I have been thinking a lot about music over the last few days because we have lost two hugely talented artists very recently. As you know, Donna Summer passed away last week, and I read today that Robin Gibb of the Bee Gees has also died of cancer. I was a huge fan of both of them, so it was really sad to hear of their deaths.

Anyway, I thought it might be nice for everyone to introduce a song that has a special memory or meaning for you. Tell us what the song is, when you first heard it, and why it is special to you. Mine is "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John.

I hope you had a nice weekend. I drove to Ibaraki and back for a conference, so it was quite tiring. The weather was good, though, and it was a nice drive.

From this week, we are going to be making some changes to the way this blog is run. Actually, we are going to be moving it. Because the blog is hosted on ALC's servers, I have very limited control over it. The ALC staff are extremely helpful and friendly, but I want to have the blog hosted on servers that I can control. Recently, I have redesigned the home page of my publishing company, BTB Press, and I have decided to run two blogs on that site - one for teachers, and one for learners. The one for learners will be a continuation of this blog.

As you may know, New Zealand is a nuclear-free country. When I lived there, we had power cuts and blackouts in the winter, but the people were more than happy to accept this in return for being nuclear-free. I guess Japanese people are starting to think the same way. A lot of you mentioned that old people and babies need air-conditioning, but do they really? What did they do 100 years ago when air-conditioning didn't exist?

Anyway, here is some feedback on your comments.

I hope you all enjoyed your Golden Week holiday, although as many of you are mothers, I suppose it is not really much of a holiday at all.

I saw the news about the tornado in Ibaraki last night, and I couldn't believe it when I watched the video of it on YouTube. If any of you live in that area, I hope that you were not too badly affected. I always knew that Japan had earthquakes and tsunami, but I never knew about the tornadoes! Can you imagine what would happen if that storm had hit Fukushima? It doesn't bear thinking about.

Sorry for the late entry. I was away at the weekend, and I didn't get back home until about 12.30 last night.

As some of you pointed out, there were some more terrible accidents involving careless drivers and children last week. In one of the them (I think it was the one in Aichi), the driver said he "lost concentration because he was thinking about his job." Of course, I don't know anything about this incident, but that sounds like a very strange story to me. I would guess that the real reason was that he was texting someone or reading something on his phone. I see this so often now that is has become normal. I even saw three people doing it on the expressway last night. There was also a terrible story about a bus crash in which 7 people were killed. I'm not sure whether the number of accidents is increasing, or whether it is just a horrible coincidence, but I hope something will be done to make the roads safer.

And did you see the story about the mother in Nagano who dropped her 2-month-old baby into a river? Is that even possible?!

I have decided not to start a new topic this week because I am going to be busy from Thursday, and I'm sure a lot of you are as well. Feel free to post any news about what you are doing over the holiday (if you have one!), and I will start a new topic next week.

Bye for now.

As we have discussed here many times before, the Japanese police do seem to be getting themselves in the news for all the wrong reasons recently. Unfortunately, I think they are more "officials" than actual police officers. They know how to do office work, but they get a bit lost when it comes to real police work. I gave a seminar once for police officers in Sapporo who were going to be on duty at the World Cup game between England and Argentina. When I spoke to the officers, I was amazed to hear that none of them had ever actually arrested anyone for anything! When I was in the police, we made at least two or three arrests per week, and sometimes a lot more than that. On the day of the England-Argentina match, I saw a policeman standing near the stadium shouting through a loudspeaker telling all the English fans to walk on the pavement, not the road. He seemed to be getting very angry that they were not following his instructions. Apparently, it had not occurred to him that the English fans might not understand Japanese!

Hope you had a nice weekend. After I read your comments, I realized that something else must have happened, so I checked out the news on Japan Today. This was a really terrible story, and I cannot imagine what the husband of the lady who died is feeling, especially since she was carrying his baby. And all that just because some stupid kid thought it would be fun to drive around all night with his friends even though he didn't have a driver's license. The real tragedy is that because he is a legal minor, his name cannot be released to the press, and he can only be sent to jail for a maximum of about five years despite the fact that he has ruined so many people's lives.

When stories like this come up, commentators on Japan Today often talk about the strange legal position of 18- and 19-year olds in Japan. For example, an 18-year-old cannot drink or smoke, but they can get married and have children; they cannot buy pornographic books or movies, but they can star in them, and they can work at places like Soapland; they cannot be tried as adults for committing a criminal offence, but they can become police officers and arrest other people. And of course, as we have seen from this terrible story, they can drive, but they can only be lightly punished even if they kill someone.

Many years ago, I dated a woman in Sapporo whose father was arrested for bribing a public official. He was the boss of a construction company, and I felt a bit sorry for him, because he was just doing the same thing as the bosses of all the other construction companies. He was just unlucky enough to get caught. Anyway, it made me realize that behind every story we see in the news, there is always a family, and there are always friends. Sometimes, these people can have their lives ruined even though they have not done anything wrong. When I heard about the judo teacher who was arrested for raping one of his students, I couldn't help thinking about his wife, her family, and her friends. All of them will suffer because of his stupid actions.

By the way, did you see the latest hentai policeman story? Apparently, a police officer was arrested in Shizuoka for licking the hair of a woman he didn't know! I don't have any sympathy for him, but I guess he has a mother and a father, and probably brothers and sisters as well. Everyone who knows them will know who they are and what their son/brother has done. It must be very difficult for them

Anyway, here is some feedback on your comments...

I hope you had a good weekend. I went to Suzuka on Sunday to watch Tonari san race in the Japan Superbikes for the first time. He came last, but he was riding against professional riders and teams, so he did really well even to qualify for the race. At the moment, he is making plans to ride in the 8-hour endurance race in July. If he does, I will probably go along as pit crew, so that should be fun.

Did you see the story last week about the young man who had an epileptic seizure while he was driving and killed and injured a number of people? It was a similar set of circumstances to the crane driver who killed some children a while back, but this time, the driver died. It was a really tragic story, and I feel very sorry for everyone involved in both of these incidents.

Actually, one of Kattie's comments reminded me of something; she said that being old enough to be left with a babysitter is a milestone in a child's life. I had completely forgotten about that, but I remembered when she mentioned it. It was a great feeling!

Although I am not married and don't have any children, I have read a lot about the subject, and it seems that the thing children need most to be happy is to live in a family where the mother and father have a good relationship.

Anyway, pretty much anyone can be a babysitter - even I used to do it! Mind you, the girl I used to babysit for is now a mother herself, which is a bit scary. My brothers and I used to have a babysitter called Carol. She was really lovely, so we all used to get very excited when my parents went out.

Anyway, because this was such an interesting discussion (and because the topic of logical argument has been raised a couple of times), I would like to focus my feedback today on the content of the comments rather than the language. These are some of the points I picked up on over the week.

As I'm sure you will have seen in the news, the Japanese government decided to execute three prisoners last week, so I thought this would be an interesting topic for us to discuss. I guess that many of you will not like this topic, but I think the only way for Japan to have a bright future is for regular citizens like you to start thinking and talking more about serious issues like this. Even if you don't want to comment on the topic, I hope you will read my entry and at least think about it.

Here is some feedback on your comments...

As you know, I have been reading the Japan Today website a lot recently, and I have been amazed at the number of stories about mothers killing their children. Just last week, a mother strangled her three small children and then tried to kill herself. There have been a lot of comments about these stories on the JT website, many of them focussing on the problem of post-natal depression. ("Post" means "after," and "natal" refers to the birth of a child.) Many of the commenters have mentioned the pressure that exists in Japan for people to appear normal and happy even when they are not. As we discussed in a previous entry, "gaman" and "gambaru" are strong points of the Japanese national character, but they also lead to situations where people do not complain even when they should, and do not ask for help even when they really need it.

I have no idea how a mother could kill her own child, but there do seem to be a lot of these stories recently. Is it just my imagination? Has it always been like this, or is this a new phenomenon? Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic of post-natal depression, and I would also like to hear what those of you who are mothers (apparently most of you!) think when you read stories like this.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts.