I’m at a great workshop today and yesterday, “Social Software @ Work” at HHU’s Schloss Mickeln in Duesseldorf. I didn’t have much opportunity to take part in such conferences – something that has to change! Dozens of like-minded people, from companies like BASF, Daimler and Siemens as well as Frauenhof researchers talking about web 2.0. Check out the speakers list and their publications.
Archive for the 'Society' Category
The other day, I was looking for add-ons for Thunderbird and found an article about Rapleaf. In short, if you write me an email, the addon shows me which social networks you belong to. Comes in handy, but the database is not big enough.
Google Chrome arrived – the second browser war, if it hadn’t already started with the emergence and success of Firefox, has now officially begun. I think Google Chrome is rather a huge social experiment than a browser – what’s more important, your privacy or the (second) best browser?
Reading CNET’s 10 Things we’d like to see in Google Chrome, I already know what I’d like to see in it but won’t ever be part of the software… a decent Adblocker.
People (in South Korea) who want to watch TV programs online or to shop on Internet shopping malls must enter their resident registration number, not given to “foreigners”. Sounds familiar to Japanese issues.
(0)An academic newsletter about a wide range of topics, the Social Science Japan Newsletter. The current issue is about hope.
(0)This is a sobering number: only 5% of all prisoners are female. Only 4100 of the 76600 prisoners in Germany are women, not just because women tend to be more law abiding, but also because their criminal offenses are lighter than those of men. Furthermore, women are less prone to repeat their mistakes after they leave prison.
Taking passwords to the grave – what happens with your online accounts after you die
(1)Here’s a short list on display with rather particular first names in Zimbabwe, definitely worth a look on Antonia’s weblog.
…about the future human condition. Check out the list:
50 books list from the Rand corporation.
A telling 11 days after CA, Spiegel Online reports about the prejudice map.
Kushibo, a regular reader and commentator at CA who said that national pride would be the #1 stereotype mentioned about Koreans, made me curious enough to find it out myself… this is the top ten I got, using the same modus operandi (results can differ since the web changes every second):
- “The Koreans are known for solving for low cost, and the Americans? Nah, they’re petrol heads.”
- “Avi, the North Koreans are known for playing hard and nasty on the soccer field.”
- “Koreans are known for liking their food very very very hot and spicy..yuMm!”
- “North Koreans are known for bluffing and running there mouths off to get attention.”
- “The Koreans are known for wanting everything yesterday!”
- “Typically, the Koreans are known for churning out low-cost cars from basic platforms and exporting them globally.”
- “Koreans are known for hiding their age well.”
- “Koreans are known for their boat-shaped shoes.”
- “Koreans are known for separating their family members, such as separating the sexes and the young from the old.”
- “Koreans are known for their negotiating skills, and they often do not look for absolutes, as most things are subject to change.”
Surprisingly, nothing about national pride, but cars, food and soccer.
Reading The Peking Duck, I find this story:
It’s in the middle of the night in Mississippi. A black guy, the name’s Cory Maye, never had anything to do with the police, is alarmed by intruders in the middle of the night. He shoots one of them out of angst for his baby daughter and himself. Turns out, the intruders were the police who broke into his house by mistake and the intruder killed the son of the police chef. The police were on a drug raid but got the wrong guy. A (mostly) white jury sentences him to death since the police rather chose to change their story about drugs, saying they found traces of it in Maye’s possession during the raid which they first concluded wasn’t the case.
If the facts are as reported, this was self-defense. I don’t have a gun at home and never would want one, but I’d be crazy if I don’t defend myself against any intruder who endangers me or my family. Maye gets the death penalty. Unbelievable.
I’ve written before about capital punishment, and my opinion didn’t change at all since then. In the contrary, almost every news item I read about capital punishment confirms my conviction that a flawed system must not be allowed to execute
irreversible decisions about life and death.
There’s a lot of people who don’t think much of the ACLU, and there are others. But – in the case against Intelligent Design a.k.a. Creationism they’re doing 100% the right thing, no doubt about it. Combat it on all fronts, fight back, don’t let it pollute the hearts and minds of children. If this fails, another American key freedom is in dire danger.
After reading that some neighborhood Jon Doe bought an ice-cold rock in a virtual universe for 100.000 real dollars, elsewhere players die or merry online, now the next step comes in form of Second Life. Following Will Wright’s vision of new forms of entertainment, Second Life’s virtual world promises that
…built-in content creation tools let you make almost anything you can imagine, in real time and in collaboration with others.
Companies like Linden Lab are on the safe side with their bussiness plan, there’ll be always people who have a reason to escape their real life just to enjoy a virtual one they can control better – or at least have such an impression. I can’t think of another reason why people play excessively. Nevertheless, I think this feeling of a better grip on one’s (virtual) life is an illusion, the only difference is that you can choose the starting point yourself. After that, you’re on your own, like everybody else and usually rules don’t hinder players to harm each other. In real life, you’re born without having a say in anything, be it outward appearance, character, (future) profession, etc., but in the end, a real life is more intense, diverse and fascinating than any virtual universe could ever be.
Taking a closer look at Second Life’s website, I noticed that you can buy a complete island, so, in other words, they’re making money from thin air – how does their price translate in bits and bytes? Would you buy a virtual beach resort?
From the EFF’s website:
EFF is a donor-funded nonprofit group of passionate people—lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries — who depend on your support to continue successfully defending your digital rights. Litigation is particularly expensive; because two-thirds of our budget comes from individual donors, every contribution is critical to helping EFF fight —and win—more cases.
You Have the Right to Blog Anonymously. EFF has fought for your right to speak anonymously on the Internet, establishing legal protections in several states and federal jurisdictions, and developing technologies to help you protect you identity. With your support, EFF can continue to defend this right, conducting impact litigation to establish strict standards to unmask an anonymous critic in more jurisdictions.
You Have the Right to Keep Sources Confidential. In Apple v. Does, EFF is fighting to establish the reporter’s privilege for online journalists before the California courts. With your support, EFF can defend news bloggers from subpoenas seeking the identity of confidential sources in more jurisdictions.
You Have the Right to Make Fair Use of Intellectual Property. In OPG v. Diebold, Diebold, Inc., a manufacturer of electronic voting machines, had sent out copyright cease-and-desist letters to ISPs after internal documents indicating flaws in their systems were published on the Internet. EFF established the publication was a fair use. With your support, EFF can help fight to protect bloggers from frivolous or abusive threats and lawsuits.
You have the Right to Allow Readers’ Comments Without Fear. In Barrett v. Rosenthal, EFF is working to establish that Section 230, a strong federal immunity for online publishers, applies to bloggers. With your support, EFF can continue to protect bloggers from liability for comments left by third parties.
You Have the Right to Protect Your Server from Government Seizure. In In re Subpoena to Rackspace. EFF successfully fought to unveil a secret government subpoena that had resulted in more than 20 Independent Media Center (Indymedia) news websites and other Internet services being taken offline. With your support, EFF can hold the government accountable for investigations that cut off protected speech.
You Have the Right to Freely Blog about Elections. EFF has advocated for the sensible application of Federal Election Commission rules to blogs that comment on political campaigns. With your support, EFF can continue to protect political blogs from onerous campaign regulations.
You Have the Right to Blog about Your Workplace. EFF has educated bloggers on their rights to blog about their workplace and developed technologies to help anonymous whistle bloggers. With your support, EFF can help shape the law to protect workplace bloggers from unfair retaliation.
You Have the Right to Access as Media. EFF has educated bloggers on their right to access public information, attend public events with the same rights as mainstream media, and how to blog from public events. With your support, EFF can fight for bloggers’ right to access as media.
Know Your Rights and Prepare to Defend Them. EFF has created the Legal Guide for Bloggers to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger and a guide on How to Blog Safely. With your support, EFF can expand and update these guides.
Why do so many people smoke on a fair about medicine and health? Germany desperatly needs air for breathing, enter Irish smoking laws!
Any person found guilty of breaching the ban on smoking in the workplace may be subject to a fine of 3,000 euro. The owner, manager or person in charge of the workplace is legally responsible for ensuring that the ban on smoking in the workplace is complied with.
Even Irish smokers like them, that must count for something? Here’s BBC’s global overview on smoking. A complete ban on tobacco like in Bhutan would be even better, but in no way enforceable and surely wouldn’t be backed by the majority of the population in Germany. One can still dream, though.
It’s pieces like this one, written by Moisés Naím, editor in chief of Foreign Policy that bring back into mind what normalcy
is.
You are not normal. If you are reading these pages, you probably belong to the minority of the world’s population that has a steady job, adequate access to social security, and enjoys substantial political freedoms. Moreover, you live on more than $2 a day, and, unlike 860 million others, you can read.
[...]
At a time when values have become so common in political discourse, it is important to remain alert to when our advice is built on faulty assumptions about what is normal. When that happens, values lead to bad decisions, not moral clarity.
Foreign Policy: Dangerously Unique
update: check out this discussion at joi.ito.com
Very useful, if you’re in a country with oppressive legislation…
Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution. Because they allow and encourage ordinary people to speak up, they’re tremendous tools of freedom of expression.
Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where the mainstream media is censored or under pressure. Only they provide independent news, at the risk of displeasing the government and sometimes courting arrest.
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.
The handbook is available in Chinese, Arabic, Persian, French and English. Wordpress is mentioned as well.
Reporters sans frontières – Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
A friend of mine is in Swaziland right now. She told me about how beautiful the country is – but also, how trouble riddled it is. Take a look at this. The top seven countries, Lesotho, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa have between 20% and 38% HIV/AIDS infected among adults. Those are estimations, but considering the condition of the listed countries I’d be surprised if there were solid numbers. The data from Virtual HIV test comes mainly from UNAIDS and other international Organizations.
In Botswana, I’ve been told, companies take three times the number of apprentices because chances are, two of them will die soon. I can hardly imagine what’s going to happen in the next two decades. I don’t believe the international community is prepared for it though. In Germany, the number of new infections is rising again, with a total of about 44,000 people currently suffering from HIV/AIDS, but it is nowhere near such disastrous conditions as Africa.
Exactly what comes to my mind every time I go to the movies: Newspapers and Movies – Both Fading Fast
(0)
The famine in Niger escalates: About 2-3.5 million people are affected by it, around 150,000-800,000 children already suffer from undernourishment and might die in the near future. The numbers vary a lot, but considering the situation it’s not surprising. Milton Tetonidis of Medecins Sans Frontieres has been quoted that response has yet been very low
– spread the word.
German:
Spiegel Online
Ärtzte ohne Grenzen
Care
Plan Deutschland
English:
United Nations – OCHA IRIN Africa News
Doctors without Borders
Unicef
Allafrica
Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
USAID
Relief Web
Fighting against a French style, by IME Korean and English keyboard enabled computer, copy&pasting the commas because I can’t find it and the “m” and the “@” symbol for email doesn’t work right – this is my first post from our hosts computer. We’ll spend the next three nights at Mrs Park’s house, who offers mainly Koreans, but also other people a place to stay in Bruxelles.
Our trip started out a little bit problematic, since we couldn’t buy a ticket for the regional express train to Cologne. Three ticket vending machines didn’t accept my money or my card, so we didn’t have a choice but to dodge the fair. The ride with the Thalys was great, for ten Euros per person I would even stand all the way, but we had comfortable seats and it went smooth all the way until … well until “Brussel-Zuid”. I blame the hot weather that I was looking out for “Bruxelles-Midi”, as it was written on our tickets, so when the train stopped at Brussel-Zuid, we didn’t get out. “Zuid” also sounds a little bit like “Sued” or “south” in German, but it was indeed Bruxelles-Midi. Just before the train was ready for departure to Paris, we jumped out.
Finding the hostel wasn’t too difficult, although nobody knew the street we were looking for. The place is nice, actually a private apartment with a guest room with four beds. Tonight we share the room with two guys from Swissm using a mixture of German, French and English. After checking in, we went for a walk through a park to the Basilica d’Elizabeth nearby. Walking towards it, we realized its sheer size – and even better, it had an illuminated red cross on top! Perhaps it was sponsored by a South Korean (churches over there always have that kind of a cross), on the backside we saw that one of the windows had a Korean map and the flag. We’ll check it out tomorrow again since it was already closed tonight.
I can’t wait for the Korean breakfast tomorrow morning…
The more I think about the first part of my response, the more I’m convinced there’s basically no need for a second part. Although the initial question was whether the abolishment of capital punishment lead to higher crime rates in Europe, I refuted Curzon’s claim that there’s a correlation between the death penalty and homicides: Deterrence is not a factor. So far, so good – but if the death penalty doesn’t act as a deterrent, in what other way does it affect the crime rate? Since this was the foundation of Curzon’s theory, the rest automatically collapses back upon itself. There’s no proof capital punishment has any effect on crime rates at all, homicide rates or others.
Anyway, let’s take another look at the numbers at hand. A lower crime number in the U.S. is compared to higher crime rates in France, England and Wales between 1995 and 2001. The origin of those numbers is not completely clear. Although most of the links Curzon presented can be found in the top five of perspicuous (?) Google searches (like “crime rate europe homicide”), the mere description another source
for his comparison between the U.S. and European countries doesn’t help much here. Looking further for the source of the mentioned crime numbers (“4161 6941 9927″) reveals that several weblogs beside Dailypundit copied it one from the other, always citing an Interpol source that’s not available (or not available any more). In dubio pro reo, let’s suppose the numbers are from Interpol and are correct (there are other official sources, that still leaves us with the question what’s the connection to the topic at hand? The numbers for the United States are lower than for European countries that abolished the death penalty, but it’s not about homicides, but a general crime rate which can’t be proven to be influenced only by the (existence or abolition of the) death penalty. I don’t want to invoke the obligatory apples and oranges
argument, but let’s rather stick to the homicide rate.
In England, the the House of Commons concluded that capital punishment must now be seen to be inhuman and degrading
and abolished capital punishment in 1973. Note that the last time an execution took place in Britain was 1964 – details here. Here’s the UK Crime Reduction website Curzon took a look at but unfortunately didn’t find the homicide rate chart. Although there is a upwards trend, it is decreasing since 2002/2003. The homicide rate in England and Wales in 2000 was at 1.5 per 100,000 (USA: 5.9): This is not about trends, just a synchronous comparison. Homicide rate London – Washington B.C. between 1998 and 2000: 528 and 733 (which translates to a homicide rate of 2.38 per 100,000 in London and 45,79 in Washington!). Between 1996 and 2000, the homicide rate fell about 1% in all Europe (+25% in England, -10% in France). Russia, as another example saw a drop of 2% in the same time period. They still have capital punishment, although they’re not using it.
France abolished capital punishment in 1981, the last execution taking place in 1977, there’s lots of information about homicides and the overall crime rate for the time between 1997 and (May!) 2005, for an overview of trends, take a look at this. Let’s see how our Canadian neighbors are doing. They abolished capital punishment in 1976, the homicide rate dropped and decreased in the following two decades.
Canadian research on the deterrent effect of punishment has reached the same conclusion as the overwhelming majority of US studies: the death penalty has no special value as a deterrent when compared to other punishments. In fact, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has stated: “It is futile to base an argument for reinstatement on grounds of deterrence”.
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications published a long term statistic about the crime rate in Japan here and a bilingual document from 2005 titled 刑法犯の罪名別認知件数，検挙件数及び検挙人員 (penal code crime cases known to the police, cases cleared up and arrestees by type of crime (1980 to 2002)
) – the numbers for homicide are decreasing, by the way. Charles Lane gives more insight about the death penalty in Japan.
To be fair, the crime rate in Europe is increasing. A report by the University of West England for example shows that there has been a general increase in crime
over the last 25 years (1995). It also mentiones reasons why crime has increased – but don’t be surprised if you don’t find abolition of capital punishment
in the list.
On some mornings you know what you’re going to do over the day, on some morning you wake up and see what the day keeps ready for you. Then there are mornings like this one when you think you know what’s going to happen, but then you read your name on Cominganarchy – surprise, surprise. Curzon wrote a brief outline of the evidence that the death penalty reduces crime
. The post was triggered by a remark from my side that referred to a post about the Death Penalty in Japan on June 2nd.
The question is, does the death penalty have an effect as a deterrence and did the abolishment increase the crime rate in Europe? In his post, Curzon tries to back up his earlier statement with facts. Let’s take a look at those numbers.
Curzon draws a comparison between the homicide rates in the U.S. and Europe – since the definition of homicide is almost identical in most countries, I fully agree that comparisons of homicide rates are valid in this respect. He also posts numbers of a homicide rate cut in half in the last 20 years in the U.S. What happened, that it dropped from the 1980s to 2000? Was it really the death penalty, as Curzon exclaims (Wow, homicides cut in half! That’s quite an accomplishment.
)? I agree, it is an accomplishment, but who or what do you have to thank for? Curzon speaks of a correlation
, but he completely fails to show a connection between capital punishment and the changing homicide rate. He also makes the mistake to focus too much on one rather short period of time. If we take a few steps back and look at the big picture, you will find two peaks in the 20th century where homicide rates in the U.S. peaked. The first one was in the early 30s (keyword prohibition
) with a homicide rate of 9,7 per 100,000 citizens and the second one was during the 80s (keyword war against drugs
), as mentioned by Curzon, with a twice reocurring homicide rate of about 10 per 100,000 citizens until the 1990s. Following his argumentation, we would have to presuppose a rare use of the death penalty in 1930 and 1980.
The number of people on the death row increased steadily since the early 70s (which only means that the offenders were already isolated from society), but did the increase prevent the peak of homicide rates in the 80s? No, it didn’t. How many potential murderers showed up at their friendly neighborhood police station and stated that the death penalty deterred them from killing someone? If there ever was one, I’d honestly be surprised. But then, how do you know the death penalty deterred anyone? I’m using factsheets of the U.S. Department of Justice, the same source Curzon quoted and used.
In the 1930s, the number of executions hit an all-time high and decreased until the 60s, just as the homicide rate decreased. In Curzon-country, the number of homicides should have sky-rocketed, but they didn’t, in the contrary, it was cut in half. Does that mean a laisse-faire, dangerously liberal, left-wingish dilatoriness in regard to capital punishment surprisingly had the effect of people behaving better and killing each other less often? Of course not. Also in the early 1930s, the number of homicides peaked, where’s the correlation with the death penalty now? There is none, just as there is no deterrence. It’s a myth – far not as easy to correlate as a singular, decisive factor for decreasing crime rates as many, many supporters of the death penalty wish it to be.
During the background research for this response, I noted that supporters of the death penalty mention that during highly publicized death penalty cases the homicide rate is found to go down but it goes back up when the case is over
, so that people react to it – Jon Manning, Curzon and alike fail to see that offenders don’t think logically. Murders are not logical per se, no murderer plans to be caught or wants to be caught or recieve the death penalty as a consequence of his (or her) doing. If you take Japan as an example, Younghusband already described the system there as very low-profile, how can it act as a deterrence if it’s low-profile? This part of your theory, Curzon, has no foundation.
I’ll continue with my reponse on the actual comparison between the United States and Europe after I come back from work (I’m sorry to keep you waiting 
).
Pew Global Attitudes Survey published a snapshot of opinions around the world, Howard French reports concisely about an article by Brian Knowlton titled U.S. image abroad. Chirol over at Cominganarchy might be pleased (and possibly sad) to find his opinion in regard to Anti-Americanism to be widespread confirmed – although the U.S. image improved slightly, it is still in the red.
What I found interesting in regard to Germany that Germans don’t see themselves as popular as they really are.
They are much too self-deprecating. In fact, other Western European nations give Germany the highest global favorability ratings of any of the five leading nations (U.S., France, China, Japan and Germany) covered by the survey.
That reminded me of something Dr. Ruprecht Vondran said last year after a lecture on economic issues: Germans can’t and don’t define anymore who they are and don’t love they country any more. In Europe, they’re loosing their cultural and national contour
. If you ask people about the British, French or Italians, they have a certain image in their mind. If you ask them about the Germans, it’s getting increasingly difficult. While I don’t see this much of a problem – define yourself as a European and you’ll be fine – I even see it as an advantage that pride is not a word(many) Germans connect with their country. I had a similar talk about the topic with Sir Francis in Japan some five years ago. Being proud of your country makes you vulnerable, since attaching emotions to such complex, amorph structures as countries leaves lots of opportunities to be criticized and in the course hurt. If you’re hurt, you’re open to revenge, and revenge and irrationality lead to arguments and possibly armed hostilities (sounds Yoda-ish, but I hope you get my point ). There’s nothing wrong with working hard to give something back to society, in the contrary.
Back to the survey: 80% of all Germans were certain that not using violence in the case of Iraq was right in 2003 and that opintion even increased since up to 87%. Between 2002 and 2005 Germany’s support decreased from 70% down to 50%, although I don’t think Germans sympathize less with Americans about what happened on 911, but there’s strong disagreement about implementation, targets, conduct…
Also, Canada was in spot one when the question was how western publics view the Americans – in the categories violent
and rude
, the relationship is deteriorating. Nevertheless, please correct me if I’m wrong, but I still see a difference between the U.S. government and its people. Of course, it got harder to differentiate between those two since George W. Bush’s re-election as all reasons why the U.S. government has been critized in the U.S. and abroad were already on the table before the election. It’s a democracy after all, so it’s not far off to say that the people have a reponsebility when it comes to their duly elected leaders. In the end, every people deserves the government they have, but I’m not so sure
Another bright spot in the survey:
In fact, even the French give Germany a higher favorability rating (89%) than they give their own country (74%). The Germans, however, return the favor, giving France a 78% favorability rating, higher than the 64% they give their own country.
If two countries that had serious …misunderstandings over centuries can get as close as they are now, I’d say that’s reason to be optimistic for all of Europe. It might be difficult at the moment, but there’s hope for the future. By speaking of which, one third in contrast to the rest of the country in Germany thinks immigration is a bad idea. I don’t want to get too far into demographics, xenophobia and national immigration policies, but that’s one of the big omissions our government has allowed itself. Being the son of immigrants myself, I have a slightly different angle on the issue than the afore mentioned two thirds. Those people are afraid to loose the way of life they’re used to, in case there are too many foreigners coming (the boat is full
argument), but that is in my opinion rather a general problem than one connected to immigration. The German way of life changed drastically in the last 50, in the last 100 years, and the developement towards another drastic change is not stoppable. This country need skilled workers, people who don’t only cohabitate but bear children. Does future sociocultural, genetic or otherwise diversity scare you? Take a look at the mayor cities, almost 20% of Düsseldorf’s citizens are foreigners, and nobody can deny that life is good here. In fact, Düsseldorf is one of the wealthiest cities in Germany, just as one argument for the people who are afraid of decreasing economic strength. Diversity is not a threat, it is a neccessity – just as it is change. Call it progess.
Charles Lane, staff writer on national affairs at The Washington Post published an insightful article about the death penalty in Japan at Foreign Policy. A few excerpts:
Unlike capital punishment in the United States, Japan’s death penalty is on the rise. Japanese officials keep state executions out of public view and shrouded in secrecy. Not even the condemned prisoners know the day they will die. Step inside the gallows for a rare look at how Japan takes a life.[...]
Not only is Japan the only member of the Group of Seven industrialized countries other than the United States to retain capital punishment, it is also increasing its use of the death penalty.
[...]
In Japan, death row prisoners are not told in advance of their execution dates—a practice international human rights organizations condemn as a form of psychological torment.
[...]
Perhaps the most notorious such miscarriage of justice involved Sakae Menda, who in 1948, at the age of 23, was convicted of a double ax murder. The conviction was based on the contradiction-riddled testimony of a prostitute and Menda’s own confession, extracted after spending 80 hours in a police station without sleep.
[...]
…it seems incredible that confessions are not given to the court as either tapes or verbatim transcripts. Rather, they are rewritten and summarized by the authorities themselves.
[...]
Toyoko Ogino, an interpreter I worked with in the coal-mining town of Omuta, was surprised when I told her that prisoners were hanged. “I thought that was just an expression,” she said.
[...]
Polls indicate that public support for capital punishment is even stronger in Japan than in the United States—more than 81 percent in a February 2005 survey.
[...]
Five guards press separate buttons simultaneously. Only one of these is the button that actually opens the trap door. And all of this takes place outside the witnesses’ field of vision—offstage, as it were. There is a hanging, but no identifiable hangman.
I’m really irritated by the Japanese people’ high support for capital punishment. I’ll try to find some information about what were the pro and con reasons given. Can’t say for sure whether it’s for real, but I found a picture of the gallows in the Osaka detention center here. I assume Toyoko Ogino’s misunderstanding of the expression
was most probably a reference and mix-up to 首を切る
(kubi wo kiru), which directly translated means something along the lines of to decollate s.o.
. This expression is used when somebody loses his job, but 絞首する
(koushu suru) doesn’t actually carry a metaphoric meaning except to decollate s.o.
.
There’s further information about the death penalty at www.deathpenaltyinfo.org. This information is from their website:
In 2004, there were at least 3,797 executions in 25 countries around the world. China, Iran, the United States, and Viet Nam were responsible for 94 percent of these known executions.
The vast majority of them in China, though. In regard to the death penalty, Japan and the United States are among countries such as China, Iran, Viet Nam, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait, Bangladesh, Egypt, Singapore, Yemen and North Korea. Amnesty International has more facts about the issue here.