sent a private email to
friends with an unusually candid description of the deteriorating
U.S. control over Iraq and the dangers of doing her job there. A
copy of her email began circulating on the internet. "One could
argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation," she wrote. "For
those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing
could  salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of
terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as
a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a
bottle." Shortly after the email became public, Los Angeles Times
reporter Tim Rutten spoke with two Wall Street Journal reporters,
who told him that the paper has responded by forbidding Fassihi to
write about Iraq for the paper until after the election,
"presumably because unauthorized publication of her private
correspondence somehow called into question the fairness of her
journalism" -- even though other journalists in Iraq privately
share her assessment. Journalism professor Jay Rosen has reviewed
the subsequent pundit fuss and asks the obvious question: "Why
can't reporters on the ground occasionally speak to the 'public'
like this one occasionally spoke to her friends?"
SOURCE: PressThink, October 8, 2004
More web links related to this story are available at:
http://www.prwatch.org/spin/October_2004.html#1097208003
To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:
http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1097208003

Thought you might be interested in this and it's at the Foreign Correspondents' Club:

Ghosts and Ghouls are in the Air!

The 14th eigoTown/ELT News international party will be held on Saturday, October 30th in Tokyo. Over 300 people, a good mix of Japanese and foreign, male and female, is expected at the prestigious Foreign Correspondents' Club in Yurakucho.

Of course, the theme of the party is Halloween - come in fancy dress and you'll get ¥1,000 off the admission price!
• Date: Saturday, October 30th
• Time: 6.30pm - 9.00pm
• Admission: ¥4,000 (includes beer, wine, beverages, food and snacks)

Read more details here: http://www.eltnews.com/party/

As the bible belt says:Treat others as you would have yourself treated:


In other words: American suspects in world terror can also disappear and also be held responsible for atrocities against humanity. It's simply tit for tat. Who is responsible for disappearances in custody- well the commander in chief comes to mind.


New York — At least 11 al-Qaeda suspects have “disappeared” in U.S. custody, and some may have been tortured, Human Rights Watch said in a report issued Monday.

The prisoners are probably being held outside the United States without access to the Red Cross or any oversight of their treatment, the human rights group said. In some cases, the United States will not even acknowledge the prisoners are in custody.

The report said the prisoners include the alleged architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, as well as Abu Zubaydah, who is believed to be a close aide to Osama bin Laden.

In refusing to disclose the prisoners' whereabouts or acknowledge the detentions, Human Rights Watch said, the U.S. government has violated international law, international treaties and the Geneva Convention. The group called on the government to bring all the prisoners “under the protection of the law.”

“I think the U.S. demeans itself when it adopts the philosophy that the ends justify the means in the fight against terror,” said Reed Brody, special counsel with Human Rights Watch.

CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said the agency has not seen the report and declined to comment.

The report — titled “The United States' ‘Disappeared:' The CIA's Long-term ‘Ghost Detainees”' — said many of the prisoners have provided valuable intelligence to U.S. officials. But it also cited reports that some detainees have lied under pressure to please their interrogators.

Human Rights Watch has no firsthand knowledge of the treatment of these detainees. Much of the report stems from news accounts that have cited unidentified government sources acknowledging the torture or mistreatment of detainees.

The report provides a brief sketch of 11 detainees believed to be incommunicado in undisclosed locations. They hail from countries across the Arab world, including Libya, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. U.S. authorities have confirmed the detention of six of them, the report said.

CANADA CHURNS OUT NEW JOBS; UNEMPLOYMENT RATE DROPS TO 7.1%
Canada's unemployment rate edged down to 7.1 per cent in September
- the lowest in more than three years - as the country
generated a better-than-expected 43,200 new jobs, Statistics Canada
reported Friday.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/10/08/jobless_041008.html

U.S. JOBS REPORT DISAPPOINTS
The U.S. unemployment rate held steady at 5.4 per cent in September, as
96,000 jobs were added to payrolls, diappointing analysts who'd been
expecting 150,000 new jobs.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2004/10/08/USjobless_041008.html

SLOW PROGRESS IN IRAQ GUN AMNESTY
A five-day weapons-exchange program got off to a slow start in Baghdad's
Sadr City with Shia militiamen surrendering a handful of rusty old guns.
FULL STORY:
http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2004/10/11/alsadr_041011.html

The Americans are buying weapons from the rebels in Iraqi. They are paying $200 for an assualt rifle which sells for $45 to $75 in Iraqi. Do the math. They sell one to the Americans and are able to buy four or five new ones for them selves. Those boys in charge of the American operation sure are smart! Right?

Hi this might be a good place to start your research on the problems with nuclear power in Japan:Malfunction closes Tepco nuke reactor
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20040930b3.htm
Story is due Tue. noon. See you next Thur. Clark

OK will see you all tomorrow. Here is another issue of Grist that I would like you to look at along with the previous posts that I have made over the summer vacation.Clark

From: grist@grist.org
Subject: DAILY GRIST, 28 Sep 2004
Date: September 29, 2004 4:44:23 AM JST
To: daily-grist@lists.grist.org

DAILY GRIST
28 Sep 2004
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE


HAVE YOU EVER SEEN THE RAINFOREST? Send a question to a rainforest activist who's organizing indigenous folk.



1.
DEATH, BE NOT CLOUD
Asian Cloud menaces world's most populous continent

In the new book "Feeling the Heat," Jim Motavalli describes a phenomenon that's likely to give you nightmares. Seriously, just stop reading. Okay, we warned you: Hovering in the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and other Asian waters, and covering some 10 million square miles, is the Asian Cloud. This dense conglomeration of pollution bits curtails the amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface, playing havoc with photosynthesis and disrupting natural hydrological cycles. It absorbs heat, warming the atmosphere. It drops to the earth as acid rain. It is expected to adversely affect the lives of up to a billion people. And, oh yeah: Given the right wind patterns, it can travel around the globe in a week. Sweet dreams! Read about this climatology-via-Stephen-King phenomenon in an excerpt in Books Unbound -- today on the Grist Magazine website.

today in Grist: An excerpt from "Feeling the Heat: Dispatches From the Frontlines of Climate Change" -- by Jim Motavalli




2.
GO WEST, YOUNG POLLUTOCRAT!
Bush administration makes big push for oil and gas drilling in West

With unprecedented speed, the Bush administration has opened vast swaths of environmentally sensitive land in the West to oil and gas drilling -- this by-now-familiar story is told comprehensively in articles in The Washington Post and The Seattle Times. The situation is summed up by Dave Alberswerth, former Clinton adviser and now a lobbyist for The Wilderness Society: "They haven't changed any statutes. They haven't changed any regulations. But they've changed a whole lot of practices and policies without any real public scrutiny." Bureau of Land Management employees are now rewarded for speeding through approval of leases for energy companies, which in many cases are writing land-use plans themselves. Opposition is spreading from environmentalists to traditionally conservative ranchers, hunters, and anglers. Bush administration officials deny that they're damaging wild areas, but they happily concede that the balance for "multiple-use" areas has been moved toward resource extraction.

straight to the source: The Washington Post, Joby Warrick and Juliet Eilperin, 25 Sep 2004


straight to the source: The Seattle Times, Craig Welch, 26 Sep 2004




3.
BAKED ALASKANS
Global warming is destroying Eskimo villages

While debates over the "precautionary principle" and economic tradeoffs take place down in the cozy lower 48, global warming is entirely less abstract to Inupiaq Eskimos on the coast of Alaska. They're not so much worried about losing jobs as losing, well, their villages. The annual mean air temperature in Alaska has risen 4 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 30 years, the warm season now starts earlier and finishes later, and Arctic Ocean ice has shrunk 5 to 10 percent, making ice fishing more difficult, among other problems. In spots, the coastline is disappearing -- some villages have lost up to 300 feet. Many villages are facing the ultimate decision: "Is it practical to stand and fight our Mother Ocean? Or do we surrender and move?" asks Edith Vorderstrasse, mayor of Barrow, Alaska. A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers study estimated that relocating one small village of 380 people, Kivalina, would cost $100 million to $400 million -- at the top end, more than $1 million a head. If that sounds forbidding, ponder for a moment the cost of relocating, say, San Francisco.

straight to the source: Time Magazine, Margot Roosevelt, 27 Sep 2004




4.
WHEN GEEKS ATTACK
Another group of scientists to campaign against Bush

Scientists and Engineers for Change, a 527 advocacy group unveiled yesterday, plans to send scientists on speaking gigs in swing states to argue that the Bush administration disregards and distorts science -- in many cases, science relating to serious environmental problems. "We must begin to address climate change now. To do so, we must have an administration that listens to the scientific community, not one that manipulates and minimizes scientific input," said Nobel Prize winner Douglas D. Osheroff. Osheroff is one of 10 Nobel winners who will join others in giving talks on what they see as the Bush administration's manipulation of science in areas from stem-cell research to energy. The normally nonpartisan scientific community has seen unprecedented mobilization against Bush this year, including a letter endorsing John Kerry signed by a group of 48 Nobel winners and a campaign spearheaded by the Union of Concerned Scientists that accuses Bush of politicizing science.

straight to the source: The New York Times, Kenneth Chang, 28 Sep 2004




5.
CREATURE COMFORTS
A new push for protecting sharks and lions

Despite the relative infrequency of its attacks on humans, the great white shark has achieved a fearsome reputation, thanks largely to the 1975 film "Jaws." Viewed with trepidation and fascination, it is now a prized catch for trophy hunters, who sell its jaws and teeth at great profit. Similarly prized by hunters is the African lion, a formidable cat whose fame has almost nothing to do with the 1996 film "The Ghost and the Darkness." Both predators' numbers are rapidly dwindling. Countries that prize the animals -- Australia and Madagascar for the sharks, Kenya for the lions -- are seeking to have them added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), signatories to which are meeting this week. Both additions face opposition from countries that favor instead stronger national protective measures (and that happen to benefit from trophy hunting).

straight to the source: Terra Daily, Agence France-Presse, 28 Sep 2004


straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Reuters, C. Bryson Hull, 28 Sep 2004


-----------------------------------------------------------------

Also in GRIST MAGAZINE:

Ay, There's the Stub -- On recycling pencil stubs -- in Ask Umbra

This is a good book review on what journalism is and maybe isn't. Run on September 18 in the UK paper the Spectator.


BOOKS
Master of most
Alexander Chancellor
MY TRADE
By Andrew Marr
Macmillan, £20, pp.391, ISBN:140500536X

Andrew Marr is a great adornment to his — our — trade. He is terribly clever and well-read, and I am sure he could have done something serious and useful with his life. But he decided early on that journalism was the thing for him.

Despite his first-class degree in English at Cambridge, it quickly dawned on him that he wasn’t really qualified for any profession. ‘I was a scientifically illiterate innocent with the entrepreneurial instincts of a 13th-century peasant and the iron determination of a butterfly,’ he writes. ‘Journalism seemed the only option.’

But surely his instinct must also have told him that journalism was a field in which he would excel. He was gregarious, inquisitive, perceptive, energetic, and deft with his pen. He was also a natural showman and communicator who seemed, when the moment came, to have been cut out for his role as a star of BBC television.

Even his looks have been an asset in this job. He dwells with relish on his physiognomic disadvantages:
The ears reach out like large red satellite dishes, the cheeks are covered with lines and rashes caused by decades of overwork and overindulgence; and if I dare to smile widely, it looks less like a friendly act than a record of bomb damage in the Blitz.
But one should take the self-deprecation that permeates this book with a pinch of salt. Marr must know that television viewers prefer interesting, animated faces to dull, handsome ones; and he has even become something of a popular sex symbol, in common with his supposed look-alike, Vladimir Putin.

Although he is only in his mid-forties, there isn’t much in journalism that Andrew Marr hasn’t done:
I have been a trainee hack, a general reporter, a sub-editor, a parliamentary reporter, a political journalist, a radio presenter, a broadsheet and a tabloid columnist, a hilariously inexperienced newspaper editor, an author of books, a maker of TV documentary and interview series, and am now, as the BBC’s political editor, a television reporter.
One of the few things he hasn’t done is to be a foreign correspondent, which may be one of the reasons why he admires foreign correspondents more than any other kind of journalist. But this may also be because he thinks of them as the purest kind of journalist, those least liable to corruption by the pressures — from proprietors, managers, editors, politicians, and PR operatives — to which their home-based colleagues are subjected.

In an age in which journalists are reputed to be held in lower esteem even than politicians and estate agents (though Mr Marr has dug up an opinion poll suggesting that this is not the case — that only tabloid journalists are viewed with such contempt), he articulates with great verve and clarity why he thinks that British journalism is wonderful, even at its most feckless. He is dismissive of the pomposity of ‘responsible’ American journalism.        

And he is strikingly generous about his colleagues — drunk or sober, talented or witless. He sees some point in nearly all of them. The only exceptions seem to be those associated with his brief, unhappy time as editor of the Independent, a job from which he was brutally sacked by fax. This was clearly a traumatic episode, the one big setback in his otherwise triumphant career; and although he stresses his own inadequacies as an editor, you don’t quite believe that he means it. (Nor should he: he was rather good.)

The man responsible for his defenestration, David Montgomery, the ‘lean, dry, sarcastic Ulster Protestant’, then head of the Mirror Group, which owned half the Independent at the time, is not flatteringly portrayed:
One of the excellent editors he sacked said of Montgomery that ‘what he did showed a breathtaking disregard for keeping his word and a merciless savagery unheard of even by Fleet Street’s bloodsoaked and hypocritical standards’, though some of us would put it a little more strongly than that.
He also refers to Janet Street-Porter, who after his time edited the Independent on Sunday, as ‘dreadful’, and to his ultimate successor as editor of the daily newspaper, Simon Kelner, as ‘not my cup of tea’. But practically every other journalist he mentions, and there are many, is depicted favourably. His greatest heroes are the late James Cameron, the foreign correspondent he never was, and Harold Evans, the successful editor he never was, either. He admires them for their courage, integrity, independence, skill and industry.

And here’s a dichotomy. While Marr waxes romantic about the raffish side of Fleet Street, and even portrays himself as part of it, it is ‘responsible’ journalism that he really admires — the conscientious and honest reporting of facts.

He is right to say that good reporting is the essence of journalism, but it is striking that in his survey of the modern journalistic scene he doesn’t mention stars such as Craig Brown and Auberon Waugh whose talents are and were of a different kind, but prodigious nonetheless.

This, however, is an excellent and enjoyable book. It is not only cheering for any journalist to read — one to boost his self-esteem when he is feeling down — but it is also, for anyone interested, an invaluable guide to the curious ways and practices of the journalistic trade by a shrewd and gifted writer who has been there, done it, and knows what he’s talking about.

Slant, Spin or just plain fiction??:
Newspapers accused of misusing word 'terrorist'
Last Updated Fri, 17 Sep 2004 17:19:45 EDT

OTTAWA - Canada's largest newspaper chain, CanWest Global, is being criticized over its use of the word "terrorist" in stories about the Middle East.

The owner of the National Post and dozens of other papers across Canada is being accused of inappropriately inserting the word into newswire copy dealing with the Middle East, thereby changing the meaning of those stories.

One of the world's leading news agencies, Reuters, said CanWest newspapers has been altering words and phrases in its stories dealing with the war in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Reuters told CBC News it would complain to CanWest about the issue.

The global managing editor for Reuters, David Schlesinger, called such changes unacceptable. He said CanWest had crossed a line from editing for style to editing the substance and slant of news from the Middle East.

"If they want to put their own judgment into it, they're free to do that, but then they shouldn't say that it's by a Reuters reporter," said Schlesinger.

As an example, Schlesinger cited a recent Reuters story, in which the original copy read: "...the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in a four-year-old revolt against Israeli occupation in Gaza and the West Bank."

In the National Post version of the story, printed Tuesday, it became: "...the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a terrorist group that has been involved in a four-year-old campaign of violence against Israel."

Neither the National Post nor CanWest returned calls.

But the Ottawa Citizen, another CanWest paper, has admitted to making erroneous changes in a story about Iraq from another leading news agency.

Last week, the Citizen inserted the word "terrorist" seven times into an Associated Press story on the Iraqi city of Fallujah, where Iraqi insurgents have been battling U.S.-led occupation forces.

In an interview, Ottawa Citizen editor Scott Anderson conceded fighters in Fallujah were not terrorists but said CanWest has a policy of renaming some groups as terrorists.

He added the paper had applied that term primarily to Arab groups, and that mistakes had been made occasionally.

However, Anderson said he did not believe the paper had a duty to inform its readers when it changed words.

"We're editing for style...," he said. "We're editing so that we have clear consistent language to describe what's going on in the world. And if we've made a mistake, we should correct that. And we will."

In response to a letter published Friday about the Fallujah article, the Citizen wrote: "The changes to the Associated Press story do not reflect Citizen policy, which is to use the term 'terrorist' to describe someone who deliberately targets civilians. As such, the changes to the Associated Press story were made in error."

Riad Saloojee, the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada, says the organization wants Canadian press watchdogs to investigate CanWest.

"We're going to be asking the Ontario Press Council to investigate exactly the extent of this policy across the country in other CanWest publications," said Saloojee.

This little item is from the New York Times. Why is it the very worst kind of News Reporting and Journalism in gerneral?;

On Sept. 17, 1862, Union forces hurled back a Confederate invasion of Maryland in the Civil War Battle of Antietam. During the battle, 23,100 were killed, wounded or captured, making it the bloodiest day in United States military history.

Japanese often ask the question "Why don't the Chinese, or the Koreans like us?"
Perhaps here is one of the answers:


Vet refuses to take Unit 731 to his grave
Teen recruit for Japan's atrocity machine airs conscience as time gets short

By ERIC TALMADGE

YOKAICHIBA, Chiba Pref. (AP) Yoshio Shinozuka sits on the wooden steps of an old Buddhist temple just down the road from his home and the place where he will be buried

Yoshio Shinozuka speaks about the Imperial Japanese Army's infamous Unit 731 at a temple near his home in Yokaichiba, Chiba Prefecture.


Surrounded by pine trees and rice paddies, the temple is quiet save for the incessant buzzing of cicadas.

Frail and fast approaching his 83rd birthday, he points to a small cemetery guarded by a statue of the Goddess of Mercy that will be his final resting place. "I've already chosen the plot," he said.

Shinozuka has had a lot of time to reflect on his youth, and his memories of those days are crystal clear. But they are laced with poison.

A member of Unit 731 in northeast China in the 1930s and '40s, Shinozuka belonged to perhaps the most advanced biological weapons operation of its time. As a teenager, he participated in atrocities -- vivisections and other experiments on humans -- that for millions of Chinese epitomize Japan's Imperial rampage through Asia.

Conservative estimates place the number of the unit's victims in the thousands -- as many as 250,000, some historians believe.

For many years, Japan's government denied Unit 731 existed.

In a landmark ruling in 2002, a Japanese court finally acknowledged the unit's operations caused "immense" suffering and were "clearly inhumane." But like previous courts, it said the government had no legal obligation to atone to the victims.

As far as many Asians are concerned, Japan has never faced up to its past. The war remains an open wound deeply affecting its relations with its neighbors.

Shinozuka, however, has devoted himself to making amends.

He testified on behalf of his Chinese victims. He has written a book for schoolchildren. In 1998, he tried to speak at peace conferences in the United States and Canada -- but immigration inspectors turned him away as a war criminal.

He accepts that label.

"It took me a long time to get beyond the excuse that I was just following orders," he said. "I was doing what I was told. And I might very well have been killed had I disobeyed. But what we did was so terrible that I should have refused, even if that meant my own death.

"But I didn't do that. And I will never be forgiven."



Teen took recruiter's bait
In February 1939, as Japan's war machine was devouring China, a recruiter came to Shinozuka's rural high school, dressed in an army aviator's uniform and promising a bright future for those who signed up. There would be college scholarships and possible careers in medicine or aviation, lots of travel, the satisfaction of serving the Emperor.

"We were all impressed," Shinozuka recalled. "It seemed like quite an opportunity."

Shinozuka aced the examination. "I think everybody passed that test," he said. "It was very easy."

He was 15 years old.

Two months later, he was ordered to join Unit 731 of the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army and was shipped off to its sprawling headquarters in the city of Pingfan, just outside Harbin in Japan-controlled northeast China.

"The idea was that we would be responsible for providing our soldiers with safe drinking water," he said.

As a civilian with the unit's youth corps, Shinozuka spent most of his time in a classroom learning about basic medicine, sanitation and the spread of germs.

In spring 1940, he was given a more hands-on mission.

"Our unit was raising fleas and infecting them with the plague," he said. "My job was to see that they had live rats to grow on."

It was a simple operation -- the rats and their fleas, along with grains of wheat, were kept in small cages in a dark room. When a rat died, the fleas would naturally move away from its corpse and were then corralled by carefully placed red lights through a bathtub into a glass cylinder attached to the drain.

"What happened to the fleas next wasn't our concern," he said.

But soon after Shinozuka got his new assignment, Chinese began dying of the plague.

According to documents filed by a group of Chinese victims with the Tokyo District Court in the 2002 compensation suit, Japanese military planes on the morning of Oct. 4, 1940, dropped wheat with plague-infected fleas over the city of Quxian.

Despite intense efforts by townspeople to burn the infected materials, at least two dozen deaths from bubonic plague were reported there by year's end. A railroader infected by the Quxian strain then spread the disease to Yiwu, where more than 300 died. Hundreds more plague deaths followed in nearby areas.

In November 1941, Unit 731 aircraft also dropped cotton, grains and other flea-infested materials on the town of Changde, causing two outbreaks -- the second beginning the following spring when infected rats became active after surviving the winter. Overall, as many as 7,643 died.

"I never asked why we did what we did," Shinozuka said. "Nobody did. We weren't given any time to think about what we were doing. And there was an unspoken rule to hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. But there is no doubt in my mind that what the Chinese say is true."



Advanced atrocities
Shinozuka's studies continued.

Back in the classroom, he learned about the mass production of typhus, cholera, anthrax, dysentery. Then, in 1942, he was given another task -- prepping plague-infected people to be cut up alive.

Prisoners were infected so that the unit could study the progress and potency of their biological weapons. Samples removed from the prisoners were used to produce more bacteria.

"The first time, my legs were shaking so badly I could hardly stand up," Shinozuka said.

He knew the person on the operating table.

"I'd seen him a few times," he said. "He seemed like an intellectual. He wasn't even 30. But by the time he was brought in to the dissection room, he was so black with the plague that he looked like a different person. He was clearly on the verge of death."

In a tiled operating room, Shinozuka cleaned the victim with a scrub brush, front then back, then dried him off. Another man used a stethoscope to make sure the victim was still alive and then assisted a third man who quickly but methodically cut the victim open and removed his organs.

"We were told that it was crucial to extract the specimens before putrefaction had time to set in and contaminate our research," Shinozuka said. "The room didn't have a clock, but I guess the operations took about four hours. I will never forget the feeling of being there."

Shinozuka personally participated in three more vivisections.

"We called the victims 'logs,' " he said. "We didn't want to think of them as people. We didn't want to admit that we were taking lives. So we convinced ourselves that what we were doing was like cutting down a tree. When you see someone in that state, you just can't move. Your mind goes blank. The fear is overwhelming."

Shinozuka was now 20 years old.

The next year, he was formally drafted into the army.

When the war ended in August 1945, Shinozuka was a lance corporal with a medical unit near the Korean border.



'Re-educated' by China
Separated from his superiors in the chaos of defeat, he was caught up in the Chinese civil war and imprisoned for a year by Mao Zedong's communists. When he got out, many of his countrymen had been repatriated. Alone and forgotten, he had nowhere to go.

"But the People's Liberation Army took me in," he said. "They treated me well, and I enjoyed serving with them."

After six years, his past with Unit 731 was discovered. He was sent to a re-education camp, where he remained until 1956. Oddly enough, he said, he has fond memories of his detention there.

"The camp was built by the Japanese, and it was quite spacious and comfortable," he said. "We ate better than the guards. They showed us movies and played music for us. We were allowed to play sports. It was much better than life in Pingfan."

In the camp, Shinozuka began to reflect on his actions with Unit 731.

"I began to be a human again," he said. "Had they been harsh with me, I might have gone into my shell. But they treated me as a person, and I had to think of them as people. I began to think of the victims as people, too."

Shinozuka said that although he initially lied about his Unit 731 activities, saying he was researching new vaccines, he gradually began confessing the truth.

"I don't think they had much use for what I was telling them," he said. "But they sent me home with a pardon. I was never charged."

Every May, a couple dozen of Shinozuka's comrades from the re-education camp join him at the temple in Yokaichiba, about 100 km east of Tokyo. Near the Shinozuka family plot, they have built a simple stone monument to Japan's Chinese victims.

"We express our bottomless gratitude to the Chinese people, and our deepest apologies," the monument says.



Some rose to prominence
Of the 1,109 prisoners returned from the camp in 1956, few if any were Unit 731 members. Those unit leaders who made it back to Japan were spared prosecution in exchange for turning over information to the U.S. One rose to prominence in Japan's pharmaceutical industry. Others went to work for the health ministry.

Back in Japan, but with no home to return to, Shinozuka worked a local government job until retirement.

Though he often wanted to tell his story, "No one wanted to hear what I was saying," he said. "The Japanese prefer to think of themselves as victims in the war. Even the peace movement people told me that talking about Japan's role as an aggressor wasn't constructive.

"But I couldn't let this piece of history remain in the dark."

In 1997, the year he raised the monument, he testified on behalf of the 180 Chinese suing Japan for redress. The court denied their claim and they appealed on Sept. 2. Shinozuka hopes to be healthy enough to attend the hearings.

In recent years he has visited China often and has been back to Unit 731's former headquarters -- now a museum.

"The Chinese have been very generous with me," he said. "They tell me that I, too, am a victim."

The Japan Times: Sept. 17, 2004