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发表于 2010-12-10 10:37:03
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VOX POPULI: A few words eloquently express a great deal
2010/12/01
The administration of Naoto Kan keeps faltering while public approval ratings for the Cabinet continue to decline. Saddled with many difficult problems, the justice minister stepped down, taking the blame for a gaffe.
Meanwhile, we hear no reassuring statements from the government on how to deal with the emergency developing on the Korean Peninsula.
Here are some quotes to remember from November, the season of fallen leaves and a time to think about the weight words carry.
The first death sentence was handed down under the citizen judge system. Of the six lay judges, only one, a man in his 50s, attended a news conference after the ruling.
He said: "I really had a hard time. Even now, when I think back, I cannot hold back tears. I ask you to understand."
"Few words" can sometimes be eloquent.
Sakae Menda, 85, became the nation's first death-row inmate to be acquitted in a retrial. During his 34 years in detention, he saw some 70 inmates go to the gallows.
Referring to his feelings when he heard the steps of officers stop in front of another isolation cell, Menda said: "I felt my body, which had been curled up tight, stretch. Cold sweat rolled down my back. Sweat that usually slides down the back formed into tiny balls and tumbled down."
"Short, strong words are inundating television, the Internet and even (are being heard) among politicians. I think the trend to grab the attention of the public with short phrases, instead of spending a great deal of time to communicate, is also affecting teachers," said tanka poet and former teacher Machi Tawara.
She commented on a series of cases in which teachers used outrageous expressions in school lessons.
Poet Kayoko Yamasaki, who lives in Belgrade, Serbia, gave a lecture at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. "Voices link human souls. When speaking, we must speak so that we can be heard by others and listen with sincerity when others talk. When these two are lacking, society develops rifts," she said.
The space probe Hayabusa returned to the Earth in June, bringing back samples of tiny grains from the asteroid Itokawa.
"Just returning to the Earth is like a dream. How can I express a feeling that is beyond a dream?" asked a beaming Junichiro Kawaguchi, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency professor who oversaw the project.
How many times can we experience a level of happiness that renders us speechless in one lifetime?
--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 30 |
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