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I’ve always been a big Michael Crichton fan, so I’m looking forward to reading his latest work, State of Fear, even though I find it rather difficult to buy into the premise (that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by radical environmentalists). 

It seems hard for me to believe that there can still be doubt about the reality of global warming when we regularly see news like this:

Countdown to global catastrophe

The global warming danger threshold for the world is clearly marked for the first time in an international report to be published tomorrow - and the bad news is, the world has nearly reached it already.

The countdown to climate-change catastrophe is spelt out by a task force of senior politicians, business leaders and academics from around the world - and it is remarkably brief. In as little as 10 years, or even less, their report indicates, the point of no return with global warming may have been reached.

So which is it? Are we doomed or not? (Not that this will have much bearing on my enjoyment of Crichton’s book, mind you, but I would like to adjust my retirement plans accordingly.)

By the way, you know what I would really like from Amazon.com? A feature that would enable me to receive e-mail notification whenever a book I’m interested in becomes available in paperback. Although I really prefer hardcover books, they are much less practical to read on the train. 

My wife called my attention to this article (in Japanese) about a Japanese man who was detained for studying English.

Japanese detained for writing ‘suicide bomb’ during U.S. plane trip

A Japanese man, brushing up on his English, caused a bomb scare at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport late Sunday, after scrawling the words “suicide bomb” in his notebook.

The 60-year-old passenger had reportedly made a note of the phrase so he could look it up later, but a fellow traveler became suspicious and reported the hapless businessman to the flight staff.

The pilot of United Airlines flight 1184 turned the 737 jet around and returned to the terminal, where members of the Chicago police and fire departments and airport security were waiting, authorities said Monday.

All 120 passengers on board the flight to Columbus, Ohio, were taken off the plane.

The man was briefly detained, but released without charge once it became obvious “he was just trying to learn English,” Chicago police spokeswoman Patrice Harper said.

Nothing like almost getting arrested for building your vocabulary! This guy will never, ever forget the meaning of those words. 

Whenever there is any talk of moving back to the States, my mother-in-law worries about the safety of our family in such a “dangerous country.” After all, kids kill each other in American high schools all the time, right?

Incidents like the one at Columbine paint a very bad picture of what it is like to be a young person in the U.S. (Admittedly, it doesn’t help when I mention that a girl at my high school shot her boyfriend or that a friend of mine took his own life with a borrowed shotgun.) But that is not to say these things are unheard of in Japan. In fact, this recent news story caught my attention in part because it comes from my wife’s hometown:

Net posting drove girl to kill

SASEBO, Nagasaki--An 11-year-old girl of Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, who allegedly slashed her female classmate to death with a box cutter Tuesday told police that she “didn’t like” what the victim wrote about her appearance during a chat session on the Internet, it was learned Wednesday. The board of education distributed computer software to municipal primary schools in the city to allow them to build homepages.

There have been a few other news stories involving murders in Japanese schools as well (Mamoru Takuma’s case springs to mind immediately). These, coupled with the pandemic bullying problem and the alarming phenomenon of ”classroom breakdown,” sometimes make me wonder if our children wouldn’t be better off in American schools.

It’s a tough call on many levels, but I think it is safe to say that “safety” can be scratched off the list of advantages of the Japanese educational system.