「右」の諸君、米国が、戦前、日本、ひいては東アジアに対して犯した犯罪と戦後日本がその占領下にあることに憤れ。「左」の諸君、米帝国主義への憤りを忘れたのか、その米帝の植民地となっている現状に甘んじ続けるのか。日本独立に向けて決起を!〜作成中

#4925(2011.8.12)

 無宗教者の方が、倫理的で死刑、戦争、差別に反対で、外国人、同性愛者、オラルセックス、ハシーシに寛大だと。↓
 ・・・secularists tend to be more ethical than religious people. On average, they are more commonly opposed to the death penalty, war and discrimination. And they also have fewer objections to foreigners, homosexuals, oral sex and hashish.
 <それどころか、宗教について、信徒達より詳しいとさ。↓>
 The most surprising insight revealed by the new wave of secular research so far is that atheists know more about the God they don't believe in than the believers themselves. ・・・
 <唯一神の存在を否定する者は、南カロライナとアーカンサス州では公職に就けないんだって。↓>
 ・・・In the states of South Carolina and Arkansas, those who deny the existence of a supreme being are not even permitted to hold public office.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518...

 米国における黒人差別問題の根の深さを訴えた本が出た。↓
 <これまで、黒人の上院議員は3人、知事は2人しか出ていない。↓>
 ・・・in all of its history, America has elected only three black senators and two black governors.・・・
 <オバマが私淑していたライト師の黒人差別への怒りは当たり前だと。↓>
 Recalling some of the criticisms of America’s past made by Mr. Obama’s former pastor・・・Reverend Wright・・・, (著者の)Mr. Kennedy writes with feeling about his own father, who put each of his three of his children through Princeton but who “never forgave American society for its racist mistreatment of him and those whom he most loved.”
 His father distrusted the police, who had frequently called him “boy,” and rejected patriotism. Mr. Kennedy’s father “relished Muhammad Ali’s quip that the Vietcong had never called him ‘nigger.’ ” The author places his father, and Mr. Wright, in sympathetic historical light.
 <黒人が愛国主義的でないのは当たり前だとも。↓>
 “Many Americans suspect that, in general, African-Americans are less patriotic than whites,” Mr. Kennedy observes. He suggests that African-Americans have never been especially fond of the Fourth of July, for example, partly because the framers of the Declaration of Independence tolerated slavery and partly because the day could be menacing. Whites sometimes “took offense at the sight of blacks celebrating,” he says, “as if they were members of the American political family.”・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/12/books/the-persis...

 女性の方が(私の言葉に置き換えれば)男性より人間主義的だから、これからは、指導者に女性を就けるべきだとよ。そうだそうだ、そのとおりだ。↓
 ・・・ new business realities usher in the need for a new leadership model, one that replaces command and control with transparency and inclusion. This will increasingly highlight the value of a more feminine approach.・・・
 ・・・stress seemed to increase the capacity for empathy in women while reducing it in males.・・・
 ・・・women (from fifth grade to adulthood) had superior scores in accurately judging messages communicated by facial expressions, body movement and voice quality.
 And not only are women more adept at identifying nonverbal cues, they are better at expressing them―employing more animation, gesture, vocal variety and emotion in their communication behavior.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-leadersh...



#4953(2011.8.26)

 エストニアが、世界で最も世俗的な国なんだって。
 定義によるな。
 ボクは日本が世界で最も世俗的な国だと思うがね。(日本で、結婚式ないし葬式を無宗教で行う人、プラス結婚式は神式で葬式は仏式で行う人、の割合だけでも8割なんてもんじゃないだろう。)↓
 ・・・When Estonians were recently asked whether religion played an important part in their life, only 20% said yes. It suggests the Baltic country is, statistically, the least religious country in the world.・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14635021



#5065(2011.10.21)

 エート、話は全く変わるが、TAさんやjaguar321(コラム#5063)のためにも、世界各地における人間主義の発現形態について、私の抱いているイメージを再整理して提示しておこう。
 過激なエスノセントリズムだとぶったたかれそうだが、異論あらば、どしどしどうぞ。

・日本(=人間主義社会)
 :対個人の人間主義→全動植物の個体が対象。
 :対社会の人間主義→世界各地のすべての社 会及び自然環境が対象。
                    
・アングロサクソン(=人間主義的社会)
 :対個人の人間主義→全人類が対象。
 :対社会の人間主義→世界各地のアングロサクソン社会のみが対象。

・米国と欧州(=非人間主義社会)
 :対個人の人間主義→全人類が対象。(ただし、つい最近まで、自分の社会の支配的人種ないし支配的階級に属す個人のみが対象)
 :対社会の人間主義→自分の社会のみが対象 (ただし、つい最近まで、自分の社会の支配的人種ないし支配的階級のみが対象)

・支那等(=反人間主義社会)
 :対個人の人間主義→自分の一族(疑似的一族を含む)に属す個人のみが対象。
 :対社会の人間主義→自分の一族(同上)のみが対象。



#5067(2011.10.22)

<TA>

 コラム#5065の「世界各地における人間主義の発現形態」の説明での、「非人間主義社会」(米国と欧州)と「反人間主義社会」(支那等)との違いとは、「程度」の多寡によるものなのでしょうか。
 それとも質的な違いによるものなのでしょうか。また、「反人間主義」を直接に表現する語彙はないものでしょうか。

<太田>

 ご質問については、下掲の記事を参照。

 大英帝国の暴虐性にについては、英国でもかなり主張がなされるようになった。
 (先の大戦の際の英国のチャーチルの大愚行についてもそうなるのはいつのことやら。)↓
 ・・・tens of millions were exposed, for instance, to famine and early death in India and Ireland when the British turned them into laboratories for experiments in unfettered free trade.
 <英領インドでのインド人の大量死は、ナチスのそれに相当する人道に対する罪だってよ。↓>
 These were not “genocides” or “holocausts”, as some leftwing critics of empire allege. But, perpetrated by British free traders, they were certainly the first of the modern era’s uniquely ideological crimes, for which the central planners of communist regimes are more commonly blamed. ・・・
 ・・・the rulers of the British empire will one day be perceived to rank with the dictators of the 20th century as the authors of crimes against humanity on an infamous scale・・・
 <ネールは、1936年に既に英帝国主義をナチズムの双子の兄弟だ、と形容していたらしいね。↓>
 Nehru’s inveterate Anglophilia did not water down his analysis in 1936 that British imperialism was the “twin brother” of Nazism, with the “variation” that the former “functioned abroad in colonies and dependencies” while the latter presumed to function the same way in Europe.・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/3b56dac0-f992-11e0-...

 米国のアラバマ州では、いまだに黒人はほとんど陪審員になることができない。↓
 Black people are being systematically and intentionally excluded from jury service in parts of Alabama almost 140 years after the practice was outlawed in the US, a lawsuit lodged with the federal courts alleges.・・・
 Racial discrimination in jury selection was banned under the 1875 Civil Rights Act, but prosecutors in many southern states continued to achieve all-white juries through the use of pre-emptive ruses that excluded black people through the application of seemingly non-racial criteria.
 ・・・racial discrimination was still rampant in courtrooms across Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Tennessee.・・・
 ・・・though 24% of the population in the two Alabama counties was black, only 5% of the jurors sitting on death penalty cases prosecuted by Valeska and his team in those areas was African American.
 It further alleges that the prosecutors intentionally struck off 82% of the eligible black jurors in death penalty cases between 2006 and 2010, leading to juries that were all white or had only a single black juror.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/21/race-d...

 ロシアは文字通りのマフィア国家であり、プーチン支持者達は、ナショナリズムの虜であるとともに、私益のために国家資産の略奪を続けている。↓
 Mafia State・・・
 ・・・the Putinistas have two main motives. One is grudge-bearing nationalism, allied to a deep conviction that other countries operate in the same way, even if their rulers suborn courts and elections more neatly. As he notes, those nationalistic instincts don't stop some senior apparatchiks stashing their assets and in some cases their families in London.
 The other, more important motive is personal enrichment. On the face of it, this is a paradox: why pillage a country that you want to flourish? Though Harding doesn't explore it, the reasoning of the ruling class seems to go like this. In theory, and eventually, Russia must be great (ie, feared by others; the welfare of its citizens is not a big consideration). But this particular Russia, the one we have inherited, is a contemptible mess -- and if we don't plunder it, someone else will.・・・
 <ロシアには政治もビジネスもない。あるのは犯罪だけだ。↓>
 ・・・ in Russia, there are no politics or business stories: "There are only crime stories."・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/oct/21/mafia-...



#5069(2011.10.23)

 昨日に引き続き、非人間主義社会の実態をご紹介しよう。↓
 <米国で黒人がむっちゃくちゃに投獄されている。↓>
 ・・・An estimated 50 percent of all extended black and Hispanic families in the United States have had a member incarcerated in the past 35 years. For the poorest in both groups, the figure approaches 100 percent. Drucker points out that black males between 21 and 44 are 40 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses than white males of the same age group. In light of numerous studies showing that people of all races are about equally likely to use and sell illegal drugs, this is a telling statistic, to say the least.・・・
 ・・・an epidemic that first broke out as slavery and later as Jim Crow, and now has mutated, resurfacing in a new form. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/...
 <依然として黒人の子供の40%は、ほとんど黒人だけの学校に通っている。↓>
 ・・・40 percent of African American kids still attended schools that were almost completely segregated. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/...
 <イルカは高知能であるが故に特別に保護されなければならない、という恐るべき偏見を吐き続けている米国人。↓>
 ・・・“Dolphins are among the smartest creatures on the planet ― fully conscious, creative, and highly communicative, with an intelligence rare in nature,” writes Diana Reiss in “The Dolphin in the Mirror.” Now Director of Dolphin Research at Baltimore’s National Aquarium・・・
 Reiss, who served as an adviser on the Oscar-winning 2009 film “The Cove,” which documented bloody dolphin hunts in Tajii, Japan, writes passionately about the need to protect these sentient creatures who she believes are capable of empathy. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/...



#5071(2011.10.24)

 差別撤廃と平等実現とは二律背反関係にあるって米国のノーベル経済学賞受賞者のベッカーシカゴ大学教授が言ってるが、嘘っぱちだろ。日本の例を見ろ。↓
 <米国は黒人等への差別を撤廃した結果、経済的不平等度が増大するとともに経済階層が固定化したってさ。↓>
  IT’S a puzzle: one dispossessed group after another -- blacks, women, Hispanics and gays -- has been gradually accepted in the United States, granted equal rights and brought into the mainstream.
 At the same time, in economic terms, the United States has gone from being a comparatively egalitarian society to one of the most unequal democracies in the world.
 The two shifts are each huge and hugely important: one shows a steady march toward democratic inclusion, the other toward a tolerance of economic stratification that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. ・・・
 <欧州じゃ経済的平等が維持されているが、マイノリティーに対する差別が残っているとよ。↓>
 Other nations seem to face the same challenge: either inclusive, or economically just. Europe has maintained much more economic equality but is struggling greatly with inclusiveness and discrimination, and is far less open to minorities than is the United States. ・・・
 “I do think there is a trade-off between inclusion and equality,” said Gary Becker, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a Nobel laureate. ・・・
 <地理的意味での欧州の中で、英国だけは米国と状況が似ている。↓>
  Of the European countries, Britain’s politics of inequality and inclusion most resemble those of the United States. Even as inequality has grown considerably, the British sense of economic class has diminished. As recently as 1988, some 67 percent of British citizens proudly identified themselves as working class. Now only 24 percent do. Almost everybody below the Queen and above the poverty line considers himself or herself “middle class.”
 <ドイツじゃ、10歳の時に大学進学組と職業訓練校行きとに分別される。↓>
 Germany still has robust protections for its workers and one of the healthiest economies in Europe. Children at age 10 are placed on different tracks, some leading to university and others to vocational school -- a closing off of opportunity that Americans would find intolerable. But it is uncontroversial because those attending vocational school often earn as much as those who attend university. ・・・
 <米国の経済不平等度は、大恐慌直前のレベルに回帰しつつある。↓>
  From the 1930s to the 1960s, the income of the less affluent Americans grew more quickly than that of their wealthier neighbors, and the richest 1 percent saw its share of the national income shrink to 8.9 percent in the mid-1970s, from 23.9 percent in 1928. That share is now back up to more than 20 percent, its level before the Depression.
 <機会の平等志向で条件の平等志向じゃない米国において、いまや、経済階層間移動がなくなりつつある。↓>
 Inequality has traditionally been acceptable to Americans if accompanied by mobility. But most recent studies of economic mobility indicate that it is getting even harder for people to jump from one economic class to another in the United States, harder to join the elite. While Americans are used to considering equal opportunity and equality of condition as separate issues, they may need to reconsider.・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/opinion/sunday/s...



#5081(2011.10.29)

 イギリス人が最も異邦人であると感じるのは米国においてだと喝破した奴がいたのね。↓
 ・・・ G. K. Chesterton・・・said that nowhere on earth does an Englishman feel as much a stranger as in the United States.・・・
 <なのに、急にイギリス込の欧州対米国、という図式で話が展開するのはおかしいじゃん。↓>
 Religion aside, political differences between the countries have been formed by profoundly diverse historical experiences. If we still use the vocabulary of left and right, then the veteran observer William Pfaff is correct to say that there is no important political party in Western Europe today that does not stand to the left of the Democrats on social issues. Despite all their demographic challenges, European countries are not going to abandon their welfare systems. Nor are they going to lose their aversion to war. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/magazine/rethink...

 ニール・ファーガソンの旧著の書評なのか、新著の書評なのか調べなかったが、ファーガソンこんなに日本のこと分かってたんだっけ?↓
 <何が、欧米の優位をもたらしたか、の彼のいつものご高説は以下のごとし。↓>
 ・・・the West's "killer apps." ・・・competition・・・the growth of science・・・property rights defined by law・・・the triumph of Western medicine・・・the development of consumer society・・・West's work ethic・・・
 <欧米・・欧州とアングロサクソンを一括りにしてるのは相変らずだが・・のマネを最もうまくやったのが日本とイスラエルだとよ。↓>
 ・・・the most successful non-Western polities are those that have "downloaded" the six apps. At the top of the class is Japan,・・・<a> smaller, but no less spectacular, example is Israel・・・
 <日露戦争での日本の勝利は、立憲主義の専制主義への勝利だとさ。↓>
 When Japan vanquished Russia in 1905, its victory was widely understood by Westerners, not least by President Theodore Roosevelt, as the triumph of constitutionalism over autocracy.・・・
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702047...



#5087(2011.11.1)

 ニール・ファーガソンのどうやら新著らしいが、彼自らがその紹介をしており、欧米を世界の覇者に押し上げた諸要因において、米国が今やどんな体たらくに陥ってしまっているかが記されている。↓
 <働かなくなった。↓>
 ・・・work ethic・・・The school year in South Korea is 220 days long, compared with 180 days here. ・・・
 consumer society・・・26 of the 30 biggest shopping malls in the world are now in emerging markets, mostly in Asia? Only three are in the United States. ・・・
 <健康面でふるわない。↓>
 Modern medicine・・・ life expectancy in the U.S. has risen from 70 to 78 in the past 50 years, compared with leaps from 68 to 83 in Japan and from 43 to 73 in China.・・・
 <法の支配面でもふるわない。↓>
 ・・・rule of law・・・ take a look at the latest World Economic Forum (WEF) Executive Opinion Survey. On no fewer than 15 of 16 different issues relating to property rights and governance, the United States fares worse than Hong Kong. Indeed, the U.S. makes the global top 20 in only one area: investor protection. On every other count, its reputation is shockingly bad. The U.S. ranks 86th in the world for the costs imposed on business by organized crime, 50th for public trust in the ethics of politicians, 42nd for various forms of bribery, and 40th for standards of auditing and financial reporting.・・・
 <科学(新規特許権数)においても後塵を拝する始末。↓>
 ・・・science・・・statistics from the World Intellectual Property Organization show that already more patents originate in Japan than in the U.S., that South Korea overtook Germany to take third place in 2005, and that China is poised to overtake Germany too.・・・
 <競争においても急速にダメに。↓>
  ・・・competition・・・the WEF has conducted a comprehensive Global Competitiveness survey -every year since 1979. Since the current methodology was adopted in 2004, the United States’ average competitiveness score has fallen from 5.82 to 5.43, one of the steepest declines among developed economies. China’s score, meanwhile, has leapt up from 4.29 to 4.90.・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/30/n...



#5095(2011.11.5)

 英国は、自国(英国以外のアングロサクソン諸国を含む?)こそ成文憲法を持たないが、国際連盟規約、西ドイツ憲法、旧植民地諸国の憲法、といった具合に、成文憲法をたくさん作成してきたってさ。↓
 ・・・Britain's relationship with constitutional writing is not quite what it may appear. Its rulers have resisted a codified constitution at home, but their behaviour overseas has been rather different. With regard to territories outside their own islands, British actors have proved hyperactive constitution-writers. They have drafted constitutions for international organisations such as the League of Nations; for other countries, including postwar Germany; and, from the 1790s onwards, and on hundreds of occasions, for different parts of their one-time empire. As one politician admitted chirpily in the 1960s: "We in Britain have no constitution of our own, but we have quite a lot of experience of writing constitutions for other people."・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/nov/04/why-br...



#5099(2011.11.7)

 欧州各国における極右政党の状況が一目で分かるよ。↓
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2011/n...

 共通するのは、かつての反ユダヤ主義ならぬ反イスラム主義。↓
 ・・・s antisemitism was a unifying factor for far-right parties in the 1910s, 20s and 30s, Islamophobia has become the unifying factor in the early decades of the 21st century・・・
 <仏伊墺から今や蘭・スカンディナヴィアへと広がる極右政党の台頭。↓>
 Parties touting anti-immigrant and Islamophobic ideas have spread beyond established strongholds in France, Italy and Austria to the traditionally liberal Netherlands and Scandinavia, and now have significant parliamentary blocs in eight countries. Other nations have seen the rise of nationalist street movements like the English Defence League (EDL). ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/06/far-ri...

 神サマと縁が切れない米国を揶揄するコラムだ。↓
 The House voted 396-9 this week to reaffirm as the national motto the phrase "In God We Trust" and encouraged its pronouncement on public buildings and continued printing on the coin of the realm.・・・
 <神は米国建国原理であるところの自由と安全と、何のかかわりもない。↓>
 It's time to drop the God talk and face reality with a steely-eyed visage of the modern understanding of the origin of freedom on which the United States was founded and continues to be secured. God has nothing to do with it. If you want freedom and security, you need the following:
 <自由と安全をより確保すれば、人々の間の信頼は向上し、それが経済成長をもたらす。↓>
 The rule of law; property rights; a secure and trustworthy banking and monetary system; economic stability; a reliable infrastructure and the freedom to move about the country; freedom of the press; freedom of association; education for the masses; protection of civil liberties; a clean and safe environment; a robust military for protection of our liberties from attacks by other states; a potent police force for protection of our freedoms from attacks by people within the state; a viable legislative system for establishing fair and just laws; and an effective judicial system for the equitable enforcement of those fair and just laws.・・・
 ・・・the more of these components that are in place, the more citizens trust one another. ・・・a 15% increase in the proportion of people in a country who think others are trustworthy raises income per person by 1% per year for every year thereafter. For example, increasing levels of trust in the U.S. from its current 36% to 51% would raise the average income for every man, woman and child in the country by $400 per year. Trust pays.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-...



#5103(2011.11.9)

 前にも取り上げたことがあるが、再び引用されてたので改めて紹介しておこう。
 要するに、先進国中、キリスト教信心の深い社会ほど社会悪がはびこっとるのよ。↓
・・・一般的に、豊かな民主主義国家では、単一の創造主を信仰したり崇拝したりする者の割合が高ければ高いほど、殺人事件発生率、若者の死亡率、性病感染率、十代の妊娠、中絶率が高くなる。米国は、殆どの事柄について機能不全である先進民主主義国家であるが、事柄によっては驚くほどそうなのだ。・・・
 
・・・In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion in the prosperous democracies. The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developed democracies, sometimes spectacularly so・・・
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/11/god-f...



#5121(2011.11.18)

 ロシア人は、争ってロシアから逃げ出している。↓
 ・・・Roughly 1.25 million Russians have left the country in the last 10 years・・・
 ・・・the exodus is so large, it's comparable in numbers to the outrush in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution.・・・
  Among 18- to 35-year-olds, close to 40% of respondents say they'd like to leave.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f...



#5125(2011.11.20)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 ヴェルディとワーグナーは同じ1813年生まれだが未成立の祖国を愛した天才的歌劇作曲家で自然宗教志向であった点以外は対照的だった。
 単なる作曲家v.作曲家プラス脚本家、慰安してくれるセラピストv.狂気に誘うテロリスト、利他主義者v.利己主義者。
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2011...

 アラブの春に続き、今度は欧州の冬だとさ。
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/18/opinion/kalantza...
 言いえて妙だな。
 既にギリシャとイタリアで首相が交代したところ、スペインじゃ現首相が既に3選を諦め、来年にはフランス大統領が再選を果たせそうもなく、ドイツ首相も支持率低下にあえいでいる、というわけだ。

<太田>

 昨年の夏からこのプロセスは始まってたみたいだから、欧州の冬じゃなく、欧州の夏かあ。
 その先に書いてあることだけど、英国のEUからの脱退がありうるというのは、ファーガソンの言うとおりだが、それがEUそのものの解体をもたらすとか、他方でユーロ圏の解体は必至だとかいうことは論理がよく分からないな。↓
 <政権交代は、オランダ、スロヴァキア、ベルギー、アイルランド、フィンランド、ポルトガル、スロヴェニア、そうしてギリシャ、イタリアの順序だったんだねえ。↓>
 ・・・ Since June 2010 governments have fallen in the Netherlands, Slovakia, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Portugal, Slovenia, Greece and Italy.・・・
 Under E.U. law, it would be much easier for Britain to leave the European Union than for Greece to leave the euro zone. ・・・
 The breakdown of the European Union is now more likely than the collapse of the single currency that was supposed to bind it together.・・・
 the thing that could cause the European Union to topple, or at least shrink in size, would be the outright withdrawal of Britain. And that has started to look quite possible.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-eu-coll...



#5127(2011.11.21)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 若者の失業率が50%近いスペインで、総選挙の結果、左派から右派への政権交代が決まった。英国やドイツに職を求める若者がひきもきらずだとよ。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15814038
 これだけ「南北」の溝が相対的に大きくなった以上、ユーロ圏、はたまたEUそのものがいつまで持つことやら。



#5129(2011.11.22)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 アラブの春と欧州(南部)の冬(or夏)は、地中海世界における共通の現象じゃないかという気がしてきた。
 どちらも工業がダメで知識産業も弱いときてるんだから、若者の就職先がないはずだわ。
 そういえば、欧州(南部)も一度はイスラム(ウマイア/アッバース朝、オスマントルコ)支配下にあったな。

<太田>

 それでは、記事の紹介です。

 ほぼ正解だ。
 もっとはっきり、米国は議院内閣制にしないとどうしょうもない、と書いて欲しかったね。↓
 ・・・The real problem America faces is political・・・
 Just look at the numbers: In 2010, barely 40 percent of the voting eligible population bothered to cast a vote・・・.
 The 2006 midterm, which brought the Democrats to power in the House and Senate, drew almost exactly the same rate -- 40.4 percent. (In Obama’s 2008 election, by comparison, Americans turned out in “record-setting” turnout amounted to 61.6 percent).・・・
 The tendency of midterm elections to produce a factions that don’t reflect mainstream opinions --empowered ignorance, if you will -- only deepened the fatal flaw・・・
 ・・・the radical solution was to cut the politicians out of the picture. In both <Greece and Italy>, governments of technocratic experts -- each, importantly, led by an economist -- were formed・・・
 Such a solution is more difficult in a presidential system -- but not impossible.・・・
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_reckoning/2011/11/2...

 ホントに米国の政治の劣化は目を覆わしめるものがある。
 現在の共和党はもはやキリスト教原理主義者に乗っ取られていると言ってもよさそうだ。↓
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hu...



#5137(2011.11.26)

 米映画界が、依然としてどんなに男優位の世界かが示されている。↓
 <観客動員数上位100位までの米映画のセリフのある役の3分の2は男優がやっている。↓>
 ・・・In a survey of the top 100-grossing movies of 2009 -- including "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" -- researchers found that 32.8% of the 4,342 speaking characters were female and 67.2% were male, a percentage identical to that of the top-grossing movies of 2008.・・・
 <女優の方が男優よりはるかに性的魅力で勝負させられている。↓>
 ・・・women were still far more likely than men to wear sexy clothing in movies, such as swimwear and unbuttoned shirts (25.8% versus 4.7%), to expose skin (23% versus 7.4%) and to be described by another character as attractive (10.9% versus 2.5%).・・・
 <監督の3.6%、脚本家の13.5%しか女性じゃない。↓>
  ・・・only 3.6% of the directors and 13.5% of the writers on the top-grossing films of 2009 were female・・・
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-fi...



#5141(2011.11.28)

 米国で、性依存症患者がうなぎのぼりだそうだ。
 ここでは引用しなかったが、出会い系サイトが増えたことがその背景にあるってさ。
 ポルノへのアクセスが簡単になったことと同じような話だが、要するに、おかげで性犯罪は減ったけど性依存症は増えた、ってことのようだね。↓
 ・・・between 3 and 5 percent of the U.S. population―or more than 9 million people―could meet the criteria for <sex> addiction. Some 1,500 sex therapists treating compulsive behavior are practicing today, up from fewer than 100 a decade ago・・・
 ・・・about 90 percent―are male・・・That’s partly because women are more apt than men to be stigmatized by association with sex addiction・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/11/27/t...



#5143(2011.11.29)

 フランス世論、外国人への地方選挙権付与の方向へ。↓
 ・・・a majority of French people now say they favor something their Yankee cousins may have yet to consider: giving legal aliens the right to vote in some elections. ・・・
  61% of respondents favoring foreigners getting the right to vote in France's local elections. ・・・
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/28/should...



#5149(2011.12.2)

 現在の共和党大統領候補予備軍を見る限り、政治家に人なしという日本病に、何と宗主国米国まで侵されつつあるようだ。
 米国の覇権喪失を先取りし、早くも、大統領なんて優秀でまともな人間が目指す対象じゃなくなりつつあるのかしらん?↓
 ・・・It's true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it's just not that funny anymore. In fact, it's utterly horrifying.
 It's horrifying because these eight so-called, would-be candidates are eagerly ruining not only their own reputations and that of their party, the party of Lincoln lore. Worse: They're ruining the reputation of the United States.
 <嘘を付く、不倫する、誇張する、どなりつける。白痴的、無知丸出しの、そしてひどいことを次々に言う。政治、経済、地理、歴史についての恐るべき無知。↓>
 They lie. They cheat. They exaggerate. They bluster. They say one idiotic, ignorant, outrageous thing after another. They've shown such stark lack of knowledge -- political, economic, geographic, historical -- that they make George W. Bush look like Einstein and even cause their fellow Republicans to cringe. ・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,8...

 ロシアの将来はバラ色だっちゅう予想をする変わった人物もいるんだねえ。↓
 ・・・even with an ageing population, Russia’s gross domestic product could overtake that of France, the UK and ultimately Germany by 2030. ・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/55fd4e0c-16db-11e1-...



#5151(2011.12.3)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 アフガニスタンで、強姦され、12年の刑に服していた女性が、この強姦男と結婚することを条件に釈放されることになったところ、本件が国際的反響を呼んだこともあり、無条件で釈放され、匿われる・・一族に殺されるのを防ぐため・・ことになった。
 いい顔だ。
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/01/world/asia/afgha...



#5161(2011.12.8)

 パキスタンで強姦された女性の話をした(コラム#5151)けど、呆れかえるのは自らを省みてからにしろ、というコラムが出てたよ。↓
 <つい最近まで、米国では、夫が妻を強姦することは罪ではなかった。↓>
 ・・・it was only in 1980 that the California Legislature made it illegal for a husband to rape his wife. As late as the 1950s, the right of a husband to take his wife by force was enshrined in the laws of every state. As legal authority Rollin Perkins put it in 1957: "A man does not commit rape by having sexual intercourse with his lawful wife, even if he does so by force and against her will."・・・
 <かつてのイギリスでは、妊娠したらそれは和姦の証拠だとされていた。↓>
 ・・・early English courts took pregnancy as proof that the sex was consensual. The idea was that both the man and the woman needed to experience sexual pleasure to conceive a child, so a pregnancy showed that the woman enjoyed the encounter. And this contemptible theory is not found only in history books. In 1995, North Carolina legislator Henry Aldridge, when arguing against a law to aid pregnant rape victims, said: "The facts show that people who are raped, who are truly raped, the juices don't flow, the body functions don't work, and they don't get pregnant."
 <旧約聖書の申命記には、処女を強姦した者はその女と結婚せよと書かれている。ルネッサンス期のイタリアでも、強姦は番うための儀式ととらえられていた。↓>
 Particularly galling to Western readers of the Gulnaz story was the idea of pushing a rape victim to marry her ravisher. But the Afghan judge who told her she could escape from jail by marrying the rapist was in line with Judeo-Christian tradition. Deuteronomy 22:28-29 lays out how if a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed and "seizes her and lies with her," then "she shall be his wife." The Afghan judge would also have found friendly company in the courts of Renaissance Italy, which viewed rape as a kind of mating ritual. In one case in Venice, a rapist was given the choice of going to jail for six months, paying a fine or marrying his victim. The man chose marriage.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-...



#5165(2011.12.10)

 今やドイツは名実ともにEUの盟主となった。↓
 No so long ago, France was the political driver and Germany the economic motor of the European Union. "Now," remarked former European Commission president Romani Prodi in February, it is Merkel "that decides and Sarkozy that holds a press conference to explain her decisions." This searing image could be embellished with the 24 EU members cowering in the press room -- and Britain now watching through the window. ・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/09/_... 

 英国はEU加盟国中、唯一、財政規律強化条約への加入を拒否。↓
 European leaders say 26 out of 27 EU member states have backed a tax and budget pact to tackle the eurozone debt crisis.
 Only the UK has said it will not join. Prime Minister David Cameron said he had to protect key British interests, including its financial markets.
 The 17 countries that use the euro have all agreed to the deal.・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16115373

 英国がEUそのものから脱退する日も遠くない?
 何度でも言うが、アングロサクソンと(野蛮な)欧州とは心を通い合わせることなんてできないのさ。↓
 How long will Britain stay in the EU?・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/d9e7cd56-226a-11e1-...



#5167(2011.12.11)

 アラブの春、欧州南部の冬〜夏に引き続き、今度は一周遅れのロシアの冬が到来? モスクワを始め、ロシア各地で反プーチン派のデモ。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16122524

 ドイツ(欧州大陸)側から、英国にEUから出て行くよう示唆。↓
 ・・・Great Britain is an EU member that never truly wanted to be part of the club. It was more of an observer than a contributor and it always had one eye on Washington. Indeed, it is telling that the country never joined the border-free travel regime known as Schengen -- Britain still checks everybody who enters the country from the other side of the Channel. The political establishment was likewise extremely skeptical of the common currency from the very beginning.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,...



#5169(2011.12.12)

<bonkers_blunder>

 英国は現在でも欧州から孤立してやっていけるのでしょうか?
 UK's Clegg attacks Conservative allies over EU・・・
http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/2011/12/11/uk-s-c...

<太田>

 スイスがやっていることができないはずがありません。
その上、スイスと違って英国にはシティーがあります。↓
  ・・・Cameron behaved as though his priority was to save the City, and he arrived with demands. As an even more undiplomatic diplomat told me, “He cares more about those spivs(=様々なうさん臭い方法でお金をもうける無職の人) in the City than he cares about us.”・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-camer...



#5171(2011.12.13)

 英国がEUの財政規律強化策に一国だけ反対したことに、英国民は圧倒的支持を与えている。↓
 ・・・57 percent of voters approved of Cameron's use of the veto and just 14 percent opposed it -- but also that 56 percent also agreed that British influence within the European Union would be diminished. ・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/12/12/a...



#5173(2011.12.14)

 米国の女性のパイパン率が急速に高まりつつあるってさ。↓
 ・・・nearly 60 percent of American women between 18 and 24 are sometimes or always completely bare down there, while almost half of women in the U.S. between 25 and 29 reported similar habits. Herbenick's numbers show a clear-cut trend: More women lack pubic hair than ever before.・・・
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2011/12/porni...



#5175(2011.12.15)

 米国で晩婚化傾向、結婚しない傾向が加速度化してるってさ。↓
 ・・・The median age for marriage is now at its highest level as more young people put off tying the knot or cohabitate instead. And last year, only 9 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds were married, a big drop from 45 percent a half century ago.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-v...

 米国で性暴力の対象となる女性がいかに多いかのデータだ。↓
 <生涯に性的攻撃の対象となる女性の割合は5分の1近い。↓>
 ・・・Nearly one-fifth of U.S. women have been the victim of a sexual assault at some time in their lives・・・
 <このほか、生涯に恋人や夫から深刻な物理的暴力を受ける女性の割合は4分の1.↓>
 In addition, one in four has been the victim of severe physical violence by a boyfriend or husband・・・
 <6分の1がストーカー被害に遭い、自分自身や自分の近しい人が傷つけられたり殺されたりするかという思いを経験している。↓>
 The survey also found that one in six has experienced a stalking that made her very fearful or believed that someone close to her would be harmed or killed.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-checkup/po...



#5179(2011.12.17)

 太田コラムに何度も登場した、英国生まれの米評論家のクリストファー・ヒッチェンスが癌との戦いを経て亡くなった。
 戦闘的無神論者だった。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16212418
 ボクと同い年ということもあり、勝手に戦友視させてもらっていた。
 心から哀悼の意を表したい。

 キャメロン英首相が、英国はキリスト教国であると語る。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16224394
 記事を読んでもらえば分かるが、彼は、英国(イギリス?)は英国教の国であるという自明の理を語ったわけじゃない。
 イギリス人として生まれ、米国に帰化してなお無神論を説いたヒッチェンスはエライ!

 亡くなったヒッチェンスの追悼記事がワンサカ英米の主要メディアの電子版に出てて、スレート誌なんて、記事の数、数えられないくらいだったぞ。
 そのうちから、ほんの少しだけ紹介しておこう。↓
 <彼のお母さんが愛人と心中したとは知らんかった。↓>
 ・・・His mother's death in Athens, killing herself in a suicide pact with her lover・・・
 <左翼だったのに、対イラク戦に賛成。↓>
 Christopher supported a war・・・the 2003 Iraq war・・・that he suggested would stop Saddam Hussein using the country as "his own personal torture chamber".・・・
 <宗教・・私に言わせれば一神教、就中アブラハム系宗教・・を激しく批判。↓>
 In・・・God is Not Great<(2007)>・・・he argued that religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry",・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/16/christ...
 <マザーテレサ、クリントン(夫の方)、キッシンジャー、チョムスキー、ペイリンおばさま、ゴア・ヴィダル、を激しく批判。他方、トマス・ペインとオーウェルを賞賛。↓>
 ・・・In the 1990s, he wrote a book attacking Mother Teresa, then did the same to Bill Clinton, whom he considered "pathological as a liar." He was an equal opportunity critic, taking on Henry Kissinger, Noam Chomsky, Sarah Palin and Gore Vidal. Among his role models? Thomas Paine・・・<and> George Orwell・・・
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la...



#5181(2011.12.18)

 フランスが、トルコによるアルメニア人大虐殺を否定する論を処罰する法律を制定しようとしていることで、フランスとトルコの間の緊張が高まっている。↓
 Turkey threatened President Nicolas Sarkozy of France with retaliation if he signs into law a bill that would make it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire in 1915・・・
 The French state has recognized the Armenian genocide since 2001, but criminalizing its denial would stir deep anger in Turkey. Germany has a similar law making it illegal to deny the Jewish Holocaust.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702045...



#5193(2011.12.24)

 米国じゃ、宗教活動を一生懸命やってる者ほど、人間主義的だってさ。↓
 ・・・some 40 percent of Americans engage in some form of religious activity, whether going to a mosque, a synagogue, or a church. And in turn, they feel better all around about their place in the larger civic community.
 ・・・these individuals are more trusting of others, are more optimistic about their impact on their community, think more highly of their community, are more involved in more organizations of all kinds, and devote more time to the groups to which they are active, in comparison to those who do not engage in religious activities.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2011/1223/Rel...



#5199(2011.12.27)

 米国の犯罪率は著しい低下傾向が見られ、その傾向は現在でも続いている。
 ただし、引用しなかったが、その原因は余り解明されていない。↓
 ・・・Between 1991 and 2010, the homicide rate in the United States fell 51 percent, from 9.8 per 100,000 residents to 4.8 per 100,000. Property crimes such as burglary also fell sharply during that period; auto theft, once the bane of urban life, dropped an astonishing 64 percent. And・・・the trends continued in the first half of 2011. With luck, the United States could soon equal its lowest homicide rate of the modern era: 4.0 per 100,000, recorded in 1957. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/taking-a-bi...



#5205(2011.12.30)

<ηΓηΓ>

 フリーダム・ライダーズ 人種隔離バスへの抵抗
http://democracynow.jp/video/20100201-1

 NHKで、このドキュメンタリーを見たのだが本当に凄まじい。
 人種隔離バスへ抗議するために‘フリーダム・ライダーズ’を名乗る白人黒人のグループがバスに一緒に乗り込むのだが、このバスのタイヤが何者かにパンクさせられ、運転手は逃げ出す始末。バスの窓は割られ、炎上してしまい、後はお決まりの暴力沙汰。
 FBI長官フーバーは司法長官に何も報告せず、ケネディはフルシチョフとの会談を前にして、アメリカの恥さらしだとうんざり。
 バスはアメリカ南部で次々と暴力事件に巻き込まれていき、ついに大統領がアラバマ州知事に電話をかけるも、州知事は居留守を使う始末。おまけに警察署長は筋金入りの人種差別主義者。
 白人女性は赤ちゃんを抱きながら、‘黒人を殺せ’と叫び、KKKはおなじみの格好でうろつく有様。
 差別はどこの国でもあると思うが、ここまでストレートな野蛮さに呆然としてしまった。

<太田>

 現在、共和党大統領有力候補の一人であるロン・ポール(Ron Paul)が、1980〜90年代に、なお、どんな黒人差別的発言を行っていたかを知って欲しい。↓
 <社会福祉受給者達の大部分は黒人であり、その大部分が金持ちであるところの白人達から盗むのは当然だと思っているってさ。↓>
 A December 1989 newsletter・・・predicted "Racial Violence Will Fill Our Cities" because "mostly black welfare recipients will feel justified in stealing from mostly white 'haves.' "
 <ワシントンに住んでいる黒人男性の95%は準犯罪者ないし完全な犯罪者だと見なせると思うってさ。↓>
 Another letter said "I think we can assume that 95 percent of the black men in that city [Washington] are semi-criminal or entirely criminal."
 <元共和党下院議員で黒人のバーバラ・ジョーダンは教育程度が中途半端な犠牲者主義者の典型だってさ。↓>
 An August 1992 edition of the Ron Paul Report labeled former Rep. Barbara Jordan (D) of Texas "the archetypal half-educated victimologist," ・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2...

 この関連だが、ベトナム戦争での米国の「敗北」の責任は、ジョンソン、ニクソン両政権の無能さと、ウェストモーランド駐ベトナム米軍司令官の黄色人種差別に帰されるべきだろう。↓
 <ウェストモーランドは南ベトナム軍を侮蔑していたって。↓>
 ・・・Westmoreland's disdain for the Vietnamese forces, his feuds with the Marine Corps and Air Force, and his unwavering belief that the war could be won with overwhelming U.S. firepower. He took credit for victories and sidestepped responsibility for defeats.
 <戦闘任務は米軍に与え、南ベトナム軍には碌に支援を与えず、もっぱら(彼がどうでもいいと思っていたところの、)住民鎮定任務に従事させた。↓>
 Westmoreland assigned the ground combat missions to U.S. forces while the South Vietnamese were deprived of sufficient support and "relegated to support pacification," which he felt to be a mission of little importance.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/books/la...

 ちょっと前の記事だが、プーチン一派の策略により、ロシアでいかにスターリン人気が高まってきているかが紹介されている。↓
 ・・・by 2003, Satter writes, 53 percent of Russians approved of Stalin and his actions―up from 19 percent in 1998―thanks largely to the Kremlin’s glorification of the USSR’s World War II victory, via a revival of grand military parades on Red Square and a new generation of state-sponsored war movies. Putin later ordered a rewrite of Soviet-era textbooks to present Stalin as “a good manager.”・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/12/18/r...



#5207(2011.12.31)

 言論を刑罰でもって弾圧する欧州文明。それが野蛮の文明だってこと、よく分かるだろ。↓
 ・・・チェコ警察は、フィリップ<・チェコ共産党>党代表が北朝鮮の金正恩・・・朝鮮労働党中央軍事委員会副委員長に送った弔電の内容が実定法に違反している疑いがあるとして、捜査に入る予定だという。フィリップ代表は今月21日、北朝鮮に送った弔電で「金総書記は高い尊敬を受け、北朝鮮住民たちの福祉のために自分を犠牲にした」と述べた。さらに「朝鮮労働党は、悲しみを克服し社会主義を守り抜こうとする勇敢な北朝鮮住民たちを継続して勝利へと導いてくれることと信じている」とした。
 フィリップ代表の弔電はすぐに反発を招いた。与党・市民民主党所属のチリ・ポスピシル法務長官は27日「チェコTVノバ」とのインタビューで「人権と自由を抑圧する政権を公に支持したり、共感を表す行為は刑法で禁止されている。全体主義の北朝鮮政権に哀悼の意を表したのが違法行為に当たるかどうかは、調査が必要だ」と述べた。
 共産独裁を経て、1989年に市民主導の無血デモ「ベルベット革命」を通じて民主化に成功したチェコでは、人権弾圧などを支持すれば、最高で懲役3年の刑に処される可能性があるという。・・・
http://www.chosunonline.com/site/data/html_dir/201...



#5211(2012.1.2)

 大恩人の天才アラン・チューリングに戦後の英国はなんと野蛮な仕打ちをしていたことだろうか。
 英国に比べてさえ、どれだけ日本は文明度が高いことよ。↓
 The mathematician and second world war codebreaker Alan Turing・・・ was convicted of gross indecency in 1952, when homosexual acts were illegal in the UK, and sentenced to chemical castration(化学的去勢). He killed himself two years later by taking cyanide. ・・・
 In 2009, the then prime minister Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology on behalf of the government to Turing, describing his treatment as "horrifying" and "utterly unfair". Brown said the country owed him a huge debt.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/jan/02...



#5215(2012.1.4)

<m.n>

≫英国に比べてさえ、どれだけ日本は文明度が高いことよ。≪(コラム#5211。太田)

 これに関しては補強をば。

 当時のソドミー法の故であり、英国の官憲としては仕事をしただけだった。(a)

 不幸にもチューリングは当時"大恩人”とは思われてなかった。
 「暗号という重要な機密事項を扱う仕事柄ゆえにブレッチレイ・パーク(以下BP)から一歩外に出ればチューリングの仕事を知る者は誰一人いなかった。・・・
 BPに関係する事柄は引き続き機密とされ・・・1974年夏、BPの活動について書かれた「ウルトラ・シークレット」出版、チューリングらの功績について世間の知るところとなる。」(b)

 ソドミー法はキリスト教由来の悪法といえる。
 英国はまだましだった。逆に日本、中共や北朝鮮では罪にはならない。
 イスラム教国ではより罪が重く死刑を採用する国が現在もある。
 この悪法の禍を断ち切る先鞭をつけたのもまた英国人であった。
 「『ウォルフェンデン委員会のレポート』が1957年に出された後、アメリカ合衆国を含む多くの西側諸国で同性愛行為に限定して禁じる法律の撤廃に動き始めた。」(b)

 当時も同性愛者は多数いたが皆上手くやっていた。
 ケインズにもバーンスタインにも同性の愛人はいたし、公然の同性愛者ディアギレフもチューリングのような目にあってない。(c)(d)(e)

 逮捕のきっかけの19歳の青年(b)はチューリングが"買ってきた相手"ではないか。
 恋人ならば盗みの手引きなどしない。
 彼が"上手くやれない"人間だった可能性がある(筆者推測)

http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ソドミー法(a)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/アラン・チューリング(b)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/セルゲイ・ディアギレフ(c)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ケインズ(d)
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/レナード・バーンスタイン(e)

<太田>

 ご教示ありがとうございました。
 典拠もバッチリのようだし、言うことありません。

<γΘγΘ>(「たった一人の反乱」より)

 <話は全く変わるが、これは>喜ぶべきか・・・?↓

 「アメリカ大統領選挙の共和党候補者選びのスタートを翌日に控え、
トップ争いを繰り広げているテキサス州下院議員のロン・ポール候補(76)は2日、在日米軍の撤退を公約した。 ・・・」
http://news24.jp/nnn/news89028096.html

<ΘγγΘ>(同上)

 喜ぶべきもなにも・・・単純にその高齢(仮に大統領就任した場合はレーガンの69歳でのそれを大幅に上回る)と生粋のThe Republicanぶりにひいた・・。
 彼は孤立主義の虜で大統領になったら国連とNATOから手を引くそうな。
 これはさすがに無いでしょう。

<太田>

 「さすがに無いでしょう」って言ったって、彼は現在の米国の草の根世論そのものなんだぜ。↓

 ロン・ポール=孤立主義者+リバタリアン(+人種主義の尾っぽを残す者)。↓
 ・・・It is・・・libertarian・・・ideology coupled with・・・Ron Paul<'s> staunch antiwar pose that attracts so many young people and, when you take another look, some not so young people as well.・・・
 Paul’s old newsletters have (once again) surfaced, and their smarmy racism is downright repellent.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/isolationis...

 そんな人物が、共和党と民主党の最初の中間選挙が行われるアイオワ州で共和党トップになる可能性が高いんだぞ。↓
 ・・・I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that Ron Paul may win Iowa.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/...

 そのアイオワ州での「中間選挙」は、primaryじゃなくて 党員集会(群)(caucuses) という。↓
 <州内には、いわゆる投票が行われない地区すらある。↓>
 ・・・Iowa caucuses are different and the rules vary in the roughly 1,800 state precincts that hold them. There isn't necessarily a secret ballot; sometimes there's no ballot at all.
 After everyone gets a chance to express their opinions, the vote can be on paper, with a show of hands or, for Democrats, just by congregating into groups corresponding to the different candidates and seeing who has the biggest group.・・・
 <アイオワ州は特異な場所なので、そこでトップになったところで、党の大統領候補になる、ひいては大統領になる、というわけではない。(引用しなかったが、候補者の数を減らす役割は果たしている。)↓>
 ・・・winning Iowa doesn't predict much because with just three million people, the state is so small, so rural, so white and, these days, so affluent.
Its agriculture-based economy is doing well enough to be spared the worst of America's economic downturn.・・・
 So maybe it's no surprise that, looking back over the decades, the most popular candidates in Iowa don't tend to get their party's nomination or the presidency.・・・
 <もっとも、前回の2008年の民主党のアイオワ州党員集会ではオバマがトップになり、結局、このオバマが民主党大統領候補になり、ひいては大統領になった。↓>
 The Democratic caucuses that year were more telling. Barack Obama did win them, the start of a long and surprising campaign that ended in the White House.・・・
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/30/politics/iowa-wh...



#5217(2012.1.5)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 アイオワ州共和党員集会でロムニー25%、サントルム25%、ロン・ポール21%。
 事前の調査じゃロン・ポールとは答えづらいから実際は彼がトップになる可能性があるという予想もあったけど、意外に伸びなかったね。
 さあ、これからどうなる?
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/03/politics/iowa-ca...

<γγθθ>(「たった一人の反乱」より)

 ロムニー氏が開幕戦勝利=アイオワ共和党員集会
http://www.jiji.com/jc/c?g=int&k=2012010400707&j4

 父親は元ミシガン州知事
 ハーバートビジネススクール出のやり手の元ビジネスマンにして、家宗はモルモン教だが政教分離を強調、オバマ並みに皆保険制度導入に熱意を燃やす。
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ミット・ロムニー

 共和党、またはキリスト教原理主義的な2,3位のリック・サントラム、ロン・ポールを破っての勝利はアメリカ人を少し見直したww。

<γθγθ>(同上)

 アメリカ人にもアメリカが世界中に軍を展開していることに疑問を持つ人が増えているのだろうなぁ。
 俺がアメリカ人でもそう思うだろうし・・・。
 在韓米軍 北朝鮮は貧乏でまともな空軍もない。
 在日米軍 日本はGDPは世界第三位の国なんだから、自分の身は自分で守れ。
 NATO   WWII終了直後なら、必要意義はあるが、今は自力で出来るだろ。
 
 そもそも、今じゃ、地球の反対側でも簡単に兵力を展開できそうだしなぁ。
 太田さんが言うところの、WWIIでのオバカの代償、罰ゲームはちょっと期間が長過ぎて気の毒だな。

 クリントン時代は、やたらにミサイルを撃っていた記憶がある。
 本音じゃ、ミサイルを適当に撃って片がつけば、楽だと思ってたんだろうな。

<γθθγ>(同上)

 太田さんの支持者としては、是非在日米軍の引き揚げは実現して欲しいよ。
 ただ、気になるのは、安倍晋三率いる産経媚米自称保守連合の言われもない民主党批判に使われてつまらん政局になる事ですかね。



#5219(2012.1.6)

 米共和党が右翼だけの政党に堕してしまった理由が説明されている。↓
 ・・・the terms ‘liberal Republican’ or ‘moderate’ Republican’ have practically become oxymorons,”・・・. Now, cooperating with Democrats and deviating from conservative orthodoxy is electoral suicide for a Republican leader. ・・・
 <ニクソン個人への幻滅が、彼が体現していた共和党中道派への幻滅をもたらした。また、フォードがカーターに敗れたことの反動で、右翼のレーガンが大統領になった。↓>
 With the personal discrediting of Nixon came the political discrediting of the centrist branches of the Republican Party in which Nixon had roots as Eisenhower’s vice-president. Similarly, Ford’s loss in 1976 to moderate Democratic governor Jimmy Carter in the quest for the presidency left open the door to right-wing icon Ronald Reagan’s ascension.
 <加えて、ネオコンと原理主義的キリスト教の興隆、市民権運動と福祉国家への反動、郊外中産階級の犯罪と無秩序への恐怖。↓>
 Many other factors interceded, of course・・・<t>he rise of the neoconservative and Christianist movements, a backlash against the civil rights movement and the welfare state, and a suburban middle class terrified of crime and disorder are among them.・・・
 <更に加えて、民主党の黒人平等権志向が南部民主党の共和党への寝返りをもたらした。↓>
 <In addition,> when Southern Democrats defected to the Republicans in response to their old party’s embrace of black equality, each party essentially became ideologically monolithic. ・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2012/0...



#5223(2012.1.8)

 国際競争力を失ってはいない、という点でも日本は欧州よりはまだマシだというところかな。↓
 ・・・Europe is undergoing not one but two simultaneous economic crises. The first is a rapid, obvious one ― all about sovereign debt, a collapsing currency and austerity measures ― that we hear about all the time. The second is insidious but more important. After decades of trying, Europe as a whole still can’t quite figure out how to be flexible enough to compete in the global economy. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/magazine/the-oth...



#5227(2012.1.10)

 NYタイムスが、米国の階層間移動がなくなりつつあることを憂うる小特集を組んだ。↓
 Is the U.S. Still a ‘Land of Opportunity’?・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/08/is...
 <米国と同じく不平等度の高いカナダでは、米国とは違って階層間移動度は高い。↓>
 ・・・Higher levels of economic inequality are associated with lower rates of mobility. But children are more upwardly mobile in some nations than in others. How do countries like Canada, with above-average inequality and above-average child poverty rates, do so well on mobility outcomes compared with the United States? Canada has more effective public investments in education, including nearly universal preschool, effective secondary schools and high rates of college completion. And the Canadians are much more generous to low- and middle-income families, including child allowances and tuition breaks for university education.・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/08/is...
 <その具体的なデータが掲げられている。↓>
 ・・・If I were a child born in the top 10 percent, my odds of staying in the top 10 percent as an adult would be better than 1 in 4. I’d have a better than 50 percent chance of staying in the top third. In Canada, only 1 in 7 kids born to top-earning parents become top-earning adults, and almost 10 percent fall to the very bottom, something that happens to only 3 percent of rich American children.
 A rich kid does well in the U.S., but a poor kid does not.・・・
 If my parents lived in the U.S., I would have more than a 1 in 5 chance of being stuck in the bottom 10 percent of the earnings distribution and a 50 percent chance of staying in the bottom third. In Canada I’d be less likely to remain in the bottom, and would have a 50 percent chance of reaching the top half. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/08/is...

 要するにこういった点↑が、アングロサクソンのカナダとバスタード・アングロサクソンの米国との違いなのさ。
 クルーグマンが、民主党のオバマに対し、結果の平等を追求していないと皮肉を言いつつ、共和党のロムニーに対し、条件の平等すら追求していないと批判している。↓
 ・・・ As many people were quick to point out, this portrait of the president as radical redistributionist was pure fiction. What hasn’t been as widely noted, however, is that Mr. Romney’s picture of himself as a believer in a level playing field is just as fictional. Where is the evidence that he or his party cares at all about equality of opportunity? ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/opinion/krugman-...

 エリザベス女王の新しい伝記が出たよ。
 こりゃ、英国の王室より、日本の皇室の方がピッタリだぜ。↓
 <時代の先を行かず、しかし決定的に時代に遅れることもない。↓>
 ・・・never ahead of the times but also trying not to be fatally far behind them.・・・
 <議論の種にならないようにする。>
 ・・・her inscrutability and avoidance of controversy・・・
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-bo...



#5229(2012.1.11)

 欧州にロシアを入れるかどうかという議論を含め、欧州の地理的範囲の問題が解説されている。↓
 クーデンホーフ・カレルギーはソ連(ロシア)全体を欧州に入れるべきだと唱えたんだね。↓
 ・・・ The French minister Sully (1560-1641), when dreaming up his “Grand Design” for a “Very Christian Council of Europe,” objected to Russia’s inclusion in his scheme: “[T]here scarce remains any conformity among us with them; besides they belong to Asia as much as to Europe. We may indeed almost consider them as a barbarous country, and place them in the same class with Turkey.”・・・
 The most expansive vision of Europe was one of many expounded by the founder of the Pan-European Union, the Austrian count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, in 1935. It solved the problem of finding an adequate geographical boundary to Europe by substituting a political one – all of the Soviet Union would be considered part of Europe. Asia would be to its south. ・・・
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/wh...



#5231(2012.1.12)

 ハンガリー政府が起草した新憲法は文字通りのファシスト憲法なりと糾弾するコラムだ。ハンガリーはEU追放へ? だけど、これこそ欧州の本質なんだわさ。↓
 ・・・ On Monday, the government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, leader of the highly conservative Fidesz party, introduced its controversial new constitution allowing itself discretionary authority over the media, courts, the central bank and even personal conscience.
 <権力分立なし、報道の自由も信教の自由もなし、堕胎や同性婚は禁止、他国に住むハンガリー系人にハンガリー国籍付与。↓>
 There is to be no division of powers in Hungary between the executive, legislative and judiciary; no guaranteed freedom of the press, nor judicial impartiality; no freedom of worship. Abortion and same-sex marriages are outlawed. And echoing other horrific moments from Europe’s dark past, Orban proposes to offer ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries Hungarian citizenship, rather as Hitler did for ethnic Germans in Poland and Czechoslovakia.・・・
 <要するに、啓蒙主義的諸価値の全面否定。↓>
 Altogether, Enlightenment values are not the reason why the West has advanced so far so fast for the last two centuries and more; rather, they are why the West’s economies are in crisis and its societies are fragmenting.・・・
 <南アの与党のANCも同じ方向へ。↓>
 This is very much the position of South African President Jacob Zuma’s faction in the African National Congress (ANC) as the party celebrates its 100th anniversary. Once one of the great forces in the African liberation struggle・・・
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archive...



#5239(2012.1.16)

 米国じゃ、不安障害「患者」は成人人口の18%、鬱と躁鬱「患者」は9.5%だって。
 これだけで全員の4分の1だもんな。
 日本でも潜在的「患者」を入れりゃ同じくらいいる、と思った方がいいだろう。↓
 ・・・anxiety disorders(不安障害) now affect 18 percent of the adult population of the United States, or about 40 million people. By comparison, mood disorders -- depression and bipolar illness, primarily -- affect 9.5 percent. That makes anxiety the most common psychiatric complaint by a wide margin, and one for which we are increasingly well-medicated.・・・
 <不安障害にはザナックスってわけで、毎年処方箋が5,000万弱米国で出てるのね。↓>
  The anti-anxiety drug alprazolam -- better known by its brand name, Xanax -- was the top psychiatric drug on the list, clocking in at 46.3 million prescriptions in 2010.・・・
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/it...



#5241(2012.1.17)

<ΒΑΒΑΒ>(「たった一人の反乱」より)

 個人主義と人間主義はどうやったら両立するもんなの?
 個人主義って、自分しかいないでしょう。
 自分が幸せになるのに、自分だけよければ充分っていう。

 人間主義は、自分以外の人がいないと成立しないでしょう。
 人と人との間に、自分の幸せがあるんだから。

 まるっきり、お互いに排除しあうような価値観だと思うんだけど、なんでイギリスでは両立するみたいにいうのか、理解できないんだけど・・・。

<ΒΒΑΑΒ>(同上)

 まずウィキペディアの「個人主義」を読んでミソ。↓
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%80%8B%E4%BA%BA%E4...

<ααΒΒΒ>(同上)

 個人主義は、自分しかいないってのは、間違いではないが、十分ではないと思うね。
 他人だって個人主義なのだから、他人の個人主義も尊重しなければ、自分の個人主義も尊重されないのではないかな。
 それに、イギリスの場合、軍事が元々の仕事だったのだから、ここぞというときは協力しあう風土や価値観が成立しやすいのではないか。
 なにしろ、戦争は共通の目的のために協力しなければならない最高の行事なのだから。
 ヨーロッパも「個人主義」で括られることが多い気がするけど、結局、「にせもの」なのだろうね。だから、独裁者や異端殺しがはやってしまうのだろう。

<ΒΑΒΑΒ>(同上)

 人間主義は共同体主義に近いって話だったけど、ウィキペディアの個人主義の項目に、「コミュニティを個人よりも優先する共同体主義とは対立しうる。」って書いてあるよ。

 漱石の 『私の個人主義』では、確かに他人の個人主義も尊重するように書かれているけれど、それは漱石の解釈した個人主義であって、ヨーロッパのとは違う可能性が大いにあるのではないかな。

 太田さんのコラム#5236<(未公開)>で「個人の神との直接的な関係」という言葉が出てきたし、 ルイ・デュモンの『個人主義論考』でもそうだけれど、個人主義が、まだ誕生して数百年以内のキリスト教の神との関係の中で出現したということが否定されるのは、きいたことがない。

 イギリスの個人主義について書いたマクファーレンだって、それに矛盾するようなことは書いていない。

 個人-神の関係だけで、個人が幸せになれるというのが、個人主義の元々であるはず。
 その後、元々の神との関係のことが抜け落ちて、個人主義だけ残っていっているのであって、そうであれば、個人主義と人間主義とは排除し合う関係になるのでは。

<αΒαΒΒ>(同上)

 <慈善団体等が自発的に、或いはまた政府が(太田)>法律で<、>個人主義の遠心力を制御しようとしたので、人間主義”的”って見解だと思う。

 「イギリスは、「1563年から1601年にかけて救貧法(Poor Law)が制定され・・・、それとほぼ同じくして、1597年から1601年にかけて慈善法(Charitable Uses Act)も制定され」たという人間主義的な社会(コラム#1577。#54、601、1212も参照)である」 <(コラム#3711)>
http://blog.ohtan.net/archives/51432918.html

 「では、この英米両国と日本の慈善に対する考え方はどう違うのでしょうか。
 アングロサクソンたる英米両国は裸のエゴとエゴがぶつかりあう個人主義社会であり、私人が通常の仕事をする場においては、恒常的に遠心力が働いています。
ですから、社会を瓦解させないためには求心力を別途与えるものが必要になります。求心力を与えるものの一つが慈善活動であり、慈善は社会存続のための必要不可欠なメカニズムの一つなのです。
 それに対し、日本は人間(じんかん=人間関係ネットワーク)社会であり、通常の仕事も慈善も、この人間関係のネットワークの中に最初から組み込まれています。
政府もまた、人間関係のネットワークの(重要な)一環であり、慈善活動も当然のように行っています。
 ですから日本では、私人が慈善活動を、通常の仕事と別個にことさら行う、という発想そのものが出てこないのです。」<(コラム#1577)>
http://blog.ohtan.net/archives/50954256.html

<太田>

 まず、以下のような認識を共有して欲しい。

1 イギリスの個人主義と欧州の個人主義

一、個人主義はイギリス由来であり、本来欧州にはなかった。(コラム#88
二、欧州においては、欧州史とは個人が次第に共同体等から解放されてきた歴史である、という観念がある。(コラム#88、5236(未公開))
三、そして、その淵源をキリスト教に求めることが多く、具体的に、アウグスティヌスに求める考え方が見られる。(5236(未公開))
四、これに対し、イギリスは最初から個人主義だった。(コラム#88
 また、そのこととキリスト教との直接的な関係はないのであって、強いて言えば、キリスト教の異端であるところの、ブリテン諸島由来のペラギウス派の主張と親和性があった。(コラム#461497151944084452、及び同上)

2 ααΒΒΒクンが示唆しているように、イギリスにおける個人主義は自由主義(ないし立憲主義/人権の確保)と裏腹の関係にある。(コラム#90
 これに対して、欧州における個人主義は自由主義とセットでとらえられていない。

3 αΒαΒΒクンの書いてくれたことを参照。
 要するに、イギリスは、「救貧法が1563年から1601年にかけて早くも制定された・・・という・・・人間主義的<ないしは>・・・社会民主主義的な国」ということ(コラム#1212)。

 その上で、私は以下のように考えている。

 欧州における人間主義ないし社会民主主義は、私の仮説では、19世紀以降に、イギリスを模倣して採用したもの。(コラム#5234(未公開))
 また、イギリスが人間主義的な国であったのは、裸の個人主義だけでは、思春期の若者、老齢者、ひいては弱者一般の多くが虐げられてしまい(コラム#89参照)、社会全体が機能障害を起こしかねないから、というのが私の仮説。

 それでは、その他の記事の紹介です。

 東独の秘密警察Stasiの長官室の写真が載っている。
 東独の共産主義の凄さをひしひしと感じるよ。↓
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16572962



#5250(2012.1.21)

 1807年にティルジット講和条約が結ばれた、(現在はロシアのカリーニングラード州のソヴィェツクであるところの)旧東プロイセンのティルジットで生まれた、ドイツ人ハリウッド俳優アーミン・ミューラー=スタール(1930年〜)が、この町の名誉市民として、ウン十年ぶりにこの町を訪れたルポ。感動もんだよ。↓
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,...

 昨日は、ナチスドイツがホロコースト計画を決めたヴァンゼー会議(Wannseekonferenz)の70周年だったんだね。↓
 Friday was the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, when senior Nazis coordinated plans for the Holocaust.・・・
 On Jan. 20, 1942, high-level members of the Nazi party and other bureaucrats met at the villa to orchestrate large-scale plans for the extermination of Jews. At the time, hundreds of thousands of Jews had already been murdered, but many historians believe that the conference was the point at which Adolf Hitler's plans for their industrialized killing were laid out explicitly for his top officials.
 These men included Nazi party members and members of the SS, the party's military force, which was to oversee the plans. ・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518...

 ヴォルテールって、若い時、イギリスで名前を売り込み、大いにカネを稼いだおかげで、地理的意味での欧州における「大思想家」になれたのね。↓
 Voltaire・・・<the> icon of French writing profited financially and intellectually from・・・<the> two years spent・・・in England in the 1720s early in his literary career・・・.
 They include a signed acceptance from the 18th Century writer for a £200 grant from the Royal Family.・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16620254



#5253(2012.1.22)

 コンコルディア号の難破にひっかけて、欧州の野蛮人どもを切り捨てたコラムがガーディアンに出てた。↓
 <女性と子供を先に避難させ、男どもは(ガイジンを除き)、とりわけ船長は泰然として死を迎えるのがアングロサクソン。↓>
 ・・・The typical British shipwreck, Shaw wrote, had three "romantic demands" in particular: that the cry "Women and children first" should be heard, that all men aboard ("except the foreigners") should be heroes, and the captain a superhero, and that "everybody should face death without a tremor".
 <バーナード・ショーは、かかる伝統は1852年の英海軍バーケンヘッドの座礁によって確立したとした。↓>
 Shaw traced the origins of these expectations to the wreck of the Birkenhead, a troopship (and one of the Royal Navy's earliest steamships) that had hit a rock and foundered off the coast of South Africa in 1852.
 <数少ない女性達と子供達を救命ボートに乗せた後、部隊は船に残り、士官全員を含む数百人が死亡した。↓>
 While the few women and children on board were being loaded into the boats, the troops held ranks at attention on deck, even though the ship was breaking up beneath them. Hundreds died, including all the senior naval officers. A story of self-sacrifice and stoicism set a pattern for behaviour in Britain's merchant and military navies that enhanced, and sometimes confused, a captain's traditional responsibilities for the welfare of his ship and crew. The "Birkenhead drill" meant a seafarer stared death in the eye while the weaker sex was rowed to safety. In the 18th century, a captain could be both a patriarch and a tyrant, a drinker and flogger. Now, as he took his seat among his passengers at that new Victorian social arrangement, the captain's table, he became a kindlier and nobler father figure. Still a patriarch, but one who would place your needs and life above his own even to the ultimate sacrifice; or so the story went.
 <海における騎士道は英国の理想の本質であり、アングロサクソン(その範疇には北米人と大部分の北欧人を含む)の優越性の証明だ。(決めゼリフが出たぞ!(太田))↓>
 Chivalry at sea became an essential British ideal, and proof of the superiority of Anglo-Saxons (a category that included North Americans and most northern Europeans) over more panicky peoples from the south and east. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/21/schett...



#5261(2012.1.26)

 ユーロ圏の各国の経済状況が、事項ごとに地図とグラフの両建てでよく分かるよ。
http://edition.cnn.com/SPECIALS/davos/?hpt=hp_c2

 イギリスは、部族的であるところの、他の諸国を見下している。言語・歴史・地理の共有をアイデンティティとするなんて、とね。自らは、権利・自由・選挙で選ばれた政府、へのコミットメントという、市民生活の高い理念を抱く文明の共有をアイデンティティとする、というわけ。ボクがかねがねから指摘していることが公言されている!↓
 Britain once looked down on the tribal divisions of other countries. It held up its own identity as that of a people united not just by language, history, and geography, but by high ideals of civic life・・・a shared civic life, rooted in a commitment to rights, freedom, and elected government, can be a powerful unifying force.
 Those enduring ideals create a social glue. They challenge the ancient notions that a country must be monocultural or that “self-determination” is only for people of like race or ethnicity.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-v...



#5263(2012.1.27)

 旧英領のキプロスが、事実上ロシアの保護国みたいになっちゃってるってオハナシだ。↓
 <ロシアの武器が、EU加盟国として禁止されてるのに、キプロスの港経由でシリアに持ち込まれている。↓>
 A mysterious Russian cargo ship limped into the Cypriot port of Limassol, this month, forced to seek shelter from a violent storm.
 Hidden on board the MS Chariot were four containers packed with 60 tonnes of ammunition for AK-47s and for rocket launchers. The shipment had come from Moscow's state arms company, Rosoboronexport; its shadowy purchaser was none other than the Syrian government.
 Cyprus, an EU member since 2004, was supposed to seize the cargo. The weapons flagrantly breached the EU's strict embargo on military supplies to the Syrian regime, which since last year has been violently engaged in shooting and killing its own citizens and anti-regime protesters.
 Instead, Cypriot officials allowed the ship to leave after receiving vague assurances it would alter its route. The captain refuelled, left and then set a brisk course for the Syrian port of Tartus, where he delivered his dubious cargo.
 <一昨年に米国でロシアスパイの一斉摘発が行われた時、首謀格の男がキプロスにいて捕まったけど、同国の裁判所は釈放してしまい、この男は逃亡した。↓>
 Critics say the murky episode is further evidence of Cyprus's unwillingness to displease -- and "embarrassing subservience" to -- Moscow. The case is reminiscent of when a Cypriot court in 2010 bailed Christopher Metsos -- the alleged leader of a bungling Russian spy ring exposed in the US that included the glamorous Anna Chapman. Metsos promptly escaped.・・・
 <キプロスの銀行預金の25%、外国からの投資の約3分の1はロシアから。↓>
  More than 25% of bank deposits and about one-third of foreign investments come from Russia.
 <ロシアの会社はキプロスでマネーロンダリングをやり放題。↓>
 Typically, Russian investors create "brass-plate" companies to take advantage of Cyprus's low 10% corporate tax rate. Many of these funds are reinvested back in Russia -- ¤1.4bn in 2008 -- avoiding Russian tax. ・・・
 <そもそも、現在のキプロスの大統領は共産党の党首であり、モスクワで教育され、ロシア語の達人。↓>
 Cyprus's president, Demetris Christofias, heads the communist Akel party. He was educated in Soviet Moscow and is a fluent Russian speaker.・・・
 <ただし、もともと英領だったこともあり、現在でも英国の軍事基地が2つある。↓>
 Britain's support for Turkey's EU accession, by contrast, makes it a more problematic ally, despite the presence on the island of two British military bases, at Akrotiri and Dhekelia.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/cyprus...



#5265(2012.1.28)

 ホロコーストの実行者はヒムラーであったと言っていいようだ。↓
 ・・・the crimes committed by the German police state in its various manifestations -- among them the SS, its intelligence operation the SD and its military arm the Waffen-SS -- were all Himmler’s crimes, because “he to all intents and purposes united in his own person all the instruments of violence belonging to the Nazi state.” ・・・
  “Himmler was the complete opposite of a faceless functionary or bureaucrat, interchangeable with any other,” Longerich writes. “The position he built up over the years can instead be described as an extreme example of the almost total personalization of political power.”・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/...



#5277(2012.2.3)

 米国じゃ、今や、全員がエドマンド・バークに代表される保守派ではなく、ジョン・スチュアート・ミルに代表されるリベラルになったとさ。↓
 ・・・the distinction between conservatives and liberals is philosophical. Conservatives like Edmund Burke “have always seen society as a kind of inheritance we receive and are responsible for; we have obligations toward those who came before and to those who will come after, and these obligations take priority over our rights.” But liberals like John Stuart Mill “assume that societies are genuinely constructs of human freedom, that whatever we inherit from them, they can always be unmade or remade through free human action.”
 Given this understanding, however,・・・in current America politics, everyone is a liberal・・・
 <現在の米国における保守派とリベラルの違いは、政治的権力の不平等な配分状態をどこまで、いかなる方法で平等なものへと改変するか・・例えば、有権者年齢の引き下げとか逆差別の是非・・の違いだというんだな。↓>
 But we also tolerate and even support various forms of inequality, which amount to different degrees of political power. Differences in wealth, education, job, gender, race and age all in fact correspond to differences in power. Hardly anyone thinks all of these differences are bad, but conservatives on the whole think we have gone far enough or even too far in eliminating them, while liberals think that we are still far short of a proper distribution of power.
 <それは、決して、小さな政府支持、対、大きな政府支持、などといったものではないとも。↓>
 Many claim that the liberal-conservative division is over the role of government, with liberals supporting government intervention and conservatives opposing it. But the real issue is not so much whether government should intervene as it is on which side it should intervene. For the most part conservatives are, for example, quite in favor of government’s regulating the behavior of labor unions and limiting the ability of consumers to sue businesses, whereas liberals are generally opposed to these sorts of government interference.
 <いずれにせよ、このところの歴史は、リベラルの勝利の歴史だった、というのが結論。↓>
 In an important sense, history is on the side of liberals. They can point to a continuing trend in the redistribution of power — favoring, for example, workers, women, minorities — that conservatives originally opposed but now generally join liberals in accepting. But there is no basis for assuming that any and all redistributions of power are appropriate (should we, for example, lower the voting age to 16 or even to 12?) or that a particular way of achieving a needed redistribution of power is sound (is reverse discrimination a good way of overcoming racial and gender inequalities?). To this extent, there may always be room for conservative critiques of liberal proposals.・・・
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/li...

 その米国の保守派(共和党支持者)だが、リベラル派(民主党支持者)よりオーガスムに達しやすいんだとさ。↓
 ・・・More than half of those who identified as conservative Republicans said they reached climax almost every time they had sex, compared with just 40 percent of liberal Democrats.・・・
 <男性の方が女性より恋愛・結婚に関してロマンティストだとよ。そりゃそうだ。男性は理想主義者、女性は現実主義者なんだもんね。すぐ上の話について言えば、リベラル派は理想主義者だから、物理的セックスで自動的にオーガスムに達する、なんてことにはなりにくいってことだろうよ。↓>
 ・・・when it comes to romance, men may fit the female stereotype more closely than their own.・・・
 <女性の方が相手とのセックスの相性にこだわるってさ。これも、男性は理想主義者だから、セックスでの相性を超越したものを恋愛・結婚に求めるってことだろうよ。↓>
 A full 50 percent of women say that “bad sex” would be a deal-breaker in a relationship, compared with just 44 percent of men. ・・・
 <男性は相手が他の条件を満たしておれば、この相手を愛していない場合でも結婚できるが、女性はなかなかそうはいかないってさ。愛する=セックスの相性がいい、と考えれば、これも同じことだろね。↓>
 Thirty-one percent of men said they’d be willing to commit to somebody who “has everything they are looking for in a partner” but with whom they weren’t in love, and 21 percent said they’d commit to somebody they were not sexually attracted to. ・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/02/r...



#5279(2012.2.4)

 米国で黒人差別がなくなりつつあると言っているが、黒人を大量に監獄にぶち込むという形で黒人隔離政策は続いている、と指摘するコラムだ。↓
 ・・・Prisoners do matter when analyzing the severity of racial inequality in the U.S. Yet because they are out of sight and out of mind, it is easy to imagine that we are making far more racial progress than we actually are.・・・
http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/03/the-myth-of-desgr...



#5281(2012.2.5)

 トニー・ジュット(コラム#3927)、またのたまわく、全体主義シンパとして、自分が勝手に思い描いた未来を下に現在の人々の運命を翻弄した欧米の知識人達はレーニン、ヒットラー、スターリンと同罪だとよ。そうだそうだ。↓
 ・・・The central message of Thinking the Twentieth Century is what <Tony >Judt calls “the intellectual sin of the century: passing judgment on the fate of others in the name of their future as you see it”. If Lenin, Hitler, Stalin and Mao were abominable gangsters and tyrants, the intellectuals who defended them were also culpable.
 <右も左も歴史を捻じ曲げてきた。正しい歴史を知れとも。全く同感。↓>
 “It’s terribly important for an open society to be familiar with its past,” says Judt. “It was a common feature of the closed societies of the 20th century, whether of left or right, that they manipulated history. Rigging the past is the oldest form of knowledge control.”・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/4130a414-4909-11e1-...



#5283(2012.2.6)

 米国でクラシック音楽は斜陽の一途を辿っているが、その中で、アジア勢の存在感は高まるばかりだってさ。↓
 ・・・fewer than one in 10 adults reported attending a classical concert in 2008, according to a periodic survey conducted by the National Endowment for the Arts, a 28 percent drop since 1982. ・・・
 <バタバタつぶれる米国のオケ。↓>
 In the past two years, the Honolulu, Syracuse, and New Mexico orchestras closed up shop entirely; the Philadelphia Orchestra, long revered as one of the five best in the country, filed for Chapter 11 protection in April.・・・
 Of Asian-Americans ages 18-24 responding to the same survey, 14 percent reported attending a classical concert in the past year, more than any other demographic in that age group. ・・・
 <演奏家は、かってはユダヤ系、現在は支那、日本、韓国を中心とするアジア系。↓>
 Every Jewish kid grew up wanting to play the violin. Now it’s true among Asians.・・・
 <ジュリアードじゃ、学部学生の5分の1、博士課程学区制の3分の1はアジア系。↓>
 Asians make up just over 4 percent of the U.S. population, but 7 percent of U.S. orchestra musicians are Asian, and the figure rises to 20 percent for top orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic. At the elite Julliard School for music, one in five undergraduates—and one in three Ph.D. students—is Asian.・・・
 <軍事と近代化とに結び付けられて、各国政府の庇護の下でアジアでのクラシック導入が始まった。↓>
 Its presence in the region goes back little more than a century, to the military bands brought to Japan by Commodore Perry’s opening. The early association of Western music with military discipline and modernization set a precedent. Classical music became an aspirational totem for both newly industrializing Asian countries, whose governments subsidized music schools and orchestras, and parents, for whom having a musician in the family was marker of success.・・・
 <でも、ソロとして活躍できる可能性がある、ピアノと弦楽器に集中。↓>
 Asian and Asian-American performers gravitate almost exclusively to strings and piano: Those instruments which, within a genre that symbolizes class mobility in Asia, are at the top of the heap. Rarely does one encounter an Asian conservatory student playing the bassoon or trombone, or any instrument that does not afford the possibility of soloist superstardom.・・・
 One area in which Asians do not dominate, Yoshihara notes, is orchestra management, which remains overwhelmingly white. ・・・
 <だけど、オケの経営陣や、指揮者や作曲家にはアジア系は少ない。
 鈴木メソッドは機械的訓練と記憶が中心。↓>
 Asians haven’t made much headway into conducting or composing. Asian music education is not famous for its music theory. The Suzuki method, Asia’s most successful classical music export, is a highly mechanical training regimen based on drills and rote memorization, with no emphasis on “feeling” the music. It lends itself best to the equally mechanical works of the Baroque period, less to the Romantic era and not at all to contemporary classical.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2012...



#5285(2012.2.7)

 アングロサクソン文明の嫡流ケインズと、欧州文明の嫡流のハイエク、が永遠の好敵手となるのは当たり前。↓
 ・・・ Keynes came from the heart of a Cambridge tradition (later continued in that other Cambridge in Massachusetts) that saw economics as a humane discipline or moral science, providing tools for earnest attempts to do good in the world. Hayek, by contrast, with his background in the Austrian school, was absorbed in a quest to understand the abstract beauties of the price mechanism, with some impatience for restless advocates of quick-fix solutions.・・・
 <ケインズのハイエク批判は、要するに合理論批判。ハイエクのケインズ批判は、要するに経験論批判。↓>
 The most damning thing that Keynes said about Hayek's work was that it was "an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in Bedlam". His logic was thus an irrelevant abstraction, its beauty purely formal. The most damning thing that Hayek later found to say about Keynes's general theory was that it was "a tract for the times".・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/03/keynes...

 殺人率は、米国のみならず、世界的に(とりわけ最近)低下しつつある。↓
 ・・・In 2001, homicide killed more than twice the number of people worldwide who died in wars (an estimated 557,000 people versus total war deaths of around 208,000). But just as in the United States, violent crime rates have been falling across a large part of the planet. The data is patchy, but in 2002, about 332,000 homicides from 94 countries around the globe were reported to the United Nations. By 2008, that had dropped to 289,000. And between those years, the homicide rate fell in 68 reporting countries and increased in only 26. ・・・
 <ただ、依然として米国の殺人率は西欧の1700年代の水準!↓>
  ・・・typical homicide rates in Europe dropped from about 32 per 100,000 people in・・・the 13th century・・・down to 1.4 per 100,000 in the 20th century. (Sadly, of course, for all of their decline, U.S. rates are still more than three times that -- a rate above・・・the Western average for the 1700s.)・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/06/t...



#5289(2012.2.9)

 米国における貧富の差が拡大するにつれ、貧者で自分を不幸だと思っている人の割合もどんどん大きくなっている。↓
 ・・・Saddest of all is the last chart in the sequence: Back in 1970, more than 45% of affluent Americans described themselves as "very happy." More than 35% of affluent Americans still do so, regardless of race. In 1970, more than 35% of working-class whites—and nearly 35% of all working-class people—likewise described themselves as very happy. Today, only a little more than 15% of working-class people describe themselves as happy, and working-class whites are actually slightly less likely to do so than working-class people generally.・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/08/c...



#5293(2012.2.11)

 米国では、人種間格差に伴う問題は解消に向かう一方、所得格差に伴う問題は深刻になりつつある。↓
 ・・・ the income achievement gap (defined here as the income difference between a child from a family at the 90th percentile of the family income distribution and a child from a family at the 10th percentile) is now nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap. Fifty years ago, in contrast, the black-white gap was one and a half to two times as large as the income gap. ・・・
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/02/10/rac...



#5295(2012.2.12)

 色々考えさせられるコラムだ。↓
 <大英帝国没落後の暗黒勢力として、ナチスドイツと日本帝国を一括りするなっちゅうの。↓>
 ・・・The collapse of the British and European orders in the 20th century did not produce a new dark age—though if Nazi Germany and imperial Japan had prevailed, it might have—but the horrific conflict that it produced was, in its own way, just as devastating. ・・・
 <最近のオバマ大統領はおかしい。米国の相対的没落を認めようとしない!↓>
 <Obama said,> "Anyone who tells you otherwise, anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about," he continued. "America remains the one indispensable nation in world affairs—and as long as I'm president, I intend to keep it that way."・・・
 <そこへ行くとクリントンは、大統領職を去る時、米国の相対的没落を所与として、そのような時代への心と態勢の準備をと唱えた。↓>
 President Bill Clinton left office believing that the key task for America was to "create the world we would like to live in when we are no longer the world's only superpower," to prepare for "a time when we would have to share the stage." ・・
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702036...



#5307(2012.2.18)

 米国人が好きな国から嫌いな国まで。一覧表だ。↓
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/17/bre...



#5309(2012.2.19)

 めずらしく、米国人が(実質的な)アングロサクソン・欧州文明対峙論を吐いている。↓
 ・・・ roughly speaking the Anglo/American countries, North America, and parts of Europe are playing free trade. Most of Asia, much of South America, the Middle East, Germany and parts of Europe are playing neo-mercantilism. ・・・
http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/02/...



#5311(2012.2.20)

 そもそも、前提としての認識が誤っている!
 ワシントンもフランクリン・ローズベルトも全球的に見れば、恥ずかしいほど矮小な人物だったし、リンカーンについても、その功罪は相半ばするといったところだからだ。
 いちいち過去コラム#はあげないが、思い出してくれたまえ。↓
 
 Where Have All the George Washingtons Gone?・・・
 ・・・since FDR, the greatness of consistent and incomparable achievement has eluded all of his successors.・・・
 Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt were America's greatest presidents・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/20/w...



#5313(2012.2.21)

 拷問による取調べに期待してアルカーイダ系テロリスト容疑者をシリアに送り込み続けてきた米国が、手のひらを返すように、アサド政権の非人道性を糾弾するとは、と皮肉たっぷりのコラムが出てた。↓
 ・・・ in the months and years after 9/11, the US collaborated closely with Syria, which became an ally in the war on terror and a frequent destination for victims of extraordinary rendition. Syrian torturers worked hand in hand with US interrogators.・・・
 ・・・in the chilling words of former CIA agent Robert Baer, in 2004: "If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria."・・・
 These days, however, US politicians from across the spectrum piously condemn the Syrian regime for its crimes against humanity; two weeks ago, a bipartisan group of senators introduced a resolution condemning Assad for "gross human rights violations" and the use of "torture". Who says Americans don't do irony, eh?・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/1...

 鯨やイルカが高等哺乳類だから、無条件で保護しなきゃならないって議論がいまだに大真面目に続けられてるんだね。
 犬や猿はどうしてくれる(この一つ下の記事参照)。
 犬なんて朝鮮半島や支那では食用になってるぜ。↓
 Campaigners who believe that dolphins and whales should be granted rights on account of their intelligence are to push for the animals to be protected under international law.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/feb/21/whales...



#5317(2012.2.23)

 フーバー長官下のFBIによる作為無作為の悪行は数えきれない。↓
 ・・・During the 1960s, the FBI illegally wiretapped and spied relentlessly on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.and other civil rights leaders, convinced they were under Moscow'sdirection, but ignored the predatory Ku Klux Klan, the most violent U.S. terrorist group of the century. Hoover balked at investigating the Mafia, but happily built voluminous files on the sex lives ofJohn F. Kennedy and others.・・・
 The FBI and the CIA had not been on speaking terms for most of the past 40 years.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-bo...



#5319(2012.2.24)

 米国でも、法律や判例違反にならないギリギリのやり方で、捜査当局は、被疑者に自供させようと欺罔、脅迫の手練手管を駆使する。
 その結果、やってもいない犯罪を自供する被疑者も出てくる。
 だけどだ、そういう被疑者は、未成年とか知恵遅れとか薬物・アルコール中毒者が中心だってさ。
 我らが尊敬すべき衆議院議員や議員秘書諸氏がやってもない自分ないし他人の「犯罪」を供述して、それを後で撤回するなんて、ホント恥ずかしーことだぜ。↓
 ・・・ Psychological studies of confessions that have proved false show an overrepresentation of children, the mentally ill or mentally retarded, and suspects high on drugs or drunk on liquor. They are susceptible to suggestion, eager to please authority figures, disconnected from reality or unable to defer gratification. Children often think, as Felix did, that they will be jailed if they keep up their denials and will get to go home if they just go along with the interrogator. Mature adults of normal intelligence have also confessed falsely after being manipulated. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/opinion/sunday/w...



#5325(2012.2.27)

 プーチンはどんなにひでえ男かを描いた本が出た。↓
 <ソ連崩壊直前に不正蓄財のし放題。↓>
 ・・・Salye investigated Putin's work as head of the committee for external relations in the office of the Leningrad mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, just before and after the 1991 coup that precipitated the USSR's collapse. In those days Moscow, lacking money to support the basic functions of society, handed out chits to local authorities that gave them the power to grant export licences. The idea was that licensed Russian firms would export raw materials – oil, nickel, diamonds – in exchange for food and medicine, or the money to buy them.
 According to Salye, Putin signed off on a billion dollars' worth of export licences. Less than one-tenth of that, $92m, was documented; although Putin was a trained lawyer, the contracts were legally invalid, the exporting firms were hand-picked by him, the commissions they earned averaged more than a third of the value of the contracts, and none of the food arrived. As for the other $900m, it simply disappeared. Salye recommended Putin's dismissal and a criminal investigation, but nothing happened and, six years later, she fled to the mud and silence of the deep Russian countryside in the face of a threat so terrifying that she refuses to tell Gessen what it was.・・・
 <権力を握ってからは、暗殺のし放題。↓>
  The assassination body count in general is high, and can't be tied directly to Putin. When poison replaces bullets, the suspicion of state involvement becomes higher. The dissident journalist Anna Politkovskaya was poisoned before she was shot dead (on Putin's birthday); the candidate Moscow wanted to lose Ukraine's 2004 election was poisoned with dioxin; Yuri Shchekochikhin, the liberal MP and investigative journalist, was poisoned and died; Gessen suggests that the death of Anatoly Sobchak may also have been poison.
With the case of a defector from the Russian secret service murdered on foreign soil, using an isotope of a radioactive metal called polonium only produced in tightly controlled conditions in Russian state factories, Gessen argues there is no room for doubt: Putin, she says, must have personally sanctioned the poisoning in London of Alexander Litvinenko.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/feb/26/vladim...



#5327(2012.2.28)

 世俗化が急速に進展している英国の宗教状況が取り上げられている。
 とにかく、この点でも、できそこないのアングロサクソンたる米国との違いは大変なもんだね。↓
 ・・・ a survey conducted by a secular group found that almost a half of those identifying themselves as Christians had attended no church services over the past year — heated or not — other than those for weddings, funerals and baptisms. Many were not familiar with the Bible, the survey found, and the proportion of Britons identifying themselves as Christians had slipped from around three-quarters to just over a half. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/28/world/europe/28i...



#5333(2012.3.2)

 黒人差別に関しては、かつての米国がひどすぎたってことだし、モルモン教徒差別については、一夫多妻制の放棄等、モルモン教側が変わったおかげだ、ということじゃないかな。↓
 ・・・百年前に、大抵の米国人達に2012年には米大統領の2大政党の候補者達が黒人とモルモン教徒になるだろうと伝えたら、多くの人々はショックを受けるだろう。
 モルモン教徒達が当時に比べてどんなに遠くまで来たかを証明するのが、ロムニーが<共和党の>大統領候補になりそうだということだ。・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2...

 米加(英)は20世紀初頭までは緊張関係にあったぞ。
 だから、そういうことじゃなくて、何度も言ってるように、米国人は、故郷を捨てて北米にやってきたデラシネたる「異常」な輩だから、故郷に残った「正常」な人々を理解できないんだよ。↓
 ・・・<米国は、>諸大国の歴史の中で、空前の、物理的安全度と超然性(detachment)とを達成した。
 米国の北と南には侵略性のない(nonpredatory)隣国が存在する。
 東と西には大洋と魚が存在する。これは、歴史家の一人が米国の流動資産と呼んだものだ。
 この、唯一の事実が回りまわって米国のナイーヴさをもたらした。
 ウッドロー・ウィルソンからバラク・オバマまで、そして中共からイスラエルまで、米国は厳しい環境に生きる小国群(いや、競争的世界に生きる大国群についてさえ、)の世界を理解することが余り得意ではないのだ。
 我々は、しばしば、これらの国が米国と同じような存在である、或いは、米国と同じような存在になりたがっていると思い込みたがる<がそれは間違いなのだ>。・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/01/w...

 イギリス人が欧州蔑視、ないし欧州に対する嫌悪感を吐露。
 いつもながら、こういう文章を発見した時のうれしさは堪えられんねえ。↓
 <フランスで>ナポレオンのテーマパークをつくる計画<がある。>・・・
 <しかし、ナポレオンは戦争ばっかりやって欧州中に惨禍をもたらしたし、>西インド諸島<において、>・・・フランス革命で廃止されていた奴隷制を復活させた。>・・・
 英デイリー・ミラー紙のスティーヴン・グローヴァー(Stephen Glover)は、部分的にでもこんな男にまだ敬意を払う国は問題を抱えている、と記す。
 ナポレオンは、「その行動が数百万人の人々の死をもたらし、その敗北は、19世紀において、英国の至上性(supremacy)への道を開くとともに、フランスを二流の大国へと引き下げた。率直に言おう。こうして、フランスは現在も二流の大国のままなのだ」と。・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f...



#5335(2012.3.3)

 紀元1年から100年ごとに紀元2000年までの欧州の諸国図が載ってて、どこにどんな国があったか、左下の国名一覧の中の特定の国名をクリックすれば表示されるよ。↓
http://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/index.html?...



#5337(2012.3.4)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 米国の医療費が他国に比べて突出して高いことが一目で分かるグラフ群だ。
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/busin...
 一事が万事だ。
 米国の一人当たりGDPの高さの相当部分は虚構であると思った方がいいぞ。

<太田>

 なんで米国の医療費が高いか、その理由が説明されている。↓
 <第一に、医療費の価格決定に国家がほとんど関与していないからだ。↓>
 ・・・Other countries negotiate very aggressively with the providers and set rates that are much lower than we do・・・. They do this in one of two ways. In countries such as Canada and Britain, prices are set by the government. In others, such as Germany and Japan, they’re set by providers and insurers sitting in a room and coming to an agreement, with the government stepping in to set prices if they fail.
 In America, Medicare and Medicaid negotiate prices on behalf of their tens of millions of members and, not coincidentally, purchase care at a substantial markdown from the commercial average. But outside that, it’s a free-for-all. Providers largely charge what they can get away with, often offering different prices to different insurers, and an even higher price to the uninsured.・・・
 <第二に、医療を金儲けの対象と考える特異な風潮がある。↓>
 ・・・health is a business in the United States in quite a different way than it is elsewhere,・・・It’s very much something people make money out of. There isn’t too much embarrassment about that compared to Europe and elsewhere.”・・・
 <第三に、製薬産業と医療機器産業の利益率が20%近いのに対し、医療保険産業の利益率はわずか2.2%。(被保険者側は、命をカタにとられているので、価格引き下げを言い出しにくい。)>↓
 Two of the five most profitable industries in the United States — the pharmaceuticals industry and the medical device industry — sell health care. With margins of almost 20 percent, they beat out even the financial sector for sheer profitability.・・・
 In 2009,・・・the health insurers<'s>・・・profit margins were a mere 2.2 percent. That’s a signal that the sellers have the upper hand over the buyers.
 <その結果、米国が先端医療で世界を引っ張っており、米国以外の諸国が、これによって裨益しているのは事実。↓>
 This is a good deal for residents of other countries, as our high spending makes medical innovations more profitable. “We end up with the benefits of your investment,” Sackville says. “You’re subsidizing the rest of the world by doing the front-end research.”・・・
 <しかし、米国の製薬産業は、収入の12%しか研究開発に充てておらず、残りは製薬産業の懐に収まっている勘定だ。↓>
 But the drug companies spend only 12 percent of their revenues on innovation. So yes, some of that money goes to innovation, but only 12 percent of it.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/high-health...



#5341(2012.3.6)

 米国は依然としてひどい女性差別社会であることを具体的数字で明らかにした記事だ。
 だけど、日本はその米国より輪をかけてひどい女性差別社会だからね。↓
 <米国の女性達は、16%の壁にぶちあたっているってさ。
 まずは、実業界から。↓>
 ・・・Barnard College president Debora Spar・・・said・・・“We have fallen into what I call the 16 percent ghetto, which is that if you look at any sector, be it aerospace engineering, Hollywood films, higher education, or Fortune 500 leading positions, women max out at roughly 16 percent,” Spar said. “That is a crime, and it is a waste of incredible talent.”
 <上下両院の議員、最高裁の裁判官、州知事、州議会議員。↓>
 Seventeen percent of United States Senators are women, and only 16.8 percent of the House of Representatives. The Supreme Court has three women justices out of nine, and six women governors out of 50, or 12 percent. In state legislatures, 23.6 percent of elected representatives are female, and only nine percent of mayors are women in the 100 largest cities.・・・
 <教授、再び実業界、弁護士、プロテスタント教会。↓>
 “Over half of college graduates but less than a quarter of full professors and a fifth of college presidents are female,” reported Deborah Rhode and Barbara Kellerman in their book Women and Leadership. “In management, women account for about a third of M.B.A. classes, but only 2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, 6 percent of top earners, 8 percent of top leadership positions, and 16 percent of board directors and corporate officers. In law, women constitute about half of new entrants to the profession, but less than a fifth of law firm partners, federal judges, law school deans, and Fortune 500 general counsels. Half the students in divinity school are women, but they account for only 3 percent of the pastors of large congregations in protestant churches that have been ordaining women for decades.”・・・
 <金融界。↓>
 “In the financial services industry, 57 percent of the workers are women—but only 1.5 percent of the CEO’s are female,”・・・
 <映画界。↓>
 Among this year’s Academy Award nominations, 98 percent were given to movies directed by men, 84 percent went to movies written by men, and 70 percent to movies starring men. In the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as elsewhere in American society, the important decisions continue to be made by men: 77 percent of Oscar voters are male.・・・
 Nor are such imbalances improving; in most areas, women’s advancement has flatlined in recent years.・・・
 <米国の国会議員に占める女性の割合は、バングラデシュ、スーダン、ア首連並み。↓>
 ・・・the <US> actually ranks 71st in female legislative representation, behind Bangladesh, Sudan and United Arab Emirates. ・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/03/04/t...



#5347(2012.3.9)

 キリスト教原理主義的発想が米国の対外政策も律して生きた。↓
 <マッキンレー大統領によるフィリピン人キリスト教徒化のためのフィリピン植民地化政策は、その上無知丸出しだったわけだが・・。↓>
 ・・・McKinley justified, in part, the United States becoming an imperialist power in the Philippines by the need to "uplift and Christianize them," completely ignoring the fact that the country was 90 percent Catholic.・・・
 <先の大戦で、米国のキリスト教各宗派は十字軍的に、とりわけ無神論ナチスドイツに対する米国の戦争努力に加担した。↓>
 In October 1941, Roosevelt warned the American public that Hitler planned to abolish all religions, telling his audience, "The god of Blood and Iron will take the place of God of Love and Mercy." American churches rallied around the war effort, combining faith with patriotism, only to doubt its morality in the wake of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2012/0...

 米国の病弊のもう一つは、上記発想とオーバーラップしているところの、市場原理主義的発想だ。↓
 <米国の所得/教育/権力の上澄み20%と下積み30%とは全く違った価値観を持っている、だと。↓>
 ・・・the top 20 percent・・・in income, education and powe・・・strongly uphold “distinctively American” values of hard work, honesty, support for marriage and religious faith, whereas the lower 30 percent do not.
 <上澄みの価値観とは、勤勉、正直、宗教(心)、結婚(志向性)だとさ。↓>
 He goes on to assert that the decrease in industry, honesty, religion and marriage among the lower 30 percent has resulted in a serious loss of “social capital,” defined as “neighborliness and civic engagement.” Citing further data, Murray then claims that “people living in places with weak social capital generally lead less satisfying lives than people who live in places with high social capital -- they are less happy.” Therefore, people in the lower 30 percent are significantly less happy than people in the higher 20 percent.・・・
 <↑上記価値観を持っていない下積み30%の間では、「隣人性と社会参画」なる「社会的資本」が形成されないため、彼らは客観的にも心理的にも不幸になるっちゅうんだな。
 で、下積み30%に対して、政府は一切手を差し伸べるのをやめようってんの。そうすりゃ上記価値観が形成されると。気ー狂ってるとしか言いようがないね。↓>
 His argument is that any government intervention to improve the lot of the lower 30 percent decreases the responsibility of the people helped and thereby decreases their happiness. ・・・
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/go...



#5349(2012.3.10)

 ジョン・ディーについての新しい本が出た。
 イギリスには、ハリー・ポッターの世界につながる長い伝統がある、と改めて思う。↓
 <エリザベス女王以下のお歴々にファンが多数いたって。↓>
 ・・・John Dee・・・was actively involved in affairs of state, frequently consulted by influential politicians and courtiers, and had a connection to Queen Elizabeth herself.
 Dee's patrons were the great men of state: William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, who was the queen's chief minister; the earls of Warwick and Pembroke; and the queen's favourite, the Earl of Leicester. He had close relations with Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Walsingham. All these men appear to have had a serious interest in alchemy and astrology, and it is Parry's intention to show that magical practices permeated political and social life in later Tudor England, and that the currency of such practices has been largely overlooked.
 Certainly, the belief that knowledge and power could be enlarged by celestial assistance was ingrained in the mentality of the age.・・・
 <賢者の石や万能薬をやがて創りだすと期待された。前者により金がいくらでも手に入るとなれば、戦争の資金がいくらでも捻出できることになる!↓>
 It was widely believed that the alchemical quest would lead to the attainment of the philosophers' stone(賢者の石). The "stone" was thought to be a powder that would aid in the transmutation of ignoble metals into gold, while the "great elixir(万能薬)" that would be created in the final passages of the quest would cure all disease and be an antidote to corruption. The processes of alchemy required the co-operation of the stars, and on occasion, the aid of spirits. The ministers of state desperately needed gold to enlarge the navy, maintain the war against Spain in the Low Countries, support the expeditions to Ireland and develop a British empire – a phrase coined by Dee. Success in alchemy would be the answer to their prayers.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/09/conjur...



#5351(2012.3.11)

 英国でのチャーチル人気、依然高し。↓
 <彼、あの有名な「鉄のカーテン」演説で「英米の特殊関係」って言葉も初めて使ったんだね。↓>
 ・・・Winston Churchill's speech to Westminster College, in Fulton, Missouri, on 5 March 1946, launched phrases such as the "special relationship" and the Iron Curtain.・・・
 <彼は、大学に行かなかった(行けなかった?)ことを生涯悔やんだと。↓>
 He hadn't attended university, which was something he regretted all his life; although he retrospectively exaggerated his scholarly limitations, he'd never been a happy or particularly successful schoolboy at Harrow; and in many ways he later educated himself. ・・・
 <そして、英国における科学技術工学教育が不十分で、米国のMITに相当する高等教育機関がないことを問題視していたとさ。↓>
 ・・・he came to regret that that he hadn't done more while in power to promote science, technology and engineering in Britain, and he continued to lament that there was no British equivalent to MIT. ・・・
 <そこで、ケンブリッジ大にチャーチル校がつくられた。その学部生の70%は科学技術専攻、と決められた。↓>
 The scheme to establish Churchill College, Cambridge, was duly launched in 1958, the first undergraduates were admitted three years later, and the appropriately modernistic buildings were completed in 1968. In accordance with Churchill's wishes and concerns, the statutes required that 70% of the undergraduates should be studying science or technology.
 <同校は、チャーチルやサッチャーを含む20世紀の著名人の文書の受け入れ先としても有名になった。↓>
 But the college has also become a monument to its originator in another way, for in 1974 the Churchill Archives Centre was opened, which has since become the greatest British repository for the papers of major 20th Century figures, including not only scientists and technologists, but also generals and civil servants - and politicians. Margaret Thatcher's papers are housed there, and so, too, are Churchill's own. ・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17272610



#5359(2012.3.15)

 ダンテの『神曲』反ユダヤ性、反イスラム性、反ホモ性を批判し、学校で『神曲』を教材に使わないよう求める声が出た。↓
 Dante's medieval classic the Divine Comedy has been condemned as racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic by a group calling for it to be removed from classrooms.・・・
 Inferno's 34th, which tells of Judas, endlessly chewed in the teeth of Lucifer, and 28th, in which Mohammed is depicted torn "from the chin down to the part that gives out the foulest sound", as well as Purgatorio's 26th, which shows homosexuals under a rain of fire in purgatory. The work, it says, slanders the Jewish people, depicts Islam as a heresy and is homophobic.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/14/the-di...



#5363(2012.3.17)

 米国の州最高裁の裁判官のかなり多くが選挙で選ばれてるんだね。
 オカシなオカシな米国じゃらほい。↓
 ・・・In all, 31 states are holding elections for their top court this year — multicandidate races and “retention” votes for a total of 73 judgeships nationwide. Requiring would-be judges to cozy up to party leaders and raise large sums from special interests eager to influence their decisions seriously damages the efficacy and credibility of the judiciary. It discourages many highly qualified lawyers from aspiring to the bench. Bitter campaigns — replete with nasty attack ads — make it much harder for judges to work together on the bench and much harder for citizens to trust the impartiality of the system.・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/16/opinion/no-way-t...

 米連邦裁で最高裁以外の所に、実は名裁判官と謳われる人物が時々登場する。
 そのうちの一人を紹介した本の書評だ。↓
 ・・・Judge・・・Learned Hand・・・dominated the federal courts in the first half of the 20th century. If any judge occupied a similar place during the second half, it was Judge Henry Friendly, who joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1959—just as Hand was leaving it—and remained there until his suicide in 1986. ・・・
 <ハーヴァード・ロースクール在学中の伝説!↓>
 As a history student at Harvard, he was personally recruited to Harvard Law School by Professor (later Justice) Felix Frankfurter. He presided over the Harvard Law Review and earned arguably the best grades in the law school's history. (Louis Brandeis scored higher marks but only under an inflated scoring system.) ・・・
 <当時の超リベラルのウォーレン最高裁長官率いる連邦最高裁の行き過ぎをしばしば「是正」する名判決を下した。↓>
 Friendly won acclaim because of his modest conservatism: At the height of the Warren Court's liberal judicial activism, he attempted to pare back the court's excesses, to make them more palatable and practical. In so doing, he won over not just the court's most aggressive conservative critics but also the broad base of moderates who, like Friendly, criticized the court's overreach while approving of its premises. Friendly largely succeeded in avoiding political labels, which made him more palatable to judges and scholars on both sides of the political aisle.・・・
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527023045...

 ヒットラーに対する当時の米国人の姿勢が分かるよ。
 自分達もユダヤ人差別をしてたから甘いのなんのって。↓
 ・・・Americans reacted to Hitler rather as any other nationality did. First they ridiculed him, then they expressed grudging admiration for the order he brought to Germany. Later, they turned a blind eye to his anti-Semitism, excused his craving for territorial expansion and doubted his appetite for war. A few warned of Hitler’s threat, but they were largely ignored.
 Most Americans tolerated German racism precisely because it was directed at Jews. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/...



#5365(2012.3.18)

 ロシアのパリス・ヒルトンと呼ばれていた女性(30歳)がプーチンに反旗を翻した。↓
 Russia’s Scandalous ‘It Girl’ Remakes Herself as an Unlikely Face of Protest・・・
 <引用しなかったが、彼女の父親は、サンクトペテルブルグ市長時代にプーチンの最初のメンターとなった。その後、プーチンは零落したこの父親を援助、彼女はプーチンを支援することでこの恩に報いた。↓>
 During the first years of Mr. Putin’s presidency, Ms. Sobchak (her full name is pronounced KSAIN-ya sub-CHACK) made herself into an avatar of Moscow’s over-the-top, oil-fueled high life. She dated millionaires, posed topless for Playboy and lustily embraced the materialism of the age, making no attempt to hide her distaste for the poverty of ordinary Russians.・・・
 <しかし、今では、彼女は、反プーチン運動の先頭に立っている。↓>
 ・・・<now> she <i>s at the vanguard of the protest movement, standing before 80,000 demonstrators who had been chanting “Russia without Putin.”・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/world/europe/kse...



#5369(2012.3.20)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 1942年5月、英軍部がフランスのヴィシー政権に軍事援助を行う決定を下していた。
 チャーチル首相もドゴールも蚊帳の外だった。
 結局この話は実現する暇がなかったが…。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17390290
 英軍がチャーチルを軽蔑し切ってたことが分かる。秘密が今まで保たれことからも…。



#5369(2012.3.20)

 フランスで、同一犯が三件連続テロを決行した。最初の二件は相手が非白人、最後の一件はユダヤ人。
 いかにも欧州らしい出来事だ。↓
 ・・・The first attack came on March 11, when a man responded to an online advertisement by a French soldier selling a motorcycle. But, authorities believe that instead of buying the bike, the man shot the soldier in cold blood. Four days later, a man wearing a motorcycle helmet attacked three off-duty military paratroopers as they withdrew cash from a bank machine in the town of Montauban, near their base, some 35 miles from Toulouse. That attack killed two soldiers and left a third struggling for his life. The three dead soldiers are all of North African descent, while the gravely injured survivor is from a French territory in the Caribbean. They are all dark-skinned.
 Barely a dozen hours after the Jewish school attack, authorities concluded that the seven killings were the work of the same man using at least one of the same guns and who rode the same motor scooter・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/19/t...



#5371(2012.3.21)

 米国のフロリダ州等では、正当防衛の要件が著しく緩和された結果、疑わしいと思われた人は誰でも自由に射殺できると言っても過言じゃないんだって。↓
 ・・・Florida is a Stand Your Ground state. Stand Your Ground laws do away with the longstanding legal concept that there’s a “duty to retreat” -- that the sane and sensible thing to do when confronted with a “suspicious” situation is to get the heck out of there. In Florida and a number of other states, if running for safety is an option you don’t have to take it. You can meet perceived danger with deadly force; and if you end up making a dodgy situation worse, you can fire your gun and claim self-defense. Then it’s up to the prosecution to disprove that claim.・・・
 <フロリダ州(?)では、「正当な」殺人が3倍に増えたって。↓>
 The Tampa Bay Times reported in 2010 that “justifiable homicides tripled after the law went into effect” and that it “has been invoked in at least 93 cases with 65 deaths.”・・・
http://loyalopposition.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/2...

 前にも取り上げたことがあるけど、親と一緒に住む成人が米国でどんどん増えてきている。↓
 ・・・ 21.6% of Americans ages 25 to 34 now live in multigenerational households. The figure has risen steadily since 1980, when it measured at just 11%, and it spiked, unsurprisingly, starting in 2007.・・・
http://moneyland.time.com/2012/03/20/being-30-and-...
 <不況で若者に職がないことによる一時的現象だという説もある。↓>
 ・・・There are some who say that the current situation, in which high percentages of young Americans are underachievers living in their parent’s basements, will be the norm for some time to come. The New Yorker‘s James Surowiecki doesn’t agree with this take, however. He sees the rise in extended stays in the nest as a cyclical change in response to the economic downturn, not a permanent change・・・
 <だけど、州を越えて引っ越しする人もどんどん減っている↓ことからすると、一時的現象とはボクには思えないね。>
 ・・・since the 1980s, the likelihood of an American in his or her 20s moving out of state has declined by more than 40%. ・・・
http://moneyland.time.com/2012/03/13/move-out-of-y...



#5373(2012.3.22)

 米国では、南部を中心に今でも、禁酒法が維持されてるカウンティが山とあるんだね。
 キリスト教原理主義各派だってほぼカルトだよ。↓
 ・・・When alcohol regulation was handed back to individual states, many local communities voted to keep the restrictions in place, particularly in the southern Bible Belt.
 Today there are still more than 200 "dry" counties in the United States・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17291978



#5375(2012.3.23)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 フランスで兵士とユダヤ人計7人を殺害したイスラム教徒のアルジェリア系フランス人(23歳)が、彼のアジトに踏み込んだ警官隊と激しい銃撃戦を繰り広げ、銃を乱射しながら窓から飛び降り、死亡。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17473207
 言葉を失うね。

<太田>

 この犯人、盗んだヤマハのスクーターを使って凶行を繰り返した。また、3回にわたった凶行を、すべてビデオ撮影していた。↓
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17473207

 上記報道や、ツイッターで紹介した報道や下掲讀賣記事を総合すると、警官隊によって頭を撃たれたために窓から落下しつつ、なお銃を撃ち続けた、ということのようだが・・。
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/world/news/20120322-OYT1T...
 ・・・Although often targeted, France had seen no major attack materialize on its soil since 1996・・・
 <フランスでの反ユダヤ主義は沈静化しているってんだけど、ホントかね。↓>
 Anti-Semitism in France has steadily declined in recent decades, and anti-Semitic acts, which had brutally increased in the first half of the 2000s, have subsided. ・・・
 <チンピラが自分の存在根拠を大量殺人に求めたってだけのこと、と切り捨てるが・・。↓>
 ・・・as late as 2010, he was still trying to enlist in the French armed forces, and was rejected by the Foreign Legion. Other details of his killings (he apparently caught his killings on video by a camera attached to his gear) hint at how similar his profile is to deranged serial killers or teenagers engaging in shooting sprees. ・・・
 <アラブの春は、アルカーイダ流のテロリスト網をズタズタにしたっちゅうんだけど・・。↓>
 ・・・the Arab Spring has disorganized the terrorist networks, bringing a handful of Westerners to the training camps of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it has reintegrated most Islamists -- even the Salafists -- into the political game, thereby isolating the jihadists further. It has also shown a different path to popular empowerment and dignity.
 <今回の事件は、孤立した、昔の名前で出ています的なものってのがこのコラムニストの結論だ。信じるも信じないのもあなたのご自由。↓>
 Toulouse, in other words, appears like the annual update to a bound encyclopedia subscription -- an insert to an era that is already passing.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/22/t...



#5375(2012.3.23)

 コラム#5371で取り上げた記事中に出てくる、フロリダ州での黒人少年射殺事件をめぐって米国では大論議がまきおこっている。
 そういった記事の中に以下の記述が出てきた。↓
 ・・・Some commentators have sought to liken Martin’s killing to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till・・・
 <1955年当時の米国は、現在とは異なった国だった。州公認のテロリズムと暗殺というのが南部全般を通じる公的政策だった。↓>
 When Till was killed in Mississippi at 14 — accused of flirting with a white woman — this was a different country. State-sanctioned terrorism and assassination were official policy throughout the South. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/to-be-black...

 ↑名目上は連合国による占領だが、実態は米国による占領を受けた敗戦日本だが、米国の自由民主主義度は、日本のそれよりもはるかに遜色があった、政治的には、後進国による先進国の占領統治であった、ということを、ホント、分かってくれよな、属国日本の隷従の民の皆さん。



#5377(2012.3.24)

 フランスの反ユダヤ主義は沈静化(コラム#5375)なんてしとらんというコラムがさっそく出てたよ。↓
 <フランスの原理主義的世俗主義は、宗教原理主義的なユダヤ人、イスラム教徒に対する非フランス人としての差別をもたらすっちゅうわけ。↓>
 ・・・while Americans value freedom of religion, the French value freedom from religion.
 In practice, French secularism, or laicite, means that you don’t express your religious beliefs in public: That means in public schools, Muslim girls can’t wear their veils, Jewish boys can’t wear their kippot, and Christians can’t draw attention to their crosses. It also means that when a state exam falls on your religious holiday, well, tant pis, because laicite means you’re supposed to be French before anything else.・・・
 <そもそも、フランスの宗教別人口についての統計すらない。↓>
 Interestingly, no one knows with certainty how many people in France practice different faiths: The Republique doesn’t keep official stats. It is only by approximation that we estimate that largely atheist France is also home to the largest Jewish and Muslim populations of Europe, with roughly 600,000 Jews and 5 million Muslims.・・・
 ・・・the country’s nearly religious devotion to secularism is at least a partial explanation for the country’s latent racism and anti-Semitism.・・・
 <量的には反ユダヤ主義的事件は減ってきているが、悪質なものはむしろ増えてきている。↓>
 True, the number of anti-Semitic acts in France has decreased recently--there were 466 in 2010 and 389 last year--but the number of violent attacks have increased over the same time.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fo...



#5377(2012.3.24)

 以前にも取り上げたことがあるが、英国の俳優はどうして優れているかが説明されている。↓
 <シェークスピアの伝統。↓>
 ・・・Why are there so many great British theatre actors? I have a few theories. First, Shakespeare is the DNA of our theatre and we have a living relationship to his work -- it's not just part of heritage Britain. Thanks to Shakespeare, British actors tend to have a sense of history as well as great verbal dexterity and literacy.
 <劇場型日常、議会と司法における対立構造、微妙な階層間格差、実際主義的伝統・・。↓>
 And then so many of the characteristics of theatre coincide with the features of our nation: dressing up, processions, ceremonies and social rituals. Adversarial conflict is the stuff of our parliamentary and legal system, and theatre depends on it. British actors, like British politicians, are entirely pragmatic, with a genius for adapting to all conditions and resources. And theatre is concerned with role-playing, which is second nature to a nation obsessed with class distinction and inured to the necessity of pretending to be what you aren't.
 <そして、演劇への公的支援。↓>
 Third, our publicly funded not-for-profit theatre has nurtured our great actors.・・・
 We produce great actors because we're repressed as a nation. We're introverted and need to be licensed to express ourselves publicly. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/mar/23/why-be...

 米国では、家計における女性優位の時代が目前となっているんだねえ。↓
 ・・・Today, wives in dual-earner families contribute, on average, 47 percent of family earnings. In 2009, nearly 38 percent of employed wives outearned their husbands.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/...



#5379(2012.3.25)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 フロリダ州で黒人少年を射殺して以来逮捕もされず姿を消している男を(殺さずけがもさせずと呼びかけつつ)拘束した人に1万ドルの賞金を与える、とブラックパンサーが表明した。
 http://blog.sfgate.com/hottopics/2012/03/24/new-bl...
 米国の南部っていまだにあらゆることが自力救済の西部劇的世界なのね。

 桜だけじゃなく、日本発の夥しい植物が米国のランドスケープを変えている、というオハナシ。↓
 ・・・“We have Chinese plants and European plants,” said Forrest, of the New York Botanical Garden, “but if you subtracted any geographic source, none would be so missed by American gardeners as Japanese plants.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/b...

 フランスにおける反ユダヤ主義の話、ここにも出てた。↓
 <毎年2,000人のユダヤ系フランス人がイスラエルに移住してきている。↓>
 ・・・about 2,000 French Jews are currently resettling in Israel each year, and a total of 100,000 have already made the move. ・・・
 <フランスにイスラム教徒たる移民が増えるほど反ユダヤ主義も深刻化している。↓>
 ・・・there are already "hundreds of anti-Semitic incidents" a year, committed mainly by Arab immigrants・・・
 <既に、ユダヤ系フランス人の半分近くが、いざという時のためにイスラエルに住居を確保している。↓>
 ・・・almost one in two French Jews maintains a residence in Israel. It's a sort of insurance policy, just in case the situation in France gets even worse.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,8...



#5383(2012.3.27)

 黒人青年殺害事件(コラム#5371、5375、5379)に関し、黒人の青年層の殺人実行率は白人とラティノを併せた青年層の10倍、という冷厳なる事実から目を逸らすな、と指摘したコラム。↓
 ・・・More whites are killed by blacks than blacks killed by whites (or "white Hispanics"). And far, far more blacks are killed by other blacks.・・・
 ・・・black males age 14 to 24 commit homicides at a rate nearly 10 times higher than that of young white and Latino males combined.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-...



#5385(2012.3.28)

 フロリダの現地警察は、全米を騒がせているところの、黒人青年が射殺された事件は、この青年が後ろから「白人」を襲い、殴ってから、地面に押し倒してその頭を地面に打ち付けたために、この「白人」が正当防衛で拳銃を発射したもので、「白人」は傷を各所におっている、また、これには目撃者もいる、と発表。また、この青年がマリファナ所持疑惑で登校停止処分中であったことも併せ発表した。↓
 ・・・The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that police sources say Martin was the aggressor on Feb. 26, knocking Zimmerman to the ground with a single punch and then climbing on top of the 28-year-old neighborhood watch captain and slamming the back of his head into the ground. Police say this account, given by Zimmerman, is supported by eyewitnesses, according to the Sentinel's report.
 One such witness reportedly told police that he saw Martin on top of Zimmerman, striking the man, while Zimmerman cried out for help. The attack left Zimmerman bloodied, police sources told the Sentinel, and led him to fire at Martin in self-defense.
 Police say Zimmerman was bleeding from the nose, had a fat lip and confirm that the back of his head was cut. He received first aid at the scene but refused to go to the hospital and received medical treatment the following day, according to the Sentinel's sources.・・・
 Zimmerman told police he he'd lost sight of Martin and was heading back to his car when the youth suddenly stepped into his path. According to the Sentinel, Martin asked Zimmerman if he had a problem. Zimmerman said no and reached for his cellphone. Martin then said something like, "Well, you do now" and punched him, according to the Sentinel's sources.・・・
 At the time, Martin was suspended from high school after he was found to be in possession of an empty marijuana baggie・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na...

 それ↑に対し、マリファナはむしろ人を沈静化させる、等の反論がなされているコラムだ。↓
 ・・・The research on marijuana and violence shows clearly that the drug either reduces aggression or has no effect・・・
 <むしろ、マリファナ疑惑程度で登校停止処分にした方が問題で、そのため、ぶらぶらしていた黒人青年に悲劇が訪れたとする。↓>
 If Martin’s school had not suspended the boy under its “zero tolerance” policy for drug use -- one that punishes students for possession of an empty plastic baggie with trace amounts of marijuana as severely as for possession of heroin or a gun -- he probably would never even have crossed paths with the man who shot him. Martin was serving his suspension on Feb. 26, when he was killed.・・・
 <やたら黒人少年は非白人少年に比べて麻薬関連で登校停止処分になったり警察に届けられたりしているとも。↓>
 ・・・black children are 3.5 times more likely than whites to be suspended from school for drugs and that 70% of all youth referred by school authorities to police for prosecution are black, even though they make up only 18% of the school population in the U.S.・・・
 <そもそも、米国の麻薬取締は、形を変えた人種主義としての歴史を持っているとする。コカイン禁止は黒人を念頭に始まった。↓>
 ・・・the nation’s vehement antidrug rhetoric is rooted in explicit racism. For example, the first state laws banning cocaine were passed in response to media reports about how the drug made black men homicidal, prone to raping white women and, worst of all to the police, impervious to bullets. An article about the issue in the New York Times in 1914 was headlined “Negro Cocaine ‘Fiends’ Are a New Southern Menace.”
 <阿片禁止は支那人を念頭に始まった。↓>
 Similarly, the first state legislation banning opium was linked to fears of Chinese men allegedly using the drug to seduce white women.
 <マリファナ禁止は黒人とラティノを念頭に始まった。↓>
 The campaign for national marijuana prohibition, which came in the 1930s, involved racism against both African Americans and Mexicans. ・・・
 <黒人と白人の麻薬使用率は同じくらいだが、黒人青年は白人青年に比べて麻薬使用での逮捕率は2倍、黒人成人は白人成人に比べて麻薬犯罪での起訴率は5倍だ。↓>
 ・・・in the U.S., African Americans and whites take drugs at about the same rate, but black youth are twice as likely to be arrested for it and more than five times more likely to be prosecuted as an adult for drug crimes.・・・
http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/27/did-marijuan...

 昨年夏のイギリス騒擾について、今度は政府パネルの報告書が出た。
 様々な原因を列挙してるだけだね。↓
 An independent panel set up by the government to study the causes of last summer's riots・・・concluded that・・・the riots were fuelled by a range of factors including a lack of opportunities for young people, poor parenting, a failure of the justice system to rehabilitate offenders, materialism and suspicion of the police.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/mar/28/verdict-u...



#5387(2012.3.29)

 黒人青年射殺事件の続きだ。↓
 <目撃者は、事件の始めと終わりは目撃していないんだって。↓>
 ・・・None of the witnesses have said they saw the beginning of the altercation. None said they saw the shot that ended it. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/28/trayvo...
 <現地警察は、一時拘束した「白人」のビデオを公開したが、怪我をおってるようには見えない。↓>
 Sanford police marched a handcuffed George Zimmerman into police headquarters the night he shot and killed Trayvon Martin, and a video shot by a security camera picked up no obvious sign of injury to the Neighborhood Watch volunteer.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-...
 <この「白人」、黒人の友人も多かったんだって。↓>
 ・・・Friends and family have said that Zimmerman, who is half-Peruvian, has black friends and even family members, and was not motivated by prejudice.
 <彼、近所の評判はどちらかというと大変良かったんだとも。↓>
 A portrait is emerging of a man whose life, though pocked with allegations of aggressive behavior, was also marked by the kind of neighborhood-level engagement -- he helped plan block parties -- that social scientists have argued are key to combating the atomization and alienation of suburban life.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-...
 <これに対し、「白人」や現地警察の側を批判する意見も引き続き出ている。
 南北戦争前の逃亡奴隷法が生きてた頃を彷彿とさせるってんだな。↓>
 ・・・Fla., police department・・・<'s> explanation bears an eerie resemblance to cases brought under the Fugitive Slave Law・・・of 1793・・・during the Antebellum period. ・・・
 That law authorized slave owners residing in one state to enter another state to recapture their property.・・・
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/27/fu...



#5397(2012.4.3)

 もともと米国の女性には民主党支持者が多かったところ、ピルを常に保険でカバーすべきかどうかという共和党との論争において、カバーすべきだとしている同党を支持する女性が更に増え、民主党と共和党が競り合う伝統的な各州でオバマが共和党のロムニー候補に対してリードしているとの世論調査結果をもたらしているってさ。↓
 ・・・Even with improving employment figures, Mr Obama has struggled to win voters’ trust on the economy. Despite this, over the past month he has turned a slight deficit with voters in 12 battleground states into a nine-point advantage, according to a poll by USA Today, largely on the basis of a surge in support from women. The US president leads Mr Romney by a margin of nearly two-to-one among women, the survey found, more than wiping out the Republican’s advantage with white male voters.・・・
 The contraception debate might have had the effect of baking a lot of support in for Mr Obama and could make it difficult for Mr Romney to make inroads with women from hereon in・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9f10f208-7ce1-11e1-...



#5399(2012.4.4)

 欧州におけるジプシー(ロマ)差別が糾弾されている。↓
 ・・・It is estimated up to 12 million Roma, Travellers and Gypsies live in Europe.
 ・・・Discrimination is one of Europe's most pressing human rights concerns・・・the Roma and Traveller populations of Europe "suffer more than most・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17606004



#5403(2012.4.6)

 これらは、極端な例だと思うかもしれないが、キリスト教だろうがイスラム教だろうが、アブラハム系宗教なんて、およそ人類に何のメリットも与えてこなかったことを象徴するオハナシだ。

 ドイツのノーベル賞作家のギュンター・グラスが、発表したばかりのイスラエルを非難する詩で、大騒ぎを引き起こしている。
 彼、何度ぶったたかれても絶対懲りないドイツ人の代表ってところだな。↓
 <イスラエルの歴史学者:基本的にモサドの元長官が言っていることと同じことをグラスも言っているが、前者は核戦略の専門家だけどグラスはどしろうと。ということは、グラスは反ユダヤ主義者だ、ということ。↓>
 ・・・Former Mossad director Meir Dagan, for example, shares the same opinion as Gunter Grass. He is also opposed to an Israeli attack on Iran. He talks about it almost every day. ・・・
 Meir Dagan has never been accused by anyone in Israel of being an anti-Semite. And it has been a long time since people in Germany were not able to criticize Israel -- even if some in the Israeli government might regret that fact. Grass's argumentation is very apolitical. If Dagan were to publish a poem, I would find it just as embarrassing as when Grass publishes a nuclear analysis. I don't think one can take it very seriously.・・・
 He is truly a great writer, but being a great writer doesn't mean that he also understands nuclear strategy.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518...
 <ドイツの歴史学者:これは詩の形をとった反ユダヤ主義パンフレットだ。↓>
 ・・・what Grass has written is an anti-Semitic pamphlet compressed into pseudo-poetry.・・・
 <かつて、グラスは、10代の時にナチス武装親衛隊に意に反して入隊したと「告白」したが、17歳にもなれば、自分の意思ってものがあったはずであり、嘘だろう。↓>
Grass was recruited into the Waffen-SS as a teenager toward the end of World War II. It was against his will, as he explains in his autobiography "Peeling the Onion."・・・At it happens, I have just read the book, and I was shocked by how he played it down. At the age of 17, one certainly does possess a political consciousness. Grass is simply incapable of self-criticism. Apart from that, he himself also writes in his "Onion" book that he had volunteered for the Navy and would have also been happy to join a tank regiment. Not his parents, however.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518...
 <ビルド紙(Bild):これは、ドイツ人がユダヤ人に対して犯した罪を、ユダヤ人がイラン人に対して犯している話をすることでユダヤ人に転嫁しようとしているところの、ポリティカル・コレクトネスに合致した反ユダヤ主義ってやつだ。↓>
 ・・・he is using the murmuring tone of a moralist to disseminate just one thing: politically correct anti-Semitism. He's trying to qualify the guilt of Germans by turning the Jews into perpetrators."・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518...



#5407(2012.4.8)

 正当防衛ならぬ正当攻撃を認めたStand Your Ground法を導入した米国の州がどこか、及びこの法の普及に伴ってどんなに正当殺人が増えてきたか、が一目で分かるよ。
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2012/04/07/...
 西部劇の時代へと逆戻りした米国!
 訪米するなら場所を選ばないと危険だぞ。



#5409(2012.4.9)

 英国に自ら操縦かんを握って「亡命」した、ナチス副総統のヘスと接見していた英国の精神病医のメモが発表された。
 欧州人がどんなにイギリス人にコンプレックスを抱いていて、イギリス人がどんなに欧州人を見下しているのかが改めてよーく分かるぞな。↓
 ・・・<British> army psychiatrist・・・Dr Henry Dicks <visited the detained>・・・Germany's Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess・・・"The first impression is undoubtedly of a schizoid psychopath," Dicks wrote in the notebook, which has only recently been made public by his family.・・・
 <ヘスやヒットラーがどんなにイギリスを尊敬し、イギリスに恐れを抱いていたかにびっくりしたって。↓>
 As their talks progressed, Dicks was struck by Hess and Hitler's admiration of the English, despite Germany having the upper hand in the war at that time.
"I believe they are trying to frighten us but are themselves frightened of us," he wrote.
 <連中は、イギリス人を羨ましがり、生活様式、衣類、何が正しいかといったことを猿真似している。連中は、密かにイギリス人を愛しているのだ、と。イギリス人は、手の届かない、より高等な人種であって、連中は一生懸命イギリス人のようになろうとしているのだ、と。↓>
 "They have always envied us and aped us in their life forms, dress, correctness etc... They are at least, in part, ambivalently in love with us. We are that elusively superior race they so frantically want to be themselves."
 <だからこそ、ヘスは平和を求めてイギリスにやってきたのだ、とも。↓>
 Dicks thought an affection for the British may have been why Hess chose to make his solo flight to Scotland on 10 May 1941, in what he said was a peace mission.
 <ヒットラーは、ヘスは頭がおかしくなったと述べた。(ここでは引用しなかったが、この精神病医は、ヘスが統合識失調症だと診断を下している。)↓>
 Hitler said he had no knowledge of what Hess was trying to do and the Nazi Party soon declared him insane. ・・・
 <ヘスが求め続けるので、英国政府高官を彼に会わせた。↓>
 Following his arrival in Scotland, Hess was furious he'd been kept as a prisoner instead of being treated as a peace envoy. He had demanded to meet a senior British official and eventually the government decided to play along, sending the Lord Chancellor Sir John Simon on 10 June 1941.
 <ヘスは、この高官に会うまえには(恐らくは劣等感に襲われて)不安でたまらなくなり、会った後には(予想通り)精神が更に不安定になり、自殺を図った。↓>
 Dicks recorded Hess's intense anxiety prior to the meeting and attributed it to his unconscious feelings of inferiority around the British. After Lord Simon had rejected Hess's proposals, Dicks worried his patient would spiral out of control. His fears proved correct.
 Days later Hess threw himself over the banister(階段の手すり) of the staircase in the building where he was being held. He demanded to see Dicks in the early hours of the morning then rushed towards him, jumping over the banisters and breaking his leg, according to the psychiatrist.・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17588632



#5411(2012.4.10)

 戦後の米国における黒人に対する暴力事件に係る写真集だ。
 このような事件に関しては、陪審裁判は黒人へのリンチの継続だった、とも言えそうだ。
 こういう写真集はモノクロがふさわしい。
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/galleries/20...

 米国の黒人問題は、むしろオバマが大統領になってから深刻化してる、ってイメージも米国にはあんだね。↓
 ・・・ Nearly four years into the Age of Obama, many Americans are coming to the conclusion that choosing a black man as commander in chief has done little to speed up racial progress or soothe racial tensions. In fact, some even suspect that Obama’s presence in the Oval Office may be slowing us down—and pushing us farther apart.・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/08/a...

 簡単に要約できないが、ティモシェンコ(元首相・受刑者・病人)の受難の物語を詳しく聞かされると、ウクライナは、ロシア、ベラルーシと一括りにすべき、おっそろしーい国だとつくづく思うね。↓
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,...



#5415(2012.4.12)

 フロリダ州での黒人少年銃殺事件の容疑者が、ついに、(本人が出頭し、)逮捕され起訴されたが、この少年の父親と母親は姓が違っており、結婚したことがない(?)上、この少年が殺された夜に彼が向かっていた先が父親の別の愛人宅だったというんだから、米国の家庭・・黒人家庭と言うべきか・・の乱れっぷりが推し量られる。↓
 George Zimmerman to face second-degree murder charge・・・
 Trayvon, who was returning to the home of his father's girlfriend with a soft drink and some sweets. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/12/george...
 <本件に関し、この父親と母親が手をつないで記者会見に応じてるってるんだから、もう、どうなってんだか。↓>
 The parents of Trayvon Martin, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, hold hands as they watch coverage of special prosecutor Angela Corey's announcement in Sanford, Flordia that George Zimmerman is to be charged. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica...



#5417(2012.4.13)

 フロリダでの少年銃殺事件に関し、被害者の母親(と父親?)が、あれは事故だったと言い出したことは、救われる思いだが、ちょっと拍子抜けもするね。↓
 ・・・Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin's mother, told・・・that she did not think Mr Zimmerman had intended to kill her son.
 "I believe it was an accident," she said on Thursday. "I believe that it just got out of control and he couldn't turn the clock back," she said, joined by Trayvon's father and their lawyer Benjamin Crump.・・・
 In a later interview・・・, Ms Fulton said she meant the meeting between her son and Mr Zimmerman was the accident.
 "That was the accident," she said. "Not the actual act of him shooting him. That was murder... They were never supposed to meet."・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17691459



#5423(2012.4.16)

 若者の失業率が50%を超えてるスペイン
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/s... 
の国王がボツワナで象撃ち等に興じて怪我をし手術を受けたことで、カネの浪費だ等と大騒ぎに。
 彼、銃暴発で弟を殺した前歴がある。
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/15/spain-...
 ブルボン家ってやっぱダメなのねえ。



#5425(2012.4.17)

 現在の米国について、全く私と同じ見方をしている英国人がいるね。↓
 Financial Times columnist Edward Luce has written a new book called Time to Start Thinking: America in the Age of Descent・・・
 <米国の相対的経済力は急速に衰えつつある。↓>
 ・・・ America's share of the global economy is diluting. In 2000, America had about 31 percent of the global economy, so just under a third. And by 2010 it was down to 23.5 percent, just under a quarter. That is a remarkable shift.・・・
 <中位給与所得者の収入は減り続けている。↓>
 ・・・declining incomes for the median wage earner.・・・
 <所得の不平等度は募る一方で、今やラテンアメリカ諸国並み。↓>
 ・・・93 percent of the gains in the 3 percent growth America got that year went to the top 1 percent, but also that the top 0.01 percent, namely the top 15,600 families, took 37 percent of the growth. That's the top one in 10,000 people. Even in 2002-2007 inequality was getting much worse. ・・・
 <階層間移動度は今や欧州水準を下回る。↓>
 As America's inequality is growing to Latin American levels, social mobility has fallen to sub-European levels. ・・・
 <工業部門は縮小の一途を辿っている。↓>
 ・・・core industries like manufacturing are shrinking. ・・・
 <米国持ち前の平等主義もプラグマティズムも[忘れ去られつつある。]↓>
 ・・・egalitarianism・・・The sense that people essentially treat each other as equals outside of their jobs, that there is this instinctive social egalitarianism・・・pragmatism・・・
 <で、米国の対応といえば、中共に対抗すべくその近傍での米軍の前方展開を増やすってんだけど、カネないのにどうすんの?↓>
  I think you could get a paradoxical one in the short term, and you might already be seeing it in Asia, which is that the more America's punch declines, and the more China's reach extends, the more popular America's going to get in that neighborhood. ・・・
 ・・・when America says it seeks to sustain its global footprint, it's not talking about closing down bases. Indeed, it's setting up new bases in places like Australia. It's going to find it hard to afford this indefinitely. It's very expensive.・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/04/16/e...

 スペイン王制危うし、の続編だ。↓
 <義理の息子の醜聞事件もあったばかり。↓>
 ・・・The king’s son-in-law・・・is a suspect in a corruption case, accused of using his position to embezzle several million euros in public contracts through a not-for-profit foundation he ran.
 <同国王は、野生動物協会のスペイン支部の名誉会長であるだけに、像狩り等に興じたことは非難されている。↓>
 The king is an honorary president of the Spanish branch of the World Wildlife Fund ― which could raise questions about why an alleged conservation enthusiast is killing some of the most intelligent animals on the planet.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/a-publi...
 <今回の像狩り等には6万ドルもかかっている!↓>
 ・・・ according to the website of the company that he travelled with, would cost $59,500 for 14 days. ・・・
 <スペインの首相も実は、国王が像狩り等に出かけることを知らされてたらしい。↓>
 ・・・it has come out that at least one person who should have had the perspicacity to dissuade the king from indulging in an expensive holiday involving the killing of endangered animals knew about the trip: Rajoy, Spain's prime minister.・・・
 <王妃は王妃で、国王の事故のことを聞かされてもギリシャへの旅行に出発するのを取りやめず、入院した国王を見舞うのも遅れた。王妃も首相もまるでダメだね。↓>
 ・・・upon hearing of her husband's accident, Queen Sofia, a noted animal lover and vegetarian, did not cancel a planned weekend trip to Greece, and thus was not scheduled to visit her husband in the hospital until her return to Spain on April 16.・・・
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2112...



#5429(2012.4.19)

 アルゼンチンのぺロニスト大統領、牙を剥く。
 現在別件でお騒がせ中のスペイン国王・・別の記事で、その引用はしなかったけど、彼、スペイン国民に謝罪したんだね・・が、アルゼンチン政府によるスペインの石油会社の国有化を思いとどまるよう電話してたとは。
 同国王、象徴的存在じゃ全くないんだねえ。
 いずれにせよ、こういう高度に政治的なことに首を突っ込むとは、スペイン国王、ズレ切っとるね。↓
 ・・・Argentinian・・・President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced that the oil company YPF would be nationalised. ・・・
 Coming two months after King Juan Carlos had personally phoned Fernandez to lobby against such a move, the seizure enraged Madrid・・・
 Renationalisation is aligned in the minds of Fernandez supporters with the renewed demand for sovereignty over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic claimed by Argentina as "Las Malvinas".・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/17/argent...



#5433(2012.4.21)

 醜聞の渦中のスペイン国王、王妃とは事実上の離婚状態で、ドイツ「貴族」の女性等を愛人にしてるらしいんだって。
 こりゃアカンわ。↓
 ・・・Even the king's private life, where rumours of lovers have always been rife, is no longer out of bounds -- and neither is his friendship with a German aristocrat whose name is widely available in Spain and Germany・・・
 The failure of his marriage to Queen Sofia, from whom he is practically separated, is public knowledge・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/20/spain-...

 米国留学帰りにロンドンに着いた時の第三世界のような印象の衝撃について前に書いたことがあったと思うけど、この1976年って独特の年だったのね。↓
 <1979年に社会主義から市場原理主義に英国が切り替わる直前。↓>
 ・・・One might also now divide the postwar years, in Britain and elsewhere, into two almost equal parts: the social democratic consensus that dominated political thinking from 1945 to 1979; and the capitalist kickback that began with Thatcher’s election and may perhaps be beginning its retreat.・・・
 <1976年はムッチャ暑く、旱魃、盛夏、どしゃぶり、霧雨、陰鬱、死んだよう、で形容される年だったって。↓>
 ・・・the almost frighteningly hot summer of 1976. Drought, dog days, downpours, drizzle, dismal, deathly. ・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/7e4e7d84-87ad-11e1-...



#5439(2012.4.24)

 醜聞まみれのスペイン王家だが、一家の写真の王女(孫)達の気品ある可愛い姿
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-8142...
を見て、ゴヤの「カルロス4世の家族」や、更に遡ってベラスケスの「ラス・メニーナス」に描かれた王女達を思い出した。

 渦中のスペイン国王、これまでベッドを共にした女性は1,500人だって。
 タイガー・ウッズが品行方正に見えるほどの数であり、生涯記録1,000人の記録を誇るかのカサノヴァ
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%83%A3%E3...
も、墓の中で最敬礼してるのでは?↓
 <一家が夏を過ごすマジョルカ島じゃ、時々、夜、黒ジャケット・黒ヘルメットでオートバイに乗った国王が愛人宅に通ってるとさ。↓>
 ・・・On the island of Mallorca, where the royal family has its summer residence, there were rumors of a love affair between the monarch and a local decorator. Residents of the Spanish capital whispered that their rey, or king, would often drive his motorcycle through the streets at night, unrecognizable in his black leather outfit and helmet, to disappear into the garage of a former beauty queen.
 <これまで、語られることがなかったどころか、スペイン人達はこれぞ男と称えてたんだと。↓>
 The macho man on the throne filled most Spaniards with pride.・・・
Juan Carlos is alleged to have had 1,500 lovers.・・・
 <元イタリア王室のサヴォイ家の姫からは子供の認知を求められそうだし、ダイアナ妃とも関係を持ったとか持たなかったとか。↓>
 Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, and that she intended to file a paternity suit. Juan Carlos is even said to have had a flirtation with Princess Diana・・・
 <ついに明かされたところの、内縁の妻(?)のドイツ「貴族」の名前。↓>
 After his hunting accident, journalists openly revealed the name of his German companion for the first time: Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, nee Larsen, 47, a woman who has had two failed marriages and has two children.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,...



#5439(2012.4.24)

 138年前のカリフォルニアの州民の支那人差別意識(有色人種差別意識)のひどさにはただただ呆れるのみだ。↓
 ・・・California・・・state had spent the previous decades implementing laws that extorted the Chinese with the goal of expelling them. A Foreign Miner’s Tax directed at Chinese miners had siphoned off roughly one-half their earnings; a Chinese Police Tax had been charged to most persons “of the Mongolian race.” Chinese adults were prohibited from testifying against whites in criminal or civil cases and Chinese children denied access to the state’s public schools. The Chinese, it was said, were arriving in overwhelming numbers to take jobs that, however low-paying, back-breaking, and life-threatening, belonged to Americans, and their “alien” language and culture threatened American morality and civilization.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/ju...



#5441(2012.4.25)

 欧州において、緊縮生活やイスラム教徒を中心とする移民に対する反感がフランスにおけるサルコジの「敗北」やオランダにおける内閣総辞職等をもたらしている。↓
 The end of austerity? The rise of nationalism? Angry voters wrestle with EU’s future・・・
 In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the architects of the EU’s response to the financial crisis, is in danger of being turned out of office in next month’s runoff with Francois Hollande -- a Socialist who is promising not to cut, but to increase public spending by €20 billion ($26.3 billion) by 2017.・・・
 And the Netherlands’ 18-month-old conservative coalition resigned this week after it failed to agree on cutting its own budget deficit to meet the EU limits it had demanded so fiercely of other countries.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/the-end...

 帝政ロシア、ソ連、と一貫して権力のポチであり続けたロシア正教が、今度はプーチンのポチになり果てている、というオハナシ。↓
 <3万ドルを超える時計をはめていた大主教。↓>
 ・・・Kirill's public support of Putin in the country's recent presidential election, as well as a scandal over a $30,000 wristwatch that appeared in a photo of the patriarch -- and then mysteriously disappeared -- have raised concern that the church is out of touch with ordinary Russians, and too cozy with the nation's leaders.・・・
 <何百万ドルもするマンションを構えていた大主教。↓>
 Soon after the watch episode, the patriarch, who is a monk by status and is not supposed to own real estate, was recently found to have a lavish apartment worth millions overlooking the Kremlin and Christ the Savior Cathedral.・・・
 For centuries the church was an obedient servant of Russia's rulers, and that deference became more pronounced after Stalin's ferocious repression. Critics・・・say that hasn't changed in the two decades of a democratic Russia.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f...



#5453(2012.5.1)

 米国において所得格差が拡大してきた原因を詳説している。↓
 <米国における実質中位所得は、1930年代から1970年代にかけて2倍以上になったけれど、1973年から2004年の間は、25%も増えていない。↓>
  ・・・from the 1930s to the 1970s, the American middle class grew while the poor and rich classes shrunk as a percentage of the population. Around the early 1970s, however, this development reversed. “Median income, which more than doubled between 1947 and 1973, would rise by less than one quarter between 1973 and 2004,”・・・
 <一、女性の社会進出で男がワリを食った。↓>
 Though women’s increased presence in the labor force has obviously been a boon to women, social justice, and society in general, it has destabilized the middle class.
 <二、共稼ぎの増加により、所得格差が増幅された。
  三、それが、片親家族の増大によって更に増幅された。↓>
 Now families depend on two incomes, and so are at twice the risk of job losses. High-income women and men are marrying, while those of low income are doing the same. Finally, the rise of single parenthood has made the two-parent family twice as economically sound.
 <四、非合法/合法移民によって元から米国にいた非熟練労働者がワリを食った。  
   五、公共初等中等教育の劣化と大学授業料の高騰。
   六、経済全球化で製造業等の職が海外に逃げた。
   七、IT化。
   八、高額所得者向け減税。
   九、金融部門の肥大化。↓>
 ・・・immigration is a contributing factor, as illegal and legal immigrants drive down wages and take jobs that would otherwise go to unskilled American workers. The failure of the American public school system, and the increased cost of college, has exacerbated the problem. Offshoring, the process by which American companies opt to use cheap labor in foreign countries, has devastated American manufacturing. Computerization of many formerly middle-class jobs, government policies that remove tax barriers to the rich, and the growth of the financial sector have all strongly contributed to economic inequality・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2012/0...



#5457(2012.5.3)

 ボクのように兄弟がいないとこういうえもいえぬ関係の経験ができずに生涯を終えるってことだな。↓
 <ヘルマン・ゲーリングは弟アルベルトのナチス体制下で虐げられたユダヤ人等の人々を助ける活動を止めようとはしなかった。やり過ぎるなよと言っただけだった。↓>
 ・・・ The overly ambitious Hermann knew about Albert's activities, yet did nothing to stop him. Albert later testified that his brother had told him it was his "own business" if he wanted to protect Jews, so long as he didn't get Hermann in "endless trouble." Albert, meanwhile, had a nearly schizophrenic relationship with Hermann, trying to keep the private person and the politician separate. "As brothers, we were close," he said.
 <弟は、チェコの自動車工場の幹部の一人として、チェコのレジスタンスにも手を貸した。しかし、ゲーリングの弟なのでお目こぼしに預かることが多かった。↓>
 But as time passed, Albert Goring abandoned the caution his brother had demanded of him. In late 1939, the younger Goring himself took an influential position, becoming export manager for the Skoda automobile factory in the Czech city of Brno. From this position, he also supported the Czech resistance, activists later testified. If their statements are accurate, Albert Goring revealed not only "the exact location of a submarine dockyard" but also the plan to break the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. This sensitive information, the Czech resistance fighters stated, was successfully passed on to Moscow and London.
 <強制収容所に収容されていた人々を逃がしてやったこともある。↓>
 But even that isn't the whole story. Goring is also believed to have saved prisoners from the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1944. "He said, I'm Albert Goring from Skoda. I need workers," Jacques Benbassat, the son of an associate of Albert's, later related. "He filled the truck with workers, and the concentration camp director agreed to it, because he was Albert Goring. Then he drove into the woods and released them."・・・
 <兄ゲーリングは何度となく、捕まりそうになった弟を助けてやった。ここでは引用しなかったが、この兄弟は顔も目の色も体の格好も性格もすべて正反対と言ってもいいくらい違っていた。↓>
 Multiple times, Hermann Goring had to intervene on Albert's behalf, all the while warning him that he wouldn't do so forever -- with every German plane shot down, the once untouchable head of the Luftwaffe found his star was on the wane. Shortly before the end of the war, Albert fled to Salzburg, Austria.
 <戦争が終わった瞬間、今度は、弟は何も悪いことをしていないのに、ゲーリングの弟だからというので、何度も逮捕される羽目になった。この兄弟は一度だけ同じ収容所に入れられたが、兄は弟に「お前はすぐに自由の身になれるよ。俺の妻子のことをよろしくな。さよなら。」と言い残し、自殺した。↓>
 These two very different men met just once more in an American detention center in Augsburg. "You will soon be free," the war criminal Goring is said to have told the younger Goring who saved Jews, on May 13, 1945. "So take care of my wife and my child. Farewell."
 While Hermann Goring, sentenced in Nuremberg, escaped execution by committing suicide in October 1946, the Americans remained suspicious of Albert Goring. His name had become a burden for him. Although the last of a series of caseworkers did recommend his release, Goring was turned over to the Czech Republic and tried in Prague for possible war crimes, because Skoda had also manufactured weapons.
 <弟は、チェコ政府に逮捕された時も結局無罪放免となったが、その後、ドイツで、ゲーリングの弟だったことがたたってまともな再就職ができず貧困のうちに生涯を終えた。↓>
 Only after many former Skoda employees testified on Goring's behalf were the charges dropped, and Goring was acquitted in March 1947. He died in 1966 in a Munich suburb, an impoverished and bitter man. Despite being a highly qualified engineer, he had been unable to find work in postwar Germany. Being Hermann Goring's brother, a fact that had saved his life in years past, ultimately became a curse.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518...



#5459(2012.5.4)

 米独立革命前後の頃の英領北米植民地/米国は、世界で最も富/所得分配が平等な社会であり、人々はそのことに大変誇りを抱いていたんだとさ。
 現在の米国とは真逆だったのね。↓
 ・・・at the time of American Revolution. In that era, which is so often invoked in today’s political and social battles, the United States was the world’s most egalitarian society -- and proud to be so. ・・・
 Slavery is America’s original sin and was the great global injustice of that age. But on a purely economic basis, even when slaves are included in the calculation of inequality, America comes out as the most egalitarian. ・・・
 <あのトックヴィル自身が、そのことにびっくら仰天している。↓>
 Alexis de Tocqueville returned home to France to report that “nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions among people.”・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/us/04iht-letter0...



#5463(2012.5.6)

 英国でも富/所得分配の不平等度が高まっているが、その原因が株式会社の実質的支配者が株主から経営者に移った・・これは米国で大昔にバーナードが言い出したことだっけ・・こと、その経営者を金融機関が支えていること、そして経営者達が政治も支配していること、を指摘しているコラムだ。↓
 ・・・What interests Mount is the way that this business class has managed to seize control of companies and extract such vast rents from them, almost irrespective of the wishes of their owners. The answer, he suggests, is to be found in a basic flaw of shareholder capitalism. The inevitable dispersal of ownership that occurs in widely-held listed companies leads ineluctably to the entrenchment of management power.・・・
 <各政党の党員数がどんどん減っている。↓>
 Just as shareholders have lost their grip on companies, the voters have become disconnected from politicians. The decline of interest in party politics is everywhere evident. Mass membership of political parties has collapsed. In the 1950s, Britain’s two main parties had more than 7m members between them. Now it is perhaps 400,000. Turnout in elections has slumped.・・・
 ・・・the problem is more that power has become “separated from the electoral process”. It operates at such a remote level -- through the European Union, “sofa government” and a parliament utterly dominated by the executive・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/b5e01e1e-8fba-11e1-...

 ↑むしろ、英国の場合、更に一歩を進めて、株式会社の実質的支配者を授業員全体にするとともに、政党の存在を無意味化することによって、日本型政治経済体制化を図らなきゃいけないのかもしれないね。
 自由主義経済の今後の全球的標準をどのように構想するか、悩ましいところだねえ。

 それにしても、マルクスがかつての英国について述べたことは正しかった、ということだなあ。↓
 ・・・You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2012/0504/Karl-Marx...



#5465(2012.5.7)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 雌ライオンが襲いかかろうとしているのに全然動じない赤ちゃんの動画だ。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17949808
 こいつは大物だぜ。

 仏最高学府のENA卒でそこで知り合い30年連れ添った内縁の妻を前回の大統領選でサルコジへの対抗馬として送り出し、敗戦直後に彼女と別れ、ジャーナリストと再婚し、ライバルがNYでの醜聞でコケ、サルコジは不人気だった結果、大統領になったオランド。
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/04/17/world/europe/fra...

<Hiroaki>

 彼の英語力について御意見を・・・。

<太田>

 ご自分の耳でお確かめください。
http://lelab.europe1.fr/t/francois-hollande-speaks...

 ちなみに、オランドは、ENAの学生であった1974年の夏を米国で過ごしています。
 (ボクが米国に留学した夏ですね。)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Holland...

 もう一つ、オランドの現在の内縁の妻のことが紹介されている。↓
 <(事実上の)大統領夫人になってもジャーナリストとして働き続ける気だって。↓>
 ・・・If, as she has promised, the 47-year-old journalist keeps her contract with the magazine Paris Match and continues to work, it would be the first time a president's partner has held down a regular job and salary. ・・・
 <彼女、2回の離婚歴がある47歳で、3人の10代の男児がいるとのこと。↓>
 Trierweiler, a twice-divorced mother of three teenage boys who comes from a modest family in eastern France, said during the campaign she had to keep working to support her children, saying she does not want to be paid for by the state.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/06/valeri...

<ΕΕΕεΕ>

 太田さん、フランスやギリシャの選挙に興味ある?
 あったら選挙の結果、ユーロ危機がどうなるかちょっち解説してよ。

経済政策に関しては選挙前に何を言おうと選挙後にできることの選択肢はそれほど多くないように思うけど。。。
ってやっぱ興味ないかな。

<太田>

 ま、フランス等での選挙結果についちゃ、どっちみち取り上げなきゃならないだろね。
 <オランドが放漫財政やろうとしたところでできるわけがないってさ。↓>
 ・・・Sarkozy has warned of instant market turmoil if Hollande wins. But the social-democrat’s deficit targets echo Sarkozy’s, and many of Hollande’s more radical pitches are softened in the fine print. He wants to hire 60,000 new educators? A public-sector hiring cap means cuts elsewhere. Renegotiate the European fiscal treaty? He’ll settle for an add-on to boost growth. Tax the rich at 75 percent above a million euros earned? A folly, although in fact the rate would hit far fewer than “the 1 percent.” Cause for stockpiling staple goods in case Hollande wins? Not really. ・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/04/29/w...
 <既にAAAの格付けを失ったフランスは、今年中に更に(高金利で)大量の借り入れをしなきゃならない。↓>
 ・・・ France is going to have to borrow about EURO180 billion ($240 billion) before the end of the year. Under Sarkozy it already lost its AAA credit rating. If borrowing rates start to climb dramatically, the hope of clawing out of the slump will fade very quickly.・・・
 <なお、首相になると目されてる人物は、元ドイツ語の教授。↓>
 ・・・the man Hollande will name as prime minister is Jean-Marc Ayrault, a veteran politician who, not insignificantly, is a former professor of German. ・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/05/06/f...
 <公的債務はGDPの90%、政府支出の対GDP比はユーロ圏最高で57%近く、失業率は約10%。↓>
 ・・・Hollande・・・will bitterly disappoint many of his supporters as a result. Hollande will be the president of an economically ailing country. Public debt amounts to 90 percent of GDP, France hasn't had a balanced budget since 1974 and, at almost 57 percent, it has the highest ratio of government expenditures to gross national product of any of the 17 euro-zone countries. What's more, unemployment stands at roughly 10 percent, and there is an entire generation of children of migrants that has grown up in ghetto-like suburbs and hardly has any contact with the labor market.・・・
 <なお、オランドは元大学の経済学の先生。↓>
 ・・・an economist who once taught at the elite Sciences Po university,・・・
 <サルコジが率いていた右派は左右に分裂し、右はル・ペンとくっつくかもしれない。↓>
 The right-wing camp is now threatened with breaking apart into a conservative-liberal faction, which was upset by Sarkozy's campaign tactics, and a faction on the right that could even join forces with the National Front. This has been the great dream of Marine Le Pen, who has already declared herself the "leader of the opposition."・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/as-pres...

 ギリシャでは、極左と極右が躍進。連立与党中のこれまでの第一党の社会党は激減、保守会派は微増。↓
 ・・・Syriza, a coalition of radical left and green groups that took 16.6% of the vote -- the second largest share.・・・
 The conservative New Democracy party came in first but with 18.9% of the vote・・・
 Pasok, the socialist party led by Evangelos Venizelos, the former finance minister who had been the architect of many of the unpopular policies, won 13.4%, compared to 40% in the last national poll, in 2009.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/06/greek-...
 <極左は、EUが科した緊縮策や構造改善策に反対だがユーロ圏から脱退するつもりもなく、EUから更にカネをとろうと考えている。↓>
 ・・・Syriza itself is very critical of the European Union. But it does not support withdrawing from the euro as do the communists. On the contrary, Tsipras said that Greece must "remain a link in the chain." Only then "can it secure the support of Europe." In other words, he is hoping for additional billions from Europe or even a kind of "Marshall Plan" to promote economic growth.
 Tsipras has also declined to throw his support behind the structural reforms demanded by Europe. He has even called for hiring more civil servants.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/greeks-...

 選挙結果に衝撃を受けた国際市場はメロメロ。↓
・・・フランス大統領選で、社会党のオランド氏が勝利し、財政再建の取り組みが鈍るとの見方が広がった。ギリシャ議会の総選挙でも「反緊縮」を掲げた急進左派連合が躍進し、欧州債務問題の再燃を懸念する投資家が、安全資産とされる円買いを進めている。・・・」
 東京市場では午前11時現在、2日(午後5時)に比べ2円22銭円高・ユーロ安の1ユーロ=103円60〜61銭で取引されている。・・・
 対ドルでは、・・・2日(午後5時)に比べて49銭円高・ドル安の1ドル=79円83〜84銭で取引されている。
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/atmoney/news/20120507-OYT...
 ・・・日経平均株価の午前の終値は245円安の9134円と、9200円を下回った。・・・
http://www.nikkei.com/news/article/g=96958A9C93819...



#5467(2012.5.8)

<ζΖζζζ>

 ユーロ危機とは、グループ内で金持ちが貧乏人に金を貸して、全体に金がまわるようになって景気が良くなったが、結局、貧乏人は、金を返すことは出来ないってことだよな。
 解決策は、三つしかないと思う。
1 借金の棒引き
2 貧乏人の追放
3 貧乏人を鞭で働かせること。

 ギリシャ人に3の解決策は無理だから、借金を棒引きしつつ、最終的にグループから
貧乏人を追放するしかない。 
 アーメン。

<太田>

 ギリシャがユーロ圏から離脱する可能性は50〜75%だとよ。
 仮にそうなれば、ポルトガル、スペインやイタリアも離脱に追い込まれるだろうって。↓
 ・・・Greek exit from the euro – rated as a 50-75% probability by Citigroup – will have a domino effect on Portugal, Spain and Italy.
 <いずれにせよ、数週間後、ユーロが激安にふれる可能性が高いってよ。↓>
 Jason Conibear, director of foreign exchange firm Cambridge Mercantile, said the euro was currently as attractive to investors as a toxic derivative during the sub-prime crisis: "There's every chance the euro will go into freefall in the weeks ahead against all the major currencies. Investors are waking up to the fact that the once-ridiculous notion the euro could collapse is increasingly the most likely outcome."・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/07/eur...

 昨年から、ユーロ圏17か国中、既に10か国の政府が倒れたって。↓
 ・・・For Europe's elected political leaders, the debt and currency crisis has taken an extraordinarily heavy toll. Of 17 governments in the eurozone using the single currency, 10 have been drummed out of office in little more than a year・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/07/deb...



#5469(2012.5.9)

 ギリシャで第二党に躍進した左派連合の主張がいかにひどいかを書いたコラムだ。
 さあ、どうやってこんな性悪のギリシャをユーロ圏どころかEUそのものから追放するか、ドイツのメルケル首相の手腕が見物だな。↓
 <同党は、緊縮措置反対だけではなく、一切の改革拒否だ。↓>
 The parties that gained in the elections―especially the radical-left Syriza, which ended in second place―do not simply oppose austerity measures. What Syriza opposes is any kind structural reform of the economy that will boost competitiveness. The party has, for example, consistently opposed teachers' evaluations or other overhauls to the ailing education system. It has vehemently opposed reducing state bureaucracy or reforming the inflexible Greek labor market.
 <不正利得や汚職対策にすら反対している。経済政策と言えば、借金の支払い拒否、金持ちからの収奪、15万人の公務員追加雇用だ。↓>
 At the same time, Syriza―which began negotiations yesterday to lead the next government―has remained silent on the need to combat the widespread graft and corruption that characterizes the Greek civil service. Its only prescription for Greece's economic problem is that the country should refuse to pay its debt, expropriate the rich and staff the bloated public sector with even more people. Its leader, Alexis Tsipras, has suggested hiring 150,000 more people in the civil service as a way of reducing Greek unemployment.
 <同党は、労働者の党どころか、あらゆる既得権益を墨守しようとする人々達による連合体であると言ってよい。↓>
 The Greek left today does not represent an industrial proletariat that wants a bigger share of the economic pie. Syriza represents all the groups that have been able to grow and flourish under Greece's political system and who now feel threatened by reformed. It derives its support from various professional interest groups―lawyers, teachers, journalists and civil servants―who feel that their jobs and special privileges are at risk if Greece is forced to open up its economy to competition.・・・
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240527023044...



#5471(2012.5.10)

 ドイツの外相と蔵相がギリシャのユーロ圏追放を示唆だと。↓
 ・・・two German cabinet ministers for the first time spoke publicly of the possibility of the Balkan country having to quit the eurozone.・・・
 <オランド仏次期大統領、ギリシャの左派連合の指導者の面会要求を拒否。↓>
 The leader of the leftist coalition which came second in Sunday's election, asked to meet Francois Hollande, France's growth-supporting president-elect, in what looked liked a gambit to drive a wedge between the French and the Germans.
 His request was rejected in what might be seen as the first sign that Hollande will elect on balance to align himself with Germany rather than with the Mediterranean debtors' club in the eurozone.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/09/berlin...



#5475(2012.5.12)

 英国人小説家(Philip Kerr。1956年〜)が、オルブライト元米国務長官の自伝に英国への敬意が見られない、とクレームをつけている。
 チェコ生まれのユダヤ系のオルブライトもまた、米国に過剰適応した一人なんだろね。↓
 <彼女は、ミュンヘンで英国がヒットラーに妥協したことだけを取り上げているが、当時チェコスロヴァキアと同盟関係にあったフランスの方が責任がより重い。また、チェコ人亡命者に対する英国人の態度がよくなかったというが、1940年に当時の英国王夫妻がチェコ独立運動の指導者負債をバッキンガム宮殿での昼食に呼んでいる。↓>
 ・・・ if I have a criticism of Albright, it’s this: Having read it very closely, I can’t help feeling she doesn’t like the English very much. She takes Britain to task for a number of failings, not least for not standing up to Hitler at Munich in 1938 (although it seems to me that since France, not Great Britain, was Czechoslovakia’s ally under the Little Entente treaty of 1924, and had the greater duty) as well as for the small-minded, comical way we English went about the defense of our country, not to mention our rather condescending behavior toward Czechs in exile. Just how condescending could we really have been, I wonder, when the king and queen took the trouble to invite Czech independence movement leader Edvard Benes and his wife to lunch in the summer of 1940? I’ve lived here for 56 years, and I’ve never even been through the gates of Buckingham Palace. My father was wearing clogs to school in Edinburgh while Albright was attending a private school in Walton-on-Thames and living in a nice big house in Kensington.
 <戦間期と第二次世界大戦直前の2回、英国はオルブライト一家を受け入れているというのに、そして、そうしていなきゃ、オルブライトは強制収容所で殺されていただろうに、一言の感謝の言もないとはどういう了見だ。↓>
 “Few sentiments,” says Albright, “are expressed more often than gratitude,” but in “Prague Winter” this gratitude doesn’t run to the least amount of thanks to a country that came to her family’s aid ― twice. Without the sanctuary provided by Great Britain, Albright would almost certainly have died in Theresienstadt or Auschwitz like many of her family members.
A simple expression of gratitude would have been nice. But I looked for a kind word about my fellow countrymen and found none ― no, not even about Churchill. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/...



#5477(2012.5.13)

<ΖΖΖζΖ>(「たった一人の反乱」より)

 いじめ問題の本質を突いた松本人志のラジオ。
 太田さんの好みじゃないかな
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPi5xOzYrus&feature...
 6:35当たりから

<太田>

 キミ、米国での現在の最もホットな話題を知ってて、イジメの話をボクに振ったとしたら大したもんだけどな・・。
 オバマがゲイ同士の結婚へのシンパシーを表明した時にあわせて、ワシントンポストが共和党の大統領候補のロムニーの中高一貫校・・デトロイト郊外の超有名寄宿制学校・・の最上級生だった時、集団を率いてゲイの下級生をイジメた話を報道したんだよね。↓
 <長髪にして茶発を金髪に染めた下級生を不快に思ったロムニー↓>
 ・・・he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
 “He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenage son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.・・・
 <みんなで彼を床に押し足して髪の毛を短くちょん切った。↓>
 ・・・they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.・・・
 <報道された後、ロムニーはこの事件を覚えていないとしつつ・・当時ロムニーが率いた集団全員が覚えているのだから、明らかに嘘だ。しかし、不思議なことに、その後の記事やコラムでこのことをあからさまに指摘したものはない・・遺憾の意を表した。↓>
 In a subsequent interview・・・Romney said he didn’t remember the incident but apologized for pranks he helped orchestrate that he said “might have gone too far.”
 <その後、この下級生は茶髪に戻し、髪の毛を短く切った。やがて、たばこを吸っていた廉で退校処分をくらった。↓>
 After the incident, Lauber seemed to disappear. He returned days later with his shortened hair back to its natural brown. He finished the year but ultimately left the school before graduation -- thrown out for smoking a cigarette.・・・
 Lauber died in 2004・・・
 <別の高校とヴァンダービルト大学を卒業した後、ゲイであることをカミングアウトした彼は、金髪に戻し、荒れた生涯を送り、2004年に肝臓がんで死亡した。↓>
 After Cranbrook asked him to leave, he finished high school, attended the University of the Seven Seas for two semesters, then graduated in 1970 from Vanderbilt, where he majored in English.
 He came out as gay to his family and close friends and led a vagabond life, taking dressage lessons in England and touring with the Royal Lipizzaner Stallion riders. After an extreme fit of temper in front of his mother and sister at home in South Bend, he checked into the Menninger Clinic psychiatric hospital in Topeka, Kan. Later he received his embalmer’s license, worked as a chef aboard big freighters and fishing trawlers, and cooked for civilian contractors during the war in Bosnia and then, a decade later, in Iraq. His hair thinned as he aged, and in the winter of 2004 he returned to Seattle, the closest thing he had to a base. He died there of liver cancer that December.
 He kept his hair blond until he died, said his sister Chris. “He never stopped bleaching it.”・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney...

 ブッシュ前大統領のローラ夫人の伝記を引用しつつ、ロムニーが自分が犯した過ちと向き合い、本当のことをしゃべるべきであることを仄めかしたコラムだ。↓
 <ロムニーの父親はミシガン州知事だったので特別視されたし、他方で、ロムニーは一般に良い印象をもたれていないところのモルモン教の信者であったことから、彼はいたずらっ子になって自己韜晦をせざるをえなかった。↓>
 ・・・On the one hand he had an embarrassingly famous father, the governor of Michigan, whom he idolized as the youngest child. On the other he was the sole Mormon, a member of what was definitely seen as a creepy, stigmatized cult in that world of bland Episcopalian Wasps (we had Episcopalian services at chapel three mornings a week).
 <そんなところに現れたのが件の下級生だった。大勢(たいせい)に順応していない彼をイジメることで、ロミニーは自分が大勢の一員であることを証明したかったところ、それに成功した、と思われる。↓>
… No wonder he became a daring and even violent prankster. He who worried about his own marginal status couldn’t bear the presence of an unapologetic sissy like Lauber, with his long bleached hair (the Mormons, then as now, have insisted on a neat, traditional, conservative appearance, especially in their young missionary men whom they send out all over the world). In scorning and shearing a sissy student and leading a gang of five other boys in this “prank,” Romney may have felt popular and in the right for the first time.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people...

 ところで、ボク、四日市の保育園、小学校、カイロの二つの小学校、東京の小、中、高、大学と、一度も、イジメられたこともイジメたことも、また、イジメを目撃したことも、いや、イジメの噂を聞いたこともないんだけど、こういうの稀なのかねえ。
 だもんだから、松本人志の言ってること、言葉としちゃ分かるんだけど、理解はできなかったね。
 いずれにせよ、1対1のイジメと、ロムニーのケースのように、集団対1のイジメとでは、事情が異なるんじゃないかな。



#5479(2012.5.14)

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 ドイツでは、ジムやサウナの着替え室で男は全く前を隠さないし、女性従業員が入ってきても平気なことに英国人記者が度肝を抜かれている。
 この風潮をナチスや共産党(東独)はただそうとしたけれど、結局失敗したんだと。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18021714
 この点じゃ日本とドイツは似てるね。

<太田>

 同じ記事の中に、先の大戦でドイツの男性が大量死したため、戦後のドイツで女性の地位が急速に高まったが、特に、東独においてそうだったとある。
 東独出身のメルケルが現在ドイツの首相を長期にわたって務めている背景はそういうことなんだな。↓
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18021714 上掲

<太田>(ツイッターより)

 米国のウォール街で働く人々の10%は治療を要する精神病質者・・他人に無関心、罪の意識がない、自利しか眼中にない・・であることが分かったんだって。
 (米国社会全体では1%。)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/opinion/sunday/f...
 つまり、米国(の資本主義)は、その「中枢」が病んでるってことなのさ。

<太田>

 このビョーキのウォール街の連中、つまり、金融界が米国の政治を牛耳ってるため、見通しうる将来にかけて、米国が自らが抱える経済諸問題に抜本的に取り組む可能性はないし、そもそも、米国の選良達が、自分の国が相対的に落ちぶれてきているという現実を直視することすらないだろうって。↓
 ・・・If the capture of US policy-making by financial institutions effectively rules out any serious attempt to tackle the country's economic problems for the foreseeable future, a still greater obstacle is the incapacity of elites to face the realities of America's situation in the world.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/11/time-s...

 ヨーロッパというのはギリシャ語から来ている、という一言にプライドだけは高いギリシャ人の信条が集約されてるな。↓
 ・・・At the end of the day Europe is a Greek word,・・・
 <急進左派連合の、ユーロ圏にとどまりつつ、緊縮財政に反対する、という論理矛盾の主張にギリシャ人は一層首肯しつつある。↓>
 Mr. Tsipras<'s>・・・message that Greece can stay in the euro and reject Europe’s budget-cutting terms has struck a chord, however contradictory that may seem.
 <急進左派連合の支持率は27%へと、選挙の時より10ポイント以上上昇している。↓>
 New polls show that his support has increased from the 16.7 percent that he garnered at the last election to 27 percent -- a figure that, if borne out in an election, would make him the country’s top vote-getter. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/business/global/...
 <別の世論調査ということなのか、4ポイント弱しか上昇していないとも報道されているね。↓>
 ・・・An opinion poll published on Sunday, seven days after Greece's electoral earthquake, suggested voters were bent on sending further tremors through the political landscape. The survey・・・showed support for Syriza climbing from 16.8% to 20.5%.
 New Democracy would be projected to win 18.1% of a new vote, and Pasok 12.2%, their lowest ratings in the nearly 40 years that they have dominated Greek politics.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/13/greek-...

 早々と、ギリシャのユーロ圏離脱に至る道程を描いた記事が出た。↓
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/may/13/gre...

 驚いたことに、NYタイムスやガーディアンとは違って、FTは、急進左派連合の主張に理解を示す論説を掲載した!
 でも、これ・・ユーロ圏にとどまるとの前提の下でプライマリーバランスを回復してからデフォルトさせる・・がホントに急進左派連合の主張なのかねえ。
 それにそもそも、そんなにウマイ話があるのかねえ。↓
 ・・・The best option・・・would be a strategy to achieve a primary balance by 2013 and then to default on all outstanding foreign debt, public and private. It would not be popular outside Greece but it would be hard to push Greece out of the eurozone.
 <これまでの与党連合の政策は、ドイツの戦間期の政策で出口なしだってんだけどね。↓>
 I consider Mr Tsipras’s approach too risky. But I can see why Greek citizens would vote for him. His position is certainly more rational than that of the austerity centre-ground establishment, which can offer no perspective of an economic turnround. This is Germany in the early 1930s all over again.
 This leaves us with a choice between default later and default now. I would prefer default later because it would make for a smoother fiscal adjustment, bring a few sensible reforms and increase the probability that Greece could stay in the eurozone.
 <否応なしに急進左派連合の主張に沿ってギリシャは動いて行くだろうだって。↓>
 Sadly, the political momentum is swinging the other way.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/233a3186-9b58-11e1-...

 ギリシャとドイツの有識者の対話記事だ。↓
 <欧州の連帯意識なんてなかったことが分かったって。
 ドイツ人は、ギリシャの苦しみを含め、欧州から裨益しているとの自覚がない。↓>
 ・・・What was clear from the beginning, and shocked me deeply, was that there was no feeling of European solidarity. Germans were not willing to understand that we benefit from Europe, even from the crisis itself.・・・
 <ギリシャ人は、先の大戦時のドイツへの憎しみを蘇らせた。↓>
 Then・・・Greek politicians・・・identified the old enemy again: the force of German colonisation.・・・
 <欧州はナショナリズム/民族主義によって再び引き裂かれつつある。↓>
 Everything is beginning to splinter along traditional national and ethnic lines, which is completely tragic. Dark forces have taken over.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/1...

 オバマだって青年の頃、ヤクをやったこともあったということを引き合いに出して、ロムニーのイジメについても、とやかく言うべきではない、と一見物わかりのよいところを見せつつ、事実上、辛辣なロムニー批判を展開しているコラムだ。↓
 ・・・It was silly four years ago to argue that Barack Obama was unsuited for the presidency because he smoked pot and snorted cocaine once upon a time. It is silly to reach the same conclusion about Romney now・・・
 <当時、ある同期生の家が貧しいことを知るとロムニーは急に無愛想になったってさ。↓>
 Lou Vierling, a scholarship student who boarded at Cranbrook for the 1960 and 1961 academic years, was struck by a question Romney asked them when they first met. “He wanted to know what my father did for a living,” Vierling recalled. “He wanted to know if my mother worked. He wanted to know what town I lived in.” As Vierling explained that his father taught school, that he commuted from east Detroit, he noticed a souring(無愛想)omney’s demeanor.
 <当時、ロムニーがデートしていたところの、姉妹校の生徒の家が、ロムニーの父の支援者たる大金持ちだったが、ロムニーは、ものすごく羨ましがってたってさ。↓>
 Romney was bowled over by the wealth of some of his friends. He briefly dated Mary Fisher, the daughter of the philanthropist and diplomat Max Fisher, who acted as a finance chairman to George Romney’s political campaigns. At her house, he watched the James Bond film Goldfinger in the family’s private theater before it was widely released. He reported excitedly back to [close friend Matthew] Friedemann about the theater, noting that the seats even had numbers.・・・
 <(ボク自身、何でロムニーが・・父は州知事になる前はアメリカン・モータースの幹部だったけれど・・ハーバード大でMBAとJD両方を取得しつつ、
< http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9F%E3%83%83%E3... >
最初から政治家を目指さなかったのか疑問に思ってたけど、)ロムニーは、とにかく大金持になりたかったに違いないってわけだ。↓>
  Certainly one can argue that embedded in these stories are flecks of the ambition toward great wealth that drove Romney to corporate success.・・・
http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/11/in-defense-of...

 冷戦時代、ユーロヴィジョン(コラム#4745、4747)に対抗する歌謡祭がソ連圏で行われていたが、これを始めたのは、あの映画『戦場のピアニスト』で有名になったシュピルマン(コラム#4352、4569)だったんだって。↓
 ・・・We had the Eurovision Song Contest; they had... the Intervision Song Contest.・・・
 It was not a Communist party functionary, though, who had come up with the idea - it was a Polish pianist. Wladyslaw Szpilman・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18006446



#5483(2012.5.16)

 プーチンが次回のサミットに出席しないというのなら、いい機会だから、ロシアをG−8から追放せよ、と主張するコラムだ。↓
 ・・・Because of the democratic endeavors of Presidents Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the G-7 welcomed Russia in 1997. But because Russia is no longer a democracy by any stretch of the word, the basis for Russia's membership in the G-8 has evaporated.・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/15/k...

 イジメ事件に関するロムニーの逃げの姿勢を非難するコラムがようやく出たな。↓
 ・・・This is where it gets maddening. First, his explanation is not credible. One of the witnesses・・・said to the Times, “Certainly, for the other people that were involved, nobody has forgotten.” Second, what Romney seems to be implying ― that bullying of effeminate-seeming boys didn’t happen in prep schools in the 1960s ― is preposterous.・・・
 <また、ロムニーが同性婚に反対すること自体はともかく、結婚とは一人の男と一人の女との間のものでなければならない、という論理はおかしい。彼の奉じるモルモン教は、かつて一夫多妻制を認めていたではないかってさ。↓>
 On same-sex marriage, Romney has shown a similar kind of willful amnesia. Over the weekend, Romney assured his commencement audience at Liberty University that marriage has long been, and will always be defined as “a relationship between one man and one woman.”
 Except, in the case of his great-grandfather Miles P. Romney, whose idea of marriage was between one man and five women. Or his great-great grandfather Parley Pratt, one man who married twelve women.
 Call them sexual outlaws, Biblical originalists, or just guys who liked a renewable supply of young women, but Romney’s not-so-long-ago ancestors were anything but practitioners of the kind of marriage Romney claims has been enshrined since the dawn of civilization.・・・
 <また、ロムニーがマサチューセッツ州知事だった時にやった医療保険改革は、まさに今回、オバマが米国全体に対して行った医療保険改革の先取りであり、基本的に同じ内容のものなのに、大統領候補になった現在、オバマの医療保険改革に反対しているのもおかしいってさ。↓>
 ・・・on health care, Romney is in a weasel world all his own. He can’t deny being the intellectual father of Obamacare, after coming up with a fair system in Massachusetts that requires freeloaders to get health insurance so that everyone else won’t have to pay for them.
So he continues to act as though there’s some difference between the two plans. Romneycare works in Massachusetts, in the same way that Obamacare will work for the rest of the nation if given a chance. Romney knows that.・・・
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/...

 もっとも、(米国内では誰も口にする勇気はないだろうが、)ボクに言わせれば、ロムニーの抱える最大の問題は、モルモン教徒の青年には全員課されることではあるものの、スタンフォード大に進学後、わざわざフランスまで赴いてモルモン教の布教活動に従事した
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%9F%E3%83%83%E3...
ってことだ。
 ロムニーは、若き日に、マインドコントロール活動に従事したことがある、と言い換えてもよかろう。
 そんな人間が一国を率いる大統領になっていいのか?
 国民をマインドコントロール下に置こうとしない保証があるのか?
 そもそも、政治と宗教の分離を定める米国憲法の精神に反するのじゃないのか?

 フェースブックの共同創建者のうちの片方が、米国籍を捨てて、キャピタルゲイン課税のないシンガポール籍を取得したことを非難するコラムだ。↓
 Young billionaire Eduardo Saverin has always had clever lawyers. He famously sued his Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg to win official co-founder status. Now, just ahead of Facebook’s IPO and the expected pop in the value of his shares, Saverin has renounced U.S. citizenship. On advice of counsel, he’s established residency in Singapore, where there is no capital-gains tax.・・・
 ・・・far greater number of Americans who, in deed and mind-set, are shedding obligations to their country: wealthy individuals who park income in offshore havens, U.S. corporations that use paper subsidiaries to book profits in foreign jurisdictions. All these forms of opting out feed a norm that says, in effect, America’s for suckers.・・・
http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/15/its-not-just-face...

 ロムニーもまた、若き日にはカネの亡者だった。
 既に、オバマ陣営は、ロムニーの経営していた投資会社のいかがわしさをあげつらい始めている。
http://swampland.time.com/2012/05/15/bashing-bain-...
 おまけに、ロムニーはマインドコントロール活動にも従事してたんだし、その上、逃げとごまかしの達人と来てるんだからねえ。



#5485(2012.5.17)

 現在のEURO危機を解消する唯一にして最も効果的な対策は、ドイツだけがEURO圏から抜けることだとさ。本文を読めば、なるほどと思うぜ。↓
 ・・・ the real, ideal solution is to get Germany out <EURO>・・・
http://prestowitz.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/05/...

 ロムニーは、かつてモルモン教の司教だったって。
 それだけでも米大統領にふさわしくないが、モルモン教の聖典では、米国こそ選民のための「約束の地」であり、ミズリー州にエデンの園がある、としてるんだと。
 キモイー。↓
 The faith’s sacred text, the Book of Mormon, describes the United States as “a land of promise . . . a land which is choice above all other lands.”・・・
 Garden of Eden is in Missouri・・・
 Romney, a former bishop and devout Mormon,・・・
 Seventy-four percent of Mormons say they identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, the highest percentage of any faith group.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-mitt-rom...



#5495(2012.5.22)

 ロシアのプーチン「新」大統領が組閣した結果は、驚くべきことに、元KGBやプーチンのサンクト・ペテルブルグ以来の「お友達」等、腐敗した連中がほぼ一掃され、中年のリベラルなテクノクラート達が大臣の4分の3を占めるという結果になったってさ。↓
 ・・・three-quarters of the ministers are new -- 20 out of 28 -- and the cabinet will be dominated by middle-aged liberal technocrats with high qualifications.
 The old cabinet was stacked with ministers considered highly corrupt, including former KGB officers and Putin cronies from his days in the St. Petersburg city government.・・・
 <これじゃ、大統領から首相に格下げになったにもかかわらず、まるでメドヴェージェフ内閣みたいじゃないかだと。↓>
 Surprisingly, given his diminished standing, this looks almost entirely like a Medvedev cabinet. ・・・
 <ひょっとしたらこれはロシアの夜明けかもだと。さーね?↓>
 In short, this is a highly competent, technocratic council of ministers seemingly chosen by Medvedev rather than Putin. If it is only allowed to do so, this government could carry out the social and economic reforms that Russia so badly needs. This cabinet suggests a much greater and more positive political change than one could have hoped for.・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/21/r...



#5499(2012.5.24)

 ギリシャが破産しても、世界経済の辺境での出来事だから、全然平気だとさ。↓
 ・・・Greece is not Lehman Brothers. Lehman's failure triggered a global crisis because Lehman was at the center of the global financial network. Greece, in contrast, is at the periphery of this network. Global crises don't start in the periphery. While a Greek collapse would certainly be devastating for Greece and some of its neighbors, the rest of the world is likely to escape with minor disruptions to their economies.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/23/d...



#5503(2012.5.26)

 ピーター・クラークが出したチャーチル本の書評が出てた。↓
 <クラークは、チャーチルが米国のアングロサクソン性を強調し過ぎていると批判している。(書評子はそんなクラークに批判的だ。私はもちろんクラークと同意見。)
 他方、米国側は極めてドライに英国を見ている、という点については書評子も批判してはいない。↓>
 Peter Clarke・・・is highly critical of the way that Churchill “unthinkingly talked up the extent to which a common ancestry was actually the experience of a large proportion of American citizens”, underplaying the huge role played by non-Wasp immigrants in American life. He sees Churchill’s view of Anglo-American amity, let alone unity, as a “sentimental vision”, while the Americans based their views of Britain on a harder calculus of national self-interest.・・・
 <チャーチルの専門は文学だが、生業は政治だと。言えてる。(ボクは、文学者は、歴史家をやっちゃダメな理由とほぼ同じ理由で、政治家もやっちゃダメだと思う。チャーチルは双極性障害者だった(コラム#省略)からこそ、一流の文学者にはなれたけど、そんな人間が首相までやっちゃったために大英帝国は過早に瓦解したんだからね。)↓>
 Although Churchill’s profession was literature, Clarke points out that his vocation was always in politics・・・
 <先の大戦直前のチャーチルの所得中、議員報酬はわずか2.5%で、残りは文学からの収入だと。↓>
 Churchill’s parliamentary salary only accounted for 2.5 per cent of his income before the second world war, with the lion’s share coming from his literary endeavours.・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/7c415200-a3f5-11e1-...



#5505(2012.5.27)

 かつては米国等の経営者資本主義対欧州やアジアの国家資本主義が並列していた。それが・・。↓
 ・・・corporate” or “managerial” capitalism・・・<v.> state capitalism・・・
 <米国における新しい資本主義が3つとだというのに、4つ出てくるのはこれいかに?↓>
 ・・・ in the United States, state capitalism never really caught on, but there were three new models vying to replace the old corporate capitalism.・・・
Entrepreneurial capitalism・・・worker capitalism・・・shareholder capitalism・・・financial capitalism・・・
 <ロムニーの資本主義観は、株主資本主義と金融資本主義の混ぜこぜだとさ。↓>
 Mitt Romney now offers the country is a mix of shareholder and financial capitalism. Romney rejects the managerial capitalism of his auto executive father, considers all forms of state capitalism to be illegitimate and dismisses worker capitalism as naive and unsustainable.・・・
 <オバマの資本主義観は、経営者資本主義プラス少し労働者資本主義プラスほんの少々国家資本主義だとさ。↓>
 ・・・the president is drawn to the equality and stability of managerial capitalism, perhaps with a swirl of worker capitalism and the occasional sprinkle of state capitalism mixed in. He views shareholder capitalism as morally cramped and financial capitalism as both economically and socially destructive. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/identity-cr...



#5519(2012.6.7)

 エリザベス女王は、英国や英連邦における、多民族主義を肯定的に捉え、それを促進してきたとさ。↓
 <南アのアパルトヘイトへの姿勢でもサッチャー首相(当時)の微温的姿勢とは一線を画していたと。↓>
 ・・・there was an undeniable difference between her attitude and that of Margaret Thatcher on the question of apartheid. ・・・
 <ネルソン・マンデラが釈放され、まだ南ア大統領になる3年も前、同女王は、彼を英連邦首脳会議に招聘した。↓>
 At no time was that support more clear than her delight at Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990. Three years before Mr. Mandela became president, Queen Elizabeth II did not hesitate to invite him to a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government group, signaling her belief that he was, at least in a moral sense, already the country’s leader.
 <マンデラが1994年に南ア大統領になると、すぐに同国を訪問した。また、後に彼に英国の最高勲章を授与した。↓>
 Nor did she delay making a state visit to South Africa once he was elected in 1994 -- congratulating the South African Parliament on the country’s transformation and Mr. Mandela on his role in bringing it about. To make her admiration and endorsement even more clear, she later awarded him the country’s highest honor, the Order of Merit. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/05/opinion/why-the-...

 一世紀以上前、当時の米国の金融王のJP・モルガンは、会社のトップは底辺の授業員の20倍を超える給料をもらってはならないとした。しかし、現在の英米では・・。↓
 ・・・ More than a century ago, the great New York financier JP Morgan reckoned that the head of a company should never earn more than 20 times those at the bottom. ・・・
 <第一次世界大戦後、60年間にわたって、英国の貧富の差は着実に狭まって行った。ところが、1980年代からは左は拡大へと転じて、景気動向いかんにかかわらず、拡大する一方だ。↓>
 For 60 years after the first world war, the gap between Britain's rich and poor steadily narrowed -- the decades when, in Mount's words, "the slow amelioration of inequality was tacitly understood as a collective purpose, shared by all political parties". Then in the 1980s it began to widen, and went on widening no matter what happened to the economy by way of booms and busts. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/may/25/the-ne...

 ハンガリーでは右翼過激派政権が超国家主義的政策を遂行しつつあり、EU各国の顰蹙を買っている(コラム#5231)という話の関連だ。↓
 ・・・The new・・・Miklos Horthy<(1868〜1957年。ハンガリー王国摂政:1920〜44年)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikl%C3%B3s_Horthy>・・・cult<(崇拝)> and the attempted・・・Jozsef Nyiro<(1889〜1953年。ルーマニアに割譲されたトランシルヴァニア生まれのハンガリー人)http://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyir%C5%91_J%C3%B3zse... http://budapost.eu/2012/05/the-failed-reburial-of-...>・・・reburial<(=遺骨の故郷トランシルヴァニアへの埋葬)> are part of a populist-nationalist renaissance in Hungary, which right-wing extremists have successfully been promoting in the country for years. Now Prime Minister Viktor Orban and his right-wing conservative Fidesz party are also eagerly pushing it. ・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/right-w...

 その背景には、第一次世界大戦後以来のハンガリーの暗い歴史がある。↓
 ・・・ Hungary’s dark 20th-century history -- the 1920 Trianon treaty, when Hungary lost a huge chunk of territory, the 1930s dictatorship, collaboration with the Nazis, the legacy of 1956, and the awkwardly incomplete end of communist rule. Neither the political right nor the left come out of this story with much credit.・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/9b2b4a70-aa64-11e1-...



#5526(2012.6.9)

 米国における白人と黒人との平均寿命ギャップが少し縮まったって。↓
 The gap in life expectancy between black and white Americans is smaller than it has ever been, thanks largely to a decline in the number of deaths resulting from heart disease and HIV infection・・・
 That's the good news. The bad news is that the gap is still large: A black baby boy born today can expect to live 5.4 fewer years, on average, than his white counterpart, and a black baby girl will die 3.7 years earlier, on average, than her white counterpart.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-life-ex...



#5530(2012.6.11)

 ターザンは、イギリス至上主義の象徴であり、しかるがゆえに、ドイツ、ロシア、そして日本とも戦わせられたのね。↓
 ・・・Tarzan is variously set against Germans, Ant-Men, Russians, dinosaurs, a lost city of Roman legionnaires, a lost city of medieval knights, a lost city of Atlanteans, a film crew and the inhabitants of Pellucidar, the world inside our hollow Earth (and the subject of another six Burroughs novels). In Tarzan and the Foreign Legion, he joins the RAF and is shot down over Sumatra, where his jungle education comes in handy in seeing off the invading Japanese.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2012/jun...

 大恐慌は、欧州において金融恐慌をもたらし、その結果が第二次世界大戦になった、という史実を、ニール・ファーガソンが改めて説いている。
 ここでは引用しなかったが、現在の欧州の金融危機だって、さすがに戦争にこそならないだろうが、深刻な状況になるのは必至だとさ。
 この金融危機の克服は、欧州の政治統合以外にない、と彼は主張する。↓
 ・・・It’s often forgotten that the Great Depression, like a soccer match, was a game of two halves. If the first half was dominated by the U.S. stock-market crash, the second was kicked off by a European banking crisis. It began in May 1931, when the biggest bank in Austria, the Creditanstalt, was revealed to be insolvent. The lethal blow was the collapse two months later of the Danat Bank, one of the biggest in Germany.
 As economic confidence slumped, unemployment soared to unprecedented heights. At the peak in July 1932, 49 percent of German trade-union members were out of work. We all know what the political consequences were. All over Europe, the extremists of the right and the left―fascists and communists―surged in popularity. Hitler came to power in 1933. Six years later Europe was at war.・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/06/10/n...



#5534(2012.6.13)

 オランド仏大統領(社会党)の現パートナーが、前パートナー(社会党)が議会選挙で立候補している選挙区の対立候補を支持するツイートを行い、大騒ぎに。
 現パートナーによるいやがらせか、それとも彼女のジャーナリスト魂の発露か?↓
 ・・・ Royal, who is the mother of Hollande's four children and was his long-term partner before he moved in with Trierweiler in 2007, is facing a difficult fight for a parliamentary seat in La Rochelle.
 She topped the poll in the first round but another local Socialist, Olivier Falorni, who came second, has refused to stand aside and is fighting on a dissident ticket in the final runoff this weekend.
 The Socialist party, which backs Royal, had pressured Falorni to quit the race.
 Hollande was quoted saying Royal was "the only candidate" with presidential support in Royal's latest campaign leaflet, issued on Tuesday morning as the Socialist party leader, Martine Aubry, arrived in La Rochelle to support her.
 But just before noon, Trierweiler, or @valtrier – who was once dubbed "Tweetweiler" for her use of the social network – tweeted: "Good luck to Olivier Falorni who has proved himself worthy, who has fought alongside the people of La Rochelle for so many years with selfless commitment."・・・
 <オランドが大統領選に勝利した時、前パートナーの頬にキッスをした。現パートナーは唇へのキッスを求めた。↓>
 On stage at La Bastille after his election victory, footage showed that after Hollande gave Royal a kiss on the cheek, Trierweiler demanded of him: "Kiss me on the mouth."
 <前パートナーは、今回当選すれば、議長に選出される可能性が高い。↓>
 Royal had backed Hollande during the presidential campaign and had been hoping to win the La Rochelle seat in order to be made speaker of parliament as a reward for her loyalty.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/12/french...

 アイルランド政府は、先の大戦の時に、主として連合国側に立って戦うために軍から逃亡した4,500人を超える元兵士に恩赦を与えた。↓
 The Irish government is to pardon more than 4,500 former soldiers who deserted the Defence Forces during World War II to fight with the Allied Forces.
 Irish Defence Minister Alan Shatter said the government apologised for the manner in which the deserters were treated by the state after the war.
 Mr Shatter said the government recognised the importance of their contribution to the Allied victory.・・・
 During World War II the Irish Defence Forces had approximately 42,000 serving personnel.
 Over the course of the war, it was estimated that more than 7,000 members deserted.
 Of these, about 2,500 personnel returned to their units or were apprehended and were tried by military tribunal.
 More than 4,500 deserters were the subject of dismissal under the Emergency Powers (No. 362) Order, 1945.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-1841...

 英国(イギリス?)の両親の64%は7カ月の赤ちゃんに対して読み聞かせを行っていない。そもそも、政府の肝いりで無償配布されている絵本が送られるまで、57%の両親は絵本を一冊も持っていなかった。↓
 ・・・ 64% of parents were not reading with their babies at seven months, and that 57% did not own a single book until they received their pack of free titles from Booktrust's Bookstart programme. ・・・
 <その無償配布プログラムも、財政再建のために風前の灯なんだと。↓>
 Booktrust gives free books to almost 3 million children a year in the UK, with 30m titles given away by Bookstart since 1992 to promote the benefits of reading aloud to young children. The government-funded charity is fighting for its survival, having weathered a 50% cut last year and a 20% cut in 2012. It is now "urgently" seeking to sustain its grant of £6m a year, with its current Department for Education funding contract running only until the end of March 2013. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/12/two-th...



#5536(2012.6.14)

 レーニンの遺体を晒し者的状態から解放し、埋葬すべきだとする声がロシア内で次第に高まりつつあるんだね。↓
 No political leader has yet dared to put the founding father of Russian communism six feet under. Will Vladimir Putin?・・・
 An April opinion poll suggested that 56% of Russians were in favour of removing the corpse, compared to 46% six years ago.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/13/lenin-...



#5538(2012.6.15)

 米国では、結婚していないだけでなく、(欧州諸国と違って)パートナーもいない母子家庭がどんどん増えつつある。↓
 ・・・In 1965, 93% of all American births were to women with marriage licenses.・・・
 Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women. And for mothers under 30, the rate is 53%.
 Though other Western countries also concluded that it was OK for the unmarried to have kids, what they had in mind as the substitute for marriage was something similar to it: a stable arrangement in which two partners, cohabiting over the long term, would raise their children together. The embrace of "lone motherhood" ― women bringing up kids with no dad around ― has been an American specialty.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-...



#5542(2012.6.17)

 定めし、モルモン教は米国で2番目に信徒が多い宗教ってことなんだろね。
 それにしても、米国での仏教の隆盛、結構なことだ。↓
 ・・・there may be as many Buddhists as Muslims in the United States by now.・・・
 Buddhism is the fourth largest religion in the United States. More Americans convert to Buddhism than to Mormonism.・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/opinion/sunday/b...



#5544(2012.6.18)

 2度目の総選挙が終わってみれば、ギリシャ、国をあげての壮大なるマッチポンプだったかー。↓
 ・・・According to official projections on Sunday evening, conservative New Democracy looked set to finish first with 30.6 percent of the vote, followed by the left-wing Syriza party with just over 26 percent. The center-left Socialists (PASOK) were expected to come third with 12.8 percent.・・・
 The party that finishes first gets a 50-seat bonus, meaning that -- if the projections are correct -- New Democracy and the Socialists would win at least 160 seats in the 300-seat Greek parliament between them. They could form a coalition government which would broadly support the EU-IMF bailout.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/new-dem...

 フランスの総選挙は、社会党が勝利したことだけがニュースじゃない。↓
 The French Socialist Party won a historic majority in Parliament on Sunday, providing recently elected President Francois Hollande with a free hand to govern.・・・
 <オランド大統領の現パートナーに「選挙妨害」を受けた前パートナー(コラム#5534)が落選しちゃったぞ!↓>
 In the coastal town of La Rochelle, Hollande's former partner and mother of his four children, Segolene Royal, was defeated by a dissident candidate who was expelled from the Socialist Party for running against her.・・・
 <24年ぶりに極右の国民戦線が議会復帰へ。党首のルペン姐は落選したけど、彼女の姪のルペン嬢(22歳)は当選した。彼女は、1791年以来、フランスの最年少の議員なんだと。↓>
 The elections also marked the return of France's far-right National Front to Parliament for the first time in 24 years. Early counts suggested that party President Marine Le Pen had lost her election bid in the industrialized heartland of northern France. However, her niece, 22-year-old Marion Marechal-Le Pen, won in Provence. She immediately became the youngest lawmaker to enter the French Parliament since 1791.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f...



#5546(2012.6.19)

 スパコンの順位、我々の思ってる以上に重要なニュースみたいね。↓
 スパコン「京」世界一から転落 米「セコイア」が首位に・・・
http://www.asahi.com/science/update/0618/OSK201206...
 <オバマ大統領自ら、昨年の一般教書で米国の世界一からの転落を嘆いた。↓>
 ・・・IBM was the first to a petaflop, with its “Roadrunner” machine at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico hitting the milestone in 2008. In 2010, however, China took the lead, an ignominy that prompted hand-wringing from the president himself in last year’s State of the Union address. Obama can now sleep soundly, though perhaps not for long, since Moore’s Law―which predicts a doubling of processing power every two years or so―seems to be holding strong. ・・・
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2012/06/18...
 <米国勢の相対的劣勢化は続いているが、来年も、このIBMのスパコンの世界一は動かないとさ。↓>
 ・・・Although the US's efforts helped secure it the lead, its overall tally of three computers in the top 10 was worse than six months ago when it had five.
China and Germany both have two supercomputers, while Japan, France and Italy have one.・・・
 ・・・it was unlikely that another manufacturer would overtake IBM in the next year.・・・
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18457716



#5548(2012.6.20)

 英コモンロー法系を継受させられた、旧英植民地諸国では、同性愛を禁じる法のある場合が多い。逆に、大陸法系を継受させられた、或いは継受した国では少ない。↓
 ・・・countries that inherited their legal systems from British common law were far more likely to have laws against homosexual bevior:
 Indeed, almost six out of every ten countries in which homosexual activity is illegal (the largest group in our dataset) have Common Law systems. Conversely, of the countries in which anti-sodomy laws were not on the books since at least 1970, over 80% have Civil Law as their legal system. ・・・
 <英国では1533年に鶏姦を犯罪とした。鶏姦しても死刑にはならなくなったのは1861年、非犯罪化したのは、実に1967年になってから。他方、フランスでは、1791年から既に非犯罪化。↓>
 Common Law system that criminalized buggery in Great Britain in 1533. ・・・
 British criminal law didn't drop capital punishment for "buggery" until 1861. Homosexual acts weren't decriminalized until 1967. By contrast, same-sex sexual relations have been legal in France, or at least not specifically prohibited, since 1791, and former French colonies are less likely to ban them today. ・・・
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/06/19/are...



#5556(2012.6.24)

 旧ソ連のジューコフ元帥の伝記が出た。↓
 <庶民出身のジューコフが重用された点で赤露は帝政露西亜とは違っていたというが、日本海海戦の敗軍の将、ロジェストヴェンスキーだって、庶民出身だったぜ。↓>
 ・・・The regime that Zhukov served all his adult life was brutal, repressive, authoritarian, and at times terroristic. . . . But compared with the old tsarist regime it offered people like Zhukov unprecedented and previously unimaginable opportunities for social mobility.”・・・
 <連合国軍の軍人の死者の95%を赤露軍が引き受けたというが、太平洋戦域を含めたら全然話は違ってくるだろ。↓>
 Russians・・・paid almost the entire ‘butcher’s bill’ for [defeating Nazi Germany], accepting 95 per cent of the military casualties of the three major powers of the Grand Alliance.・・・
 <彼が無駄に部下の将兵を多数殺したことは、スターリンと同じ体質なのであって、もっと問題視すべきでは?↓>
  For real or imagined infractions of military discipline, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers were sent to their deaths by their own officers, a practice Zhukov apparently condoned. ・・・
 <ジューコフが先の大戦における最高の将軍だというが、戦いらしい戦いを行わずして人口最大の国の権力を奪取する基盤を固めた毛沢東の方が上じゃあないの? ま、毛はスターリンと比較すべき政治家、ということかもしれないけどね。↓>
 ・・・while Zhukov did not excel as ‘the best ever’ in any one field of military endeavor, he was the best all-around general of the Second World War. He combined prowess and courage in battle with ambitious strategic vision, determination, and organizational ability. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/stalins-gen...



#5566(2012.6.29)

 米最高裁が5対4の劇的裁定でオバマの健保法に合憲判断を下した。
 長官は保守派なのに合憲としたが、そのココロは、同最高裁が米国民の多数から総スカンを食わないための政治的判断だろって。↓
 ・・・the chief justice was the only justice who cast a vote on the individual mandate that was contrary to the political position of the party of the president who appointed him.
 Why did he do it? Quite simply, to save the court.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/ju...

 どうして同じアブラハム系宗教なのに、ユダヤ教とイスラム教じゃ割礼をしてキリスト教ではしないのかが説明されている。↓
 <使徒パウロが、イエス信奉者たるユダヤ人は割礼を子供達に施してもいいけど、非ユダヤ人は割礼をしてはならない、と決めたんだって。↓>
 ・・・Shortly after Jesus’ death, his followers had a disagreement over the nature of his message. Some acolytes argued that he offered salvation through Judaism, so gentiles who wanted to join his movement should circumcise themselves like any other Jew. The apostle Paul, however, believed that faith in Jesus was the only requirement for salvation. Paul wrote that Jews who believed in Christ could go on circumcising their children, but he urged gentiles not to circumcise themselves or their sons, because trying to mimic the Jews represented a lack of faith in Christ’s ability to save them. ・・・
 <そして、4世紀にキリスト教がローマ帝国の国教になった時点で、キリスト教とユダヤ教は完全分離し、キリスト教徒が割礼をすることは禁じられたんだねえ。↓>
 The early compromise that Paul struck―ethnic Jewish Christians should circumcise, while Jesus’ gentile followers should not―held until Christianity became a legal religion in the fourth century. At that time, the two religions split permanently, and it became something of a heresy to suggest that one could be both Jewish and Christian. As part of the effort to distinguish the two religions, circumcisions became illegal for Christians, and Jews were forbidden from circumcising their slaves.
 <(イスラム教が生まれる以前の)早ければ1世紀頃から、既に北アフリカと中東の人々は割礼をしていたらしい。↓>
 Circumcision has also been part of Islam since the early days. In fact, societies in North Africa and the Middle East circumcised their sons at least as early as the first century, long before the birth of Islam. Muslim circumcisions, unlike their Jewish counterparts, do not always happen shortly after birth. Some Muslim communities wait for several years or even until puberty.
 <そもそも、割礼は、豊穣祈念(間引き、衛生)の行為ではないかとの説が有力。↓>
 Historians haven’t worked out exactly why circumcision was so common in the ancient Near East in the first place, although many believe it had something to do with fertility.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2012/...



#5570(2012.7.1)

 社会主義は、その役割を終えて死んだとさ。↓
 ・・・Socialism meant the emancipation of the working class and its transformation into the middle class; it championed social justice and a progressive tax system, and in that sense has largely done its job. As the industrialized working class gets smaller and smaller, socialism seems to have less and less to say.・・・
 <名存実亡のフランス社会主義は、国家主義に堕しているって。↓>
 Belief in the centrality of the state to run, regulate and innovate remains a core belief of French socialism・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/sunday-review/wh...



#5577(2012.7.4)

 本日は米独立記念日だが、その関連記事を2つどうぞ。

 凋落しつつある米国が、現在世界一なのは、もっぱら恥ずかしいものばかり・・なんだけど、(ここでは引用しなかったが、)チーズの生産量とか、余り知られていない「恥ずかしくない」分野で世界一のものが、まだいくつもあるってさ。
 それにしても米国も落ちぶれたもんだわ。↓
 ・・・If you believe Will McAvoy, the news anchor on Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, the United States is tops in just three things: "number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending." Actually, McAvoy is forgetting a litany of other horrible metrics in which the United States ranks first. There’s also obesity, divorce, illegal drug use, pornography, student loan debt―the list goes on.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/po...

 英領北米植民地群が独立に向けて動き出す前の時点で、本国の英国人に比べて、植民地の住民達の方がが所得がはるかに多く、かつかけられていた税金がムッチャ安かったというのに、ほんのちょっと本国が税金を引き上げようとした・・実際には、植民地側の抗議を受けて税目も変え税率も引き下げた・・ことに植民地側が激しく反発し、独立するに至った、てことが縷々説明されている。
 それにしても、米国人はホント異常だわ。↓
 ・・・By 1775, the British government was consuming one-fifth of its citizens' GDP, while New Englanders were only paying between 1 and 2 percent of their income in taxes. British citizens were also weighed down with a national debt piled up by years of worldwide warfare that amounted to £15 for each of the crown's eight million subjects, while American local and colonial governments were almost debt-free. Against this backdrop, Americans watched as the British monarchy attempted to raise taxes on the colonists to pay down its war debt and pay for the 10,000 British soldiers barracked in the colonies.・・・
 American colonists were both paid more and taxed less than the British. American taxes, in fact, were low and going lower, but the very idea that they had been raised and could be raised again by a distant power was enough to send Americans into the streets to engage in civil disobedience. ・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/07/03/t...



#5583(2012.7.7)

 英国のEU離脱の方が、スコットランドの英国離脱より先に来そうな雰囲気になってきたな。↓
 ・・・下院の保守党議員の三分の一を占めるグループの<EU離脱>意見をさすがに無視できず、キャメロン首相は七月一日付の英紙サンデー・テレグラフへの寄稿で「国民投票の実施を考慮に入れる」と表明した。・・・
 五月下旬の世論調査では51%がEU離脱を求め、残留は28%だった。
http://www.tokyo-np.co.jp/article/world/news/CK201...



#5585(2012.7.8)

 健康保険に関する米最高裁判決の後、米国民の二極分解が進み、ロムニーの支持率がオバマのそれに肉薄するに至ったらしい。危うしオバマ。↓
・・・after the court’s ruling, Obama’s lead over Romney has slipped from four percentage points to just one point (43-42)・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2...



#5593(2012.7.12)

 米国では株主資本主義(shareholder capitalism)はもはや機能していないとさ。
 だけど、こんなコラムで日本型経済体制への言及がなされないのはさびしいねえ。↓
 <株式保有期間は1950年代には7年だったが現在は6ヵ月であり、70%の取引量は瞬時しか保有していない株式の取引だ。↓>
 ・・・In the 1950s, a stock listed on the New York Stock Exchange was held, on average, for seven years, Fox and Lorsch write. Today, it’s six months. As much as 70 percent of the daily volume on the NYSE comes from high-frequency traders who hold a stock for roughly the same amount of time it takes a Higgs boson to disintegrate. ・・・
 <個人株主は、1950年代は90%超、現在は30〜35%。↓>
 The eclipse of the long-term shareholder has been accompanied by the eclipse of the individual shareholder. In the ’50s, more than 90 percent of the shares in U.S. corporations were held by individuals. Today,・・・individual shareholders own 30 to 35 percent. ・・・
 <ドイツでは、社長報酬額は米国よりはるかに少なく、労働者への分配率ははるかに高い。↓>
 German corporations are thriving, even though (or more likely, because) their CEOs are paid radically less than ours and their workers command a higher share of gross domestic product than ours.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meye...

 ポーランドで強力であったカトリック教会は消滅への道を歩みつつあるとよ。↓
 ・・・Twenty years ago, the Catholic Church played a major role in the fall of communism in Poland. Today, with the country changing rapidly, the church's influence is quickly waning. Once considered the most Catholic country in Europe, the faithful are vanishing.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/influen...



#5597(2012.7.14)

 スティーグリッツ、クルーグマン、サンデルらが現在の米国における裸の資本主義批判の旗手達なんだね。
 スティーグリッツは、非対称的情報(asymmetric information)・・この概念で彼はノーベル経済学賞を受賞・・を活用してしこたま儲ける、「一流」弁護士や独占企業家等のレント・シーカー(rent seaker)達・・を激しく批判する。↓
 ・・・Stiglitz is one of a growing band of academics and economists, among them Paul Krugman, Michael J Sandel and Raghuram Rajan, who are trying to inject morality back into capitalism. He argues that we are reaching a level of inequality that is "intolerable". Rent-seekers include top-flight lawyers, monopolists (Stiglitz refers to the illusion of competition: the US has hundreds of banks but the big four share half of the whole sector), financiers and many of those supposed to be regulating the system, but who have been seduced and neutered by lobbyists and their own avarice.・・・
 <要するに、スティーグリッツは人間主義を推奨しとるのよね。↓>
 Stiglitz writes: "Paying attention to everyone else's self-interest -- in other words to the common welfare -- is in fact a precondition for one's own ultimate wellbeing… it isn't just good for the soul; it's good for business."・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jul/13/price-...

 遅ればせながら、米国チームの中共製のオリンピック開会式用ウェアをめぐる騒動についてだ。↓
 Debate rages in Congress, public over U.S. Olympic uniforms being made in China・・・
 <米国人の衣料の98%は外国製。↓>
  98 percent of clothing sold in the United States is manufactured overseas. ・・・
 <低価格品はアジアで高価格品は欧州でつくられる。↓>
  Many publicly traded Americana brands -- Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan and Michael Kors -- have long manufactured their lower-priced diffusion lines in Asia and high-priced lines in Europe.・・・
 <そもそも、同チームがスポンサー企業から提供されるものはほとんど全部外国製。↓>
 Congress has not yet suggested burning Spalding basketballs, Adidas leotards, Nike shoes or the Acer computers that the Olympic Committee will be using courtesy of their sponsors, all of whose products are manufactured abroad.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/deba...

 この、先の大戦の時にポーランド軍と行動を共にし、ついに正式にその一員となり、最後はスコットランドとポーランドの友好に貢献した熊の感動の話、英語のできる人、絶対読むべきだよ。↓
 ・・・ During World War II, an orphaned brown bear went from being a cuddly pet to an officially enlisted soldier in the Polish army, and reportedly saw fierce combat in Italy. Decades after the war and his death, "Wojtek" continues to be honored.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/wojt...



#5605(2012.7.18)

 カナダ人の一家計あたり資産が米国人のそれを抜いた。
 これで、米独立革命は、何の意味もない愚行であったことが明確になった。↓
 The Average Canadian is Now Richer than the Average American・・・
 In 2011, the average net worth of a Canadian household was $363,202,compared to $319,970 in the U.S.・・・
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/07/17/the-average-ca...



#5609(2012.7.20)

 現在のユーロ圏におけるドイツ対イタリア・スペイン(・フランス)の対立は、統一以降のドイツのプロテスタント回帰がもたらした、プロテスタント文化対カトリック文化の対立だと。
 ドイツの現大統領は元牧師、首相は牧師の娘だと言われれば、確かにそうだわ。
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18789154

 補足だ。

 ・・・ The German word for debt - schuld - is the same as the word for "guilt" or "sin".・・・
もさることながら、上出の2人はいずれも東独出身であるのに対し、西独をEECに加盟させたアデナウアー首相も、統一ドイツをユーロ圏に加盟させる決定を行ったコール首相・・彼の在任中の1990年にドイツ統一がなされている・・ヘルムート・コールも、ラインラント出身のカトリック教徒だってわけ。



#5619(2012.7.25)

 政府広報としては、全体的には読ませる内容だが、以下のくだりはいけませんや。
 太田コラム読者には常識だろうが、ベルギーは国家解体危機を孕んでるんだぜ。↓
 ・・・ベルギーは南欧諸国などと違い、日本と同じく対外純資産は一貫してプラスで、基本的には経常収支黒字基調の国でした。
 また、一人当たりGDP(国内総生産)もイタリアやスペインより高い国です。・・・<ところが、>国債の信用リスクを取引するクレジット・デフォルト・スワップ(CDS)の水準<が>、2010年4月頃は日本とほぼ同水準で<あったものの、>その6カ月後の同年10月ごろからCDSレートが高くなり始め、翌年にはイタリア並みの水準になってしまいました。・・・
http://business.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/interview/2...

 米国における殺人率はかつてより減ったのに、大量殺人率は減っていないって。↓
 ・・・The United States is a less violent country than it was two decades ago. The homicide rate, which hit a peak in the early 1990s at about 10 per 100,000 people, has been cut in half, to a level not seen since the early 1960s.
But there has been no corresponding decline in mass murder ― these sudden, stunning eruptions of violence with multiple victims,・・・
 The United States experienced 645 mass-murder events ― killings with at least four victims ― between 1976 and 2010, according to Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox. When graphed, these incidents show no obvious trend. The numbers go up and down and up again. The total body count: 2,949. ・・・
 <もっとも、殺人率は今でも加の3倍、豪の4倍、英・支の5倍、日の12倍。↓>
 The U.S. homicide rate of roughly five per 100,000 people is about three times that of Canada, about four times that of Australia, nearly five times Britain’s rate and about 12 times the rate in Japan. The U.S. rate is also roughly five times that of China.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-scie...



#5639(2012.8.4)

 古き良き米国の頂点は1979年だったってさ。↓
 <・・・企業は大きな利益を上げたが地域社会に投資しそこでモノをつくっており、金持ちはちゃんと税金を払っていた。↓>
 ・・・U.S. companies made big profits ― but invested in the local communities where their products were made. The rich paid their fair share in taxes without complaint.
 Barlett and Steele can pinpoint the moment this America began to disappear: June 1979. More people were employed at U.S. factory jobs at that time than during any month before or since. At about the same time, the share that the wealthiest Americans paid in taxes began to fall sharply.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-do...

 やっぱチャーチルが米国を嫌ってたっての本当みたいね。
 1918年にチャーチルがローズベルトと初めて会った時のチャーチルの態度はひどかったらしい。↓
 ・・・As for the oft-invoked relationship between Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, even that began on an unpromising note, to say the least. The two men first met at a banquet in London in 1918, at which F.D.R. -- then assistant secretary of the Navy -- was a speaker. Not long before they became reacquainted two decades later, Roosevelt would remember that Churchill, who was serving as Britain’s minister of munitions, “acted like a stinker … lording it over all of us” and was one of the rudest people he had met in public life. (By then, Churchill apparently had forgotten the meeting entirely, which perhaps proved Roosevelt’s point.)・・・
 <にもかかわらず、後にチャーチルは英米特殊関係を演出したが、この関係が瓦解し始めたのは、1960年代に入ってから英国が脱キリスト教化して行ったからだと。ウソこけ。もとから英国・・より正確にはイギリス・・は脱キリスト教だったのよ。↓>
 Since the 1960’s the United States and Britain have grown increasingly culturally removed. This is a result, I believe, in part of the de-Christianization of Great Britain. ・・・
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/...



#5645(2012.8.7)

 米国じゃ、宗教がかったコミュニティの方が世俗的コミュニティよりも長続きすることが分かってんだね。↓
 ・・・anthropologist Richard Sosis and his colleagues studied 200 communes founded in the United States in the 19th century. If shared religious beliefs really did foster loyalty, they reasoned, then communes formed out of religious conviction should survive longer than those motivated by secular ideologies such as socialism. Their findings were striking: Just 6 percent of the secular communes were still functioning 20 years after their founding, compared with 39 percent of the religious communes.・・・
 <この種コミュニティは長続きはするが、柔軟性を欠くとも。↓>
 But the same logic that makes religious and sacred beliefs more likely to endure can make them impervious to compromise. ・・・
 <歴史を紐解くと、宗教が原因で起こった戦争は意外に少ないが、一旦始まってしまうとなかなか終わらないって。↓>
 Although surprisingly few wars are started by religions, once they start, religion -- and the values it imposes -- can play a critical role. ・・・
 <特定の宗教的コミュニティに敵対的な隣人達がいる場合、聖なる価値や儀典にのめり込む傾向があり、団結力は増すけど他の諸集団との紛争の可能性は増えるって。↓>
 ・・・the more antagonistic a group's neighborhood, the more tightly that group will cling to its sacred values and rituals. The result is enhanced solidarity, but also increased potential for conflict toward other groups.
 <そして、儀典は次第にコストの大きいものになって行き、割礼とか人身御供が行われるようになるとさ。そして、当該コミュニティへの自己犠牲、例えば、自殺的攻撃が当然視されるようになるとも。↓>
 ・・・groups that experience the highest rates of conflict (warfare) endure the costliest rites (genital mutilation, scarification, etc.). Likewise, research in India, Mexico, Britain, Russia, and Indonesia indicates that greater participation in religious ritual in large-scale societies is associated with greater parochial altruism -- that is, willingness to sacrifice for one's own group, such as Muslims or Christians, but not for outsiders -- and, in relevant contexts, support for suicide attacks. ・・・
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/06/g...



#5649(2012.8.9)

 プーチンの大統領復帰以来、ロシアの専制化は一層進み、このままでは、右も左も暴力に訴えるようになるだろうってさ。↓
 In less than 100 days since he returned to the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin has further curbed Russian civil liberties and dissenters. But this is risky. As political dialogue no longer becomes an option, radicals on both sides are emboldened and the threshold for violence is lowered.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/Commenta...



#5659(2012.8.14)

 米保守派は、アイン・ランド等、教祖的知識人を何人も抱えているが、米リベラル派にはいないことを嘆いたコラムだ。↓
 ・・・ Any self-respecting young conservative knows the names you’re supposed to spout: Hayek, Rand, Ludwig von Mises, Albert Jay Nock. There are some older thinkers too--Edmund Burke, for instance--but for the most part the favored thinkers come out of the movement’s mid-20th century origins in opposition to Soviet communism and the New Deal.
 Liberals, by contrast, have been moving in the other direction over the last half-century, abandoning the idea that ideas can be powerful political tools.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hi...



#5669(2012.8.19)

 共和党は福祉切り下げを叫ぶが、共和党地区の住民が一番福祉政策で裨益しているってさ。↓
 ・・・Republicans call for deep cuts to the safety net, their districts rely more on government support than their Democratic counterparts.・・・
 <個人主義と自己決定を叫ぶ(共和党支持の)米国人達は、自分達がこの理想を達成できていないことのうっぷんをあらぬ方向にぶちまけてるだけだとよ。↓>
 ・・・economically struggling Americans professing a robust individualism and self-determination, frustrated with their failures to achieve that ideal.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world

 市場原理主義・・ネオ「リベラリズム」とも呼ばれるが、それが今英米の保守が掲げてるんだから笑わせるな・・はチリのピノチェトを嚆矢とし、レーガン、サッチャーと受け継がれただって。↓
 ・・・“neo-liberal” ideology first found appeal in Augusto Pinochet’s Chile, and, shortly afterwards, in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain and Ronald Reagan’s US. In subsequent decades it achieved ascendancy in most parts of the world.・・・
 <ダボス会議は、市場原理主義者の肝いりで始まったんだね。↓>
 Davos, the Swiss mountain village where the world’s leading businessmen and pro-market politicians meet every January. ・・・
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/16467386-e6c1-11e1-...

 マフィア<主義>国家ロシアでは、今や政府のみならず、ほぼ全国民が腐敗しちまってるってよ。↓
 CORRUPTION in Russia is so pervasive that the whole society accepts the unacceptable as normal, as the only way of survival・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/f...



#5671(2012.8.20)

<g73UWCLV0>

このネタ太田さんから見て、おおむね正しい?
http://kabumatome.doorblog.jp/archives/65702505.ht...

<太田>

 「日本人はイスラエル問題ひいては中東問題を理解できない」はもちろん間違い。
 少なくとも米国人よりは理解できらーな。

 「イギリスが99割悪い・・・イギリスが適当な約束しまくった<ところ、>・・・あれがなかったらここまで酷くないはず・・・」も間違い。
 一番悪いのは、シオニズムを本格化させたところの欧州大陸諸国(欧州の外延たるロシアを含む)のユダヤ人迫害であり、二番目に悪いのは、英国と言うよりはチャーチルが大英帝国を過早に瓦解させ、その一環として、英国がパレスティナ地区の過早な「独立」を受け容れざるをえなくなったことであり、三番目に悪いのは、パレスティナ地区及びそれを取り巻く地域の(イスラム教の悪影響を受けているところの)、アラブ人達の頑迷さだ。
 なお、これを言っちゃおしまいなんだが、問題の根源は、自分達を依怙贔屓する唯一神を意固地にも信奉し続けるユダヤ人なる異常な民族集団がこの世の中に存在し続けてるところにある。
 (まーいまだに日本にオウム真理教信者がいるんだから彼らを嗤えないけどな。
 形の上じゃユダヤ教を棄てさせられ、移住を強いられた元ユダヤ人達にすら、何世代も前にユダヤ人であったことにアイデンティティを求める強い傾向が見られる
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/21/science/in-andal...
ってんだから、人間ってホント不思議な生き物だわ。
 もっとも、鳥類や蝶で帰巣本能を持つ者がある以上、それほど不思議でもない(NYタイムス上掲)のかもしんないけど・・。)
 英国の三つ股膏薬なんて、これらに較べりゃカワイイもんだわさ。



#5675(2012.8.22)

 ニール・ファーガソンが今次大統領選で共和党支持を打ち出した、いわくつきのコラムだ。↓
 <オバマは経済音痴だ↓、というのはホントかもね。↓>
 ・・・Summers told Orszag over dinner in May 2009: “You know, Peter, we’re really home alone ... I mean it. We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge. Clinton would never have made these mistakes [of indecisiveness on key economic issues].” On issue after issue, according to Suskind, Summers overruled the president. “You can’t just march in and make that argument and then have him make a decision,” Summers told Orszag, “because he doesn’t know what he’s deciding.”・・・
 <中共を敵視しないことと対中共抑止力を維持強化することとは矛盾してないぜ。ただし、米国単独で後者をやろうとしている点は、対共和党・対軍部向けポーズなんだろうけど、いただけないけどな。↓>
 In Tokyo in November 2009, the president gave his boilerplate hug-a-foreigner speech: “In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another ... The United States does not seek to contain China ... On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations.” Yet by fall 2011, this approach had been jettisoned in favor of a “pivot” back to the Pacific, including risible deployments of troops to Australia and Singapore. ・・・
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/08/19/n...

 なお、ここで引用しなかった些末な点で、クルーグマン、ファーガソン「論争」が起こっている。
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/20/n...



#5677(2012.8.23)

 何度も紹介してきたところの、米国における宗教の「没落」状況が分かる記事だ。↓
 ・・・in the US, since 2005:
・the number of people who consider themselves religious has dropped from 73% to 60%
・those who declare themselves atheists have risen from 1% to 5%・・・
 <世界的にはどうか、についても調査結果が掲載されている。↓>
・Worldwide, 59% of those polled consider themselves religious; 23% consider themselves non-religious and 13% say they are atheists
・Top three atheist countries: China: 47%, Japan: 31%, Czech Republic: 30%
・Top four religious countries: Ghana 96%, Nigeria 93%, Armenia and Fiji, 92%・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19262884



#5687(2012.8.28)

 ニール・ファーガソンのオバマ批判の余震がまだ続いている。↓
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/08/26/r...

 オバマ政権のアジア重視の軍事態勢話を止めとけとくさすコラムだ。
 おおむねボクも同感だけどね。↓
 It is time to bury the Obama administration's pivot to Asia. This reallocation of military and diplomatic resources was supposed to guarantee stability in a region seeking to balance China's rise. In reality, this strategic shift is less than it appears. It won't solve Asia's problems and may even add to the region's uncertainty by over-promising and under-delivering.・・・
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100008723963904445...



#5695(2012.9.1)

 私がかねてから指摘してきたことだ。↓

 「・・・英国には、キリスト教が説く「すべてのものの創造者」「唯一の神」を信じない人も多く、仏教哲学に共感するなど、ほかの宗教を受け入れやすい土壌もあった・・・」
http://sankei.jp.msn.com/world/news/120901/erp1209...



#5727(2012.9.17)

 ドイツ人の心情が明かされている。
 よくドイツと日本がひとまとめにされるけど、どんだけ違うかがよく分かる。↓
 <30年戦争の荒廃以来、ドイツ人はメランコリックでペシミスティックとなり、幸福は長続きしないものと思い込んでいるってんだな。
 英仏の希望と勝利を謳ったものとは違って、ドイツの軍歌は戦友の死や迫りくる死を描いたものばかりだと。↓>
 ・・・"Germans have a melancholic, a pessimistic streak, which cultural historians trace back to the thirty years' war [a series of wars between 1618 and 1648 that devastated much of Europe including large parts of Germany]. There are these beautiful comparisons of German, English and French soldiers' war songs, and the English and French ones, they're all about hope and victory, and the German soldiers' songs are all about losing comrades, or imminent death. This pessimism I think leads people to ask now: 'Have we had it too good?'"・・・
 <米国在住のドイツ人は自分がドイツ人であることを隠そうとするとさ。↓>
 "I remember one of the nicest things a colleague of mine in the United States said when he introduced a lecture of mine: that he had never met a German in academia in the United States who so little tried to hide that he's German," he says ・・・
 <現在のドイツ人幼児だって、大きくなって英国に行けばドイツ人を悪く描いた映画ばかりであることに気付くだろうって。でもそれには理由があることを学ばなければならないって。↓>
 ・・・even my two granddaughters [aged four and eight] will still have to cope with it. When they go abroad and go to Britain and see all these movies that still deal with 'bad Germans' with it・・・
 "They will have to learn where this anger comes from, that it comes from real wounds that still torment people."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/16/bernha...



#5733(2012.9.20)

 どうして、英国の警官は丸腰なのか、改めてBBCが記事にしている。↓
 Why does Britain hold firm against issuing guns to officers on the beat?・・・
 <英国と同じなのは、アイルランド、ニュージーランド、そしてしいて言えばノルウェーだって。↓>
 All major police forces in Europe, as well as the US, Canada and Australia routinely carry firearms・・・. The exceptions are Britain, the Irish Republic, and New Zealand. In Norway officers carry arms in their cars but not on their person・・・
 <嫌われてた陸軍との違いを際立たせたんだと。↓>
 When Robert Peel formed the Metropolitan Police there was a very strong fear of the military - the masses feared the new force would be oppressive.・・・
 <このこととも関連し、警察は国に対してではなく、公衆のために仕事をしている、という意識があるんだって。↓>
 Arming the force would, say opponents, undermine the principle of policing by consent - the notion that the force owes its primary duty to the public, rather than to the state, as in other countries.・・・
 <この政策、一般人より警官の間でより支持されてるってのが面白い。↓>
 A 2006 survey of 47,328 Police Federation members found 82% did not want officers to be routinely armed on duty, despite almost half saying their lives had been "in serious jeopardy" during the previous three years.
 It is a position shared by the Police Superintendents' Association and the Association of Chief Police Officers.
 The British public are not nearly so unanimous.
 An ICM poll in April 2004 found 47% supported arming all police, compared with 48% against. ・・・
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19641398



#5785(2012.10.16)

 EUがノーベル平和賞を授与された現在、EUから英国が脱退するであろうことがほぼ確定的になりつつあるようだ。↓
 <ドイツは、EU予算をユーロ圏とそれ以外(メインは英国)とに分けて編成することを考えている。↓>
 ・・・In a closed-door meeting with European Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso in Bonn last Thursday, Merkel explained her proposal to develop a separate budget for the euro zone. Her advisors envision that the money will be earmarked for targeted measures to promote growth in euro-zone countries. If Merkel's idea prevails, it will be a reflection, in terms of fiscal policy, that there are now two European communities under the umbrella of the EU.・・・
 <また、ドイツは、昨秋、英国の反対でポシャッたEU共同軍事司令部設立案を再び持ち出す方向。↓>
 German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, together with his counterparts in France and Poland, is determined to promote cooperation on security policy in the EU. Last fall, the British blocked an attempt by the other 26 EU member states to establish a joint headquarters for military missions. Now the plan is to be revived and implemented, even against London's resistance, if necessary.・・・
 <他方、先月末、キャメロン英首相は、EU各国の司法・警察面での協力体制から離脱する意向を表明した。↓>
 At the end of September, Cameron announced, almost as an aside, that his government intends to withdraw from a Europe-wide system of cooperation among judicial and police authorities. The decision affects more than 130 regulations, which also include the European arrest warrant. ・・・
 <EU全体としては、従来以上にEUの合衆国化を目指しつつある。↓>
 Euro Group President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Commission President Barroso had already planned to do so, but on completely different terms. They wanted to convene a constitutional convention, which they hoped would ultimately lead to something like a United States of Europe. The visionaries wanted to create the position of euro finance minister, and they also imagined a shared foreign and security policy, even to the point of combining all of the member states' military forces. ・・・
 <今や、ギリシャの財政問題ではなく、英国の離脱問題こそEUの最大の問題だとさ。↓>
 Greece's financial problems are no longer at the top of their list, but rather the possible departure of one of Europe's largest countries. ・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/new-pat...



#5787(2012.10.17)

 ギリシャじゃ、政治家がそもそも腐敗しきってて、脱税のやりたい放題のようだね。
 EUから抜ける(抜けさせられる)のは英国が先かギリシャが先か、それとも(EUから抜けることがありえない)スコットランドが英国から独立するのが先か?↓
 Corruption Continues Virtually Unchecked in Greece・・・
 Greece has all the right conditions for corruption: plenty of bureaucracy, no functioning justice system, laws with numerous loopholes -- and economic pressure. ・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/corrupt...



#5795(2012.10.21)

 米国がいかに遅れた国であるか、何度か取り上げてきているが、またどうぞ。↓
 <先進35か国中、子供の貧困率は34位、4歳で幼稚園/保育園に通っている率は28位、25歳〜34歳で高等教育を受けた者の率は14位、また、全部の国及び地域中、乳児死亡率は49位、更に、社会流動性では地理的意味での欧州諸国の大部分、豪州、カナダに劣る。↓>
 ・・・the dismal statistics on child poverty, declaring it an outrage that of the 35 most economically advanced countries, the United States ranks 34th, edging out only Romania. He might take on educational achievement, noting that this country comes in only 28th in the percentage of 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool, and at the other end of the scale, 14th in the percentage of 25-to-34-year-olds with a higher education. He might hammer on infant mortality, where the United States ranks worse than 48 other countries and territories, or point out that, contrary to fervent popular belief, the United States trails most of Europe, Australia and Canada in social mobility.
 <米国が1位なのは、収監率であり、ロシア、キュ−バ、中共をはるかに上回るし、一人当たりエネルギー消費ではドイツの2倍だ。↓>
 The candidate might try to stir up his audience by flipping a familiar campaign trope: America is indeed No. 1, he might declare ― in locking its citizens up, with an incarceration rate far higher than that of the likes of Russia, Cuba, Iran or China; in obesity, easily outweighing second-place Mexico and with nearly 10 times the rate of Japan; in energy use per person, with double the consumption of prosperous Germany. ・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/sunday-review/ca...



#5797(2012.10.22)

 スコットランドの筆頭相、独立後のスコットランドは非核化し、英国の戦略核搭載原潜の配備は認めないと語る。↓
 ・・・the first minister <of Scotland> said that Friday's decision by the Scottish National party conference that it would remove Trident from Scottish soil while still seeking membership of Nato was non-negotiable. Salmond said: "Nobody seriously believes that Scotland, a country of 5.25 million people, would want to be in possession of nuclear weapons. That would be a bad thing for Scotland. I think that would be a bad thing for nuclear proliferation around the world."・・・
 <現在のところ、独立支持者は30%しかいないが、医療と(スコットランドでは?)大学授業料がタダという現状を英保守党だけでなく英労働党も変えようとしているところ、本当にそうなったら、独立支持者は過半を超えると見られているとさ。↓>
  ・・・a series of opinion polls have shown that support among Scots for leaving the UK has slumped to about 30%, with support for remaining rising to 58%.
 Salmond, the SNP and the Yes Scotland pro-independence campaign have reacted by trying to reposition themselves to the left of Labour, attacking recent speeches by the Scottish Labour leader, Johann Lamont, in which she questioned the affordability of universal services such as free prescriptions and free university tuition. A poll by Panelbase for the Sunday Times suggested this strategy could be popular. It showed that backing for independence surged sharply from 37% to 52% if voters thought the Tories would win the next UK general election -- turning a deficit in support into a 15-point lead.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/oct/21/alex-salm...



#5809(2012.10.28)

 オバマが大統領に就任した当時より、米国人の(黒人・ヒスパニックに係る)人種主義度は悪化していることが判明した。
 オバマが苦戦している原因の一つはこれだったんだー。↓
 ・・・A full 51 percent of Americans explicitly express anti-black prejudice, up from 48 percent in 2008・・・
 When an implicit racial attitudes test is used the number increases to 56 percent, compared to 49 percent four years ago. ・・・
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/10/27/...
 ・・・in 2011, 52% of non-Hispanic whites expressed anti-Hispanic attitudes. That figure had risen to 57% in the implicit test in 2012.・・・
 ・・・racial prejudice against Obama could cost him five points in the current election campaign.
 However, conversely pro-black sentiment could see him scoop an extra three points, meaning a net loss due to racial attitudes of 2%.
 The survey also found that some 79% of Republicans expressed explicit racial prejudice compared to 32% of Democrats.
The implicit test too showed that 64% of Republicans had racial prejudice compared to 55% of Democrats, while independents came in at 49%.・・・
 ・・・from 2009 to 2012 median annual household income for blacks dropped by 11.1%, compared to a drop of just 5.2% for whites and 4.1% for Hispanics.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/27/racial...

 米国の所得・富の格差が拡大し始める契機となった年が1978年らしいね。
 こういったことを是正する話が今次大統領選の争点になっていなさそうなのは深刻だねえ。↓
 <傾きかけた企業が労働協約を破棄できるように破産法が改正され、年金掛け金の企業負担分を下げることを結果として可能にする税法改正がなされた。↓>
 ・・・Smith views 1978 as a pivotal year. First, Congress revised bankruptcy laws to allow troubled corporations to restructure rapidly by abrogating union contracts and other employee agreements. Second, lawmakers enacted a little-noticed tax-code provision designed to let workers supplement existing pension plans with individual retirement accounts. Corporations unexpectedly seized upon the new plans as an excuse to eliminate expensive, professionally administered, lifetime pensions. The result: Employees’ share of retirement costs went from 11 percent in the 1950s to 51 percent by the mid-2000s; insufficient or badly managed retirement investing by individual workers has given rise to predictions that perhaps half of aging boomers may end their lives in poverty. (Employers also took a parallel path in health insurance, shifting costs to employees via higher premiums and deductions.)
 <また、クレジットカード債務の各月最低元利返済額を低くするとともに当該債務の利子を高くすることを可能にする米最高裁判決が下された。↓>
 Finally, a 1978 Supreme Court decision permitted banks to offer high-interest, low minimum-payment credit cards, even to Americans with bad credit histories ― sowing the seeds for a massive credit card debt bubble. That process, followed two decades later by a residential real estate boom and bust, eventually bankrupted millions of middle-class Americans. ・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/who-stole-t...



#5813(2012.10.30)

 なんで貧しい人々が共和党に投票するのか、を解明しようとしたコラムだ。↓
 <収入だけじゃなく、人種や宗教や性別がからんでいるって。↓>
 ・・・The question of why poor people vote Republican is not simply an issue of income but primarily race and partly region and gender. Poor people may be more likely to vote Democrat; poor white people are not.・・・
 <共和党が強い州じゃ、金持ちも貧乏人も社会的諸問題に似た見解を抱いているが、民主党が強い州じゃ、金持ちは貧乏人より社会的にわずかながらよりリベラルだ。↓>
 In Republican states, rich and poor have similar views on social issues・・・
 But in Democratic states, the rich are quite a bit more socially liberal than the poor. ・・・
 If poor states voting Republican is a paradox then the fact that 9 out of 10 states with the highest median income vote Democrat is no less so.・・・
 <社会的流動性信仰のある米国では、貧乏人も、想像上のそれのために共和党に投票してもおかしくない。↓>
 In a country where social mobility is assumed -- even if it has in fact stalled -- and class consciousness is week the poor may vote in the interests of an imagined, but not necessarily imaginary future, rather than solidarity based on shared economic hardships. ・・・
 <それよか、貧乏人の棄権率が高いことこそ衝撃的だ。↓>
  ・・・the truly shocking thing about income and voting patterns in the US isn't the number of poor people who vote Republican but the number who don't vote at all. ・・・
 <とまれ、共和党支持者の多くが極めて無知で偏見にとらわれている人々であることは事実だ。↓>
 All that said, there are still some basic facts to contend with that do suggest many Republican voters believe things that are either misinformed or absurd or both. Since the last election the number of Republicans who believe Obama is a Muslim has doubled; in 2010 a poll showed that about two-thirds of Republicans either believe or are not sure that Obama is "a racist who hates white people", and more than half believe or are not sure that he was not born in the US and that he wants the terrorists to win. Earlier this year a Dartmouth poll revealed that 63% of Republicans still believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. A poll last year revealed that a quarter of Republicans believed a community rights organisation called Acorn would try to steal the election for Barack Obama, while 31% weren't sure whether it would or not. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/29/workin...



#5827(2012.11.6)

 本来、有料読者向けコラムで書くべきだが、他に紹介すべきめぼしい記事がなく、また、いい機会なので、シュピーゲル誌による米国の没落ぶりを描写した記事2篇を緊急紹介したい。↓
 <ハリケーンのサンディが到来することは、その3〜4日前から分かっていたのに、NYで、土嚢は、電発、病院、トンネル入り口にではなく、金融街のビルの回りに積まれた。↓>
 ・・・Although parts of New York City, especially the island of Manhattan, are only a few meters above sea level, the city still has no extensive system to protect itself against storm surges, despite the fact that the sea level has been rising for years and the number of storms is increasing. In the case of Sandy, the weather forecasts were relatively reliable three or four days prior to its arrival, so that the time could have been used to at least make improvised preparations, which did not happen. The only effective walls of sandbags that were built in the city on a larger scale did not appear around power plants, hospitals or tunnel entrances, but around the skyscraper of the prescient investment bank Goldman Sachs.
 <何百万人もの人々が数日から数週間も、電力、水道、暖房なしの生活を余儀なくされ、病院入院患者は避難生活を送らされようとしている。↓>
 Large parts of America's biggest city and millions of people along the East Coast could now be forced to survive for days, possibly even weeks, without electricity, water and heat. Many of the backup generators intended for such emergencies didn't work, so that large hospitals had to be evacuated.・・・
 <米国は、そのインフラをまともなものにするには、2050年までの間の毎年、投資額を現行の6割増しにしなければならない。↓>
  ・・・the United States would have to invest some $225 billion a year between now and 2050 to regain an adequate, modern infrastructure. That's 60 percent more than it invests today. It isn't hard to predict that this won't happen. ・・・
 <しかし、オバマが提唱した高速鉄道計画一つとっても、共和党知事達の反対によって一歩も進んでいない。↓>
 The sad fight for more high-speed rail in America is a case in point. ・・・
 <共和党議員が大統領提案の法案を採決に付することにすら反対するケースは、60年代には8%に過ぎなかったのに、今では70%を超えている。↓>
 ・・・since 2007 Republican lawmakers have tried to torpedo more than 70 percent of all bills before they were even put to a vote. This applied to only 27 percent of proposed legislation in the 1980s, and only 8 percent in the 1960s.・・・
 <それは、主として茶会のせいだ。↓>
 This obstructionism is largely attributable to the group within the Republican Party known as the Tea Party.・・・
 <米国の大学群は現在でも世界最高だが、米国人学生はこれらの大学に入学できなくなりつつある。↓>
 Although many American universities are still among the world's top institutions, they have become unaffordable for many Americans.・・・
 <(政府がカネを出せなくなってきているため、授業料が高騰し、)学生は総額1兆ドルもの借金を抱えているが、これは、消費者のクレジットカードの総借金額を超えている。つまり、貧しい家庭の子供は大学に行けなくなりつつあるのだ。↓>
 American college and university graduates owe a total of $1 trillion in student loan debt, which exceeds total American consumer credit card debt. The prospect of incurring such massive debts deters prospective students, especially those from poorer families, from attending colleges and universities in the first place. ・・・
 <他方、大学に入れる家庭の子供は、いい大学の場合ほど、卒業すると手っ取り早く金儲けをするために、金融界に就職する。↓>
 About a third of the students in every graduating class at Harvard University accept jobs in investment banking and consulting, or with hedge funds -- that is, industries that produce one thing above all: fast money.・・・
 <もはや、米国は、かつての欧州以上の階級社会と化してしまった、と言ってもよい。↓>
 A person's socioeconomic background now plays a stronger role in America in determining his of her social and educational opportunities than it does in Europe, whose class society the founders of the United States once set out to leave behind.
 <現在、米国はあらゆる面で閉塞状態に陥っている。↓>
 In the fall of 2012, America is a country filled with such dead ends.
 <地球温暖化問題なんぞ、全く眼中にない。↓>
 The fight against climate change is one of them. Impending environmental threats were a major theme in Obama's first election campaign, but then they were dropped at the first sign of Republican resistance and remained a non-issue in the current campaign・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/divided-...
 <米軍は、現在でも恐るべき能力を持っている。↓>
 The United States Army is developing a weapon that can reach -- and destroy -- any location on Earth within an hour.
 <だけど、サンディが襲った結果露呈したのは、後進国たる米国だった。貧乏人はひどい目にあい、金持ちは涼しい顔をしている。↓>
 At the same time, power lines held up by wooden poles dangle over the streets of Brooklyn, Queens and New Jersey. Hurricane Sandy ripped them apart there and in communities across the East Coast last week, and many places remain without electricity. That's America, where high-tech options are available only to the elite, and the rest live under conditions comparable to a those of a developing nation. No country has produced more Nobel Prize winners, yet in New York City hospitals had to be evacuated during the storm because their emergency generators didn't work properly.
 <これは矛盾ではないのであって、米国が全面的(total)資本主義(=原理主義的資本主義)の国である以上当然だ。↓>
 Anyone who sees this as a contradiction has failed to grasp the fact that America is a country of total capitalism. Its functionaries have no need of public hospitals or of a reliable power supply to private homes. The elite have their own infrastructure. Total capitalism, however, has left American society in ruins and crippled the government. ・・・
 <ロムニーとオバマは人物的にも政策的にも全然違うが、政策選択の余地が事実上ない以上、もはや米国は民主主義国であるとは言えない。↓>
 Romney, the exceedingly wealthy business man, and Obama, the cultivated civil rights lawyer, are two faces of a political system that no longer has much to do with democracy as we understand it. Democracy is about choice, but Americans don't really have much of a choice. ・・・
 <考えてもみよ。オバマはグアンタナモ収容所を閉鎖しなかったし、「捕虜」を米国の裁判所で裁かせることもしなかったし、金融市場の規制や地球温暖化について、ほとんど現在の選挙戦で語ることもなかった。↓>
 Obama didn't close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, nor did he lift immunity for alleged war criminals from the Bush-era, or regulate the financial markets, and climate change was hardly discussed during the current election campaign.・・・
 <そりゃ全て共和党のせいだと思いたいところだ。実際、ロムニーが拠っているところの、米国の保守派は、科学と論理を、そして理性と節度を、いや単なる礼儀作法すら、捨て去っており、同性愛者、弱者、及び国家を憎み、女性を抑圧し、移民を迫害し、強姦されて妊娠した場合ですら中絶を認めない、いわば欧米におけるタリバンだ。↓>
 We want to believe that Obama failed because of the conservatives inside his own country. Indeed, the fanatics that Mitt Romney depends on have jettisoned everything that distinguishes the West: science and logic, reason and moderation, even simple decency. They hate homosexuals, the weak and the state. They oppress women and persecute immigrants. Their moralizing about abortion doesn't even spare the victims of rape. They are the Taliban of the West.
 <しかし、これらは米国の失敗の症候であって原因ではない。右も左も、状況を左右する力などないのだ。↓>
 Still, they are only the symptom of America's failure, not the cause. In reality, neither the idealists and Democrats, nor the useful idiots of the Tea Party have any power over the circumstances.
 <ま、欧州からすれば、どっちが大統領になろうとかまわない。欧州としては、米国の外交政策がどうなるかだけが重要なわけだが、この点では両者は(最初から)ほとんど同じだからだ。↓>
 From a European perspective, it doesn't matter who wins this election. Only US foreign policy is important to us -- and Obama is no dove and Romney no hawk. The incumbent president prefers to wage his wars with drones instead of troops, though the victims probably don't care if they're killed by man or machine. Meanwhile, despite all the criticism, his challenger says he wouldn't join Israel were the country to go to war with Iran because the US can now no longer afford such a thing. ・・・
 <米帝国の没落は始まっており、もはやそれを食い止めることはできないかもしれないが、米国人達はそれを試みようともしていない。↓>
 The downfall of the American empire has begun. It could be that the country's citizens wouldn't be able to stop it no matter how hard they tried. But they aren't even trying.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/commenta...
 <どうやら、我々としては、この問題にどう対処するかを考えつつ、ポスト米国時代への備えを行うしかなさそうだ。↓>
 ・・・Perhaps it is already merely a question of controlling the problem and making preparations for the post-American age.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/divided-... 前掲



#5829(2012.11.7)

 ロシアで国防相が解任されたが、旧ソ連のゴルバチェフ時代から通算しても、汚職で閣僚級が解任されたというのは初めてのことらしい。↓
 A burgeoning $100 million corruption scandal claimed Russia’s defense minister Tuesday, as President Vladimir Putin sent Anatoly Serdyukov packing. It appeared to be the first time a top government official here has been fired for graft since the era of Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev in the 1980s.・・・
 <(誰もが汚職していることから、)この解任の本当の理由は別にあるとさ。↓>
 One thing analysts agreed on was that corruption was the pretext and not the underlying reason for the firing.・・・
 <軍の縮小再編が軍内で大不評をかっていたこと、プーチンの信頼のもっとも厚いガスプロムの長の娘たる、(前)国防相の奥さんとの関係が冷え切っていることが本当の理由だろうって。↓>
 Serdyukov, 50 and the onetime head of Russia’s tax service, has been carrying out a thorough reshaping of Russia’s defense forces since his appointment in 2007. He was extremely unpopular among senior officers for his cuts and his open disdain for them. Perhaps more damaging, he also is estranged from his wife, who is the daughter of Viktor Zubkov, the chairman of energy company Gazprom and one of Putin’s most trusted senior colleagues.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russian...



#5833(2012.11.9)

 リンカーンが発出した1862年9月の奴隷解放宣言とは一体なんだったのかが、改めて説明されている。↓
 <この宣言は、憲法問題を回避するために、行政府の長としてではなく、軍司令官としての大統領の権限でもって行われた。
 つまり、南部から奴隷労働力を奪うとともに、逃亡してきた黒人を北部が労働力として使うために必要、とリンカーンは説いた。↓>
 ・・・Lincoln・・・would have to develop a constitutional rationale for emancipation・・・
 That rationale would turn out to be the doctrine of military necessity, which would allow Lincoln to act against slavery not as president but as commander-in-chief. If slaves were being used to support the Confederate war effort, freeing them would bolster Union war operations by depriving the rebels of a significant resource. Lincoln stressed the double benefit of emancipation--denying the Confederacy of the slaves’ labor and gaining it for the Union.・・・
 <だから、この宣言は、北部内の奴隷州の奴隷にも、南部内で北軍の占領下にある地域の奴隷にも適用されなかった。↓>
 Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862. The decree announced that on Jan. 1, 1863, three months away, he would free the slaves in Confederate areas still in rebellion. The loyal slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky would not be affected, nor would designated rebel areas under Union control.・・・
 <とはいえ、当時米国に400万人いた奴隷中、320万人に適用された勘定になる。↓>
 Of the 4 million slaves in the United States, the proclamation applied to roughly 3.2 million people. ・・・
 <なお、リンカーンは反奴隷制だったが、黒人に平等な市民権を与えるつもりはなく、宣言発出の時点では、解放された奴隷は、アフリカか中南米に移住させるつもりだった。↓>
 ・・・because of his own ambivalent attitudes toward African-Americans. Being anti-slavery was one matter; embracing equal citizenship rights quite another. Up until the promulgation of the final Proclamation, he supported the voluntary colonization of blacks outside of the United States to Africa and Central and South America. ・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/history/2012/11...

 世界最大のユダヤ史博物館がモスクワにオープンした。↓
 The world's largest museum of Jewish history opened in Moscow Thursday, marking an extraordinary turnaround for a community that once seemed to have almost vanished from Russia -- a country that was notorious for its official anti-Semitism until barely two decades ago.・・・
 <(ここでは引用しなかったが、ロシア時代にも度重なるポグロムがあり、更に、ナチスが占領したソ連の地域のユダヤ人を大虐殺したが、)戦後にはソ連から100万人にのぼるユダヤ人がイスラエル等に向けていびり出されたという歴史がある(一方で、やはり引用しなかったが、ユダヤ人はロシアに多大な貢献もした歴史がある。↓>
 In the last three decades of the 20th century, more than 1 million Russian Jews voted with their feet by emigrating, leaving behind little of what was once the world's biggest Jewish community.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/World/20...

 米国内のユダヤ人の約70%がオバマに投票したが、イスラエルのユダヤ人の間では、オバマの支持率はロムニーの2分の1なのはどうしてかが説明されている。↓
 ・・・ Some 70 percent voted for President Obama -- a proportion that was nearly the mirror image of public opinion polls indicating that Israelis backed Mitt Romney by a 2 to 1 margin.・・・
 <米国内のユダヤ人は(ここでは引用しなかったが、親イスラエル政策が超党派で支持されていることもあり、)もっぱら、内政上の観点・・ユダヤ人の大部分は民主党の内政政策支持・・から投票先を決めるのに対し、オバマがロムニーよりもパレスティナに宥和的である点をイスラエルのユダヤ人の大部分は嫌っているからだと。↓>
 American Jews vote primarily on economic and social issues, while considerations about Israel and foreign policy are secondary. By contrast, Israelis focus on a more narrow view of candidates' approach to the Middle East and don’t focus on domestic policy, which they think has no impact on them. ・・・
 <クリントン大統領時代には、イスラエルのユダヤ人は、彼の対パレスティナ宥和政策を、従って同大統領を、支持していたが、宥和的政策がうまくいかないことを身に染みて知ったことから、その後、考えを変えたんだって。↓>
 Back in the 1990s, <t>he most popular US figure was President Bill Clinton, who moderated peace negotiations that would have required significant territorial concessions. The floundering of the peace process and the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising have made Israelis more cautious about diplomatic compromise.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2012/11...



#5857(2012.11.21)

 英国教会、女性も主教(イギリス(狭義)とウェールズに40人いる)になれるとする制度改革を否決。
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/20/church...  「男女の峻別・女性蔑視は…キリスト教原理主義的社会の特徴」(コラム#5855)の通り。
 改革への動きがあるだけでもカトリック教会よりはずっとマシ。

 本件についてのガーディアンのコラム。ボクも同感。↓
 <原罪を犯したイヴの承継者が女性だと言われながらキリスト教徒たる女性がこれまで生き、死んできたのは恥ずかしいこと。↓>
 ・・・It is a matter of shame that millions of women have lived and died as practising Christians while being told from the pulpit that they, as the inheritors of Eve, were responsible for all the sin in the world.・・・
 <この結果は、キリスト教会なき社会の方がマシだという<少なくともイギリスで抱かれている>共通認識を一層強化するだろう。↓>
 ・・・this vote has been a disaster for the Church of England, one we will undoubtedly recover from, but one that further perpetuates the commonly held view that our society is better off without the contribution of the Christian church. ・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/2...



#5867(2012.11.26)

 英国じゃ、欧州大陸でマルクス主義革命が起こり、新しいソ連が生まれつつあるって感じで見ているむきが多く、英国のEUからの脱退を求める声が高まっているようだよ。↓
 Looking at Europe from this side of the English Channel, Peter Reeve doesn't see a "cuddly" continent of biscotti, Burgundy and BMWs. He sees the evil specter of Soviet Russia.
 Only this time, it's Brussels, not Moscow, at the center of an expanding, metastasizing super-government bent on turning independent nations like France and Germany into vassal states. Instead of the Soviet Union, it's the European Union that scares him.
 Reeve, a local councilor with the UK Independence Party, wants Britain to pull out of the EU while it still can, before it's trapped in such a thick web of European regulation and control that escape becomes impossible and the country winds up as an offshore outpost of a totalitarian EU regime.
 "I genuinely believe this is a Marxist revolution happening," said Reeve. "This country is part of it, but balking on it" -- an impulse he heartily encourages.
 Reeve's dystopian view lies on the more extreme end of "Euroskepticism" here in Britain. But dissatisfaction and downright hostility toward the European Union is undeniably on the rise, making British withdrawal from the 27-nation club a more real prospect than it has been for years and creating a massive headache for the Conservative-led government.・・・
 <このような見方の中心的存在の英独立党(UK Independence Party)が自由民主党に代わって英国の保守、労働に続く第三党になる勢い。↓>
 The・・・UK Independence・・・party has yet to win a seat in Britain's own Parliament. Yet its colorful leader, Nigel Farage, has high hopes that UKIP will eclipse the tanking Liberal Democrats to become Britain's third-strongest political force, behind the Conservatives and Labor.・・・
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-f...



#5873(2012.11.29)

 ハンガリー議会で17%を占める政党の議員が「ユダヤ人は安全保障上の危険なので登録させろ」と語った。
 これが欧州ってこと。↓
 People of Jewish heritage are a "security risk" and should be registered on a nationwide list, according to right-wing extremist Hungarian politician Marton Gyongyosi. His comments, made in the country's parliament, have sparked widespread outrage. But the government was slow to distance itself.・・・
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/far-rig...



#5881(2012.12.3)

 米黒人奴隷解放のために叛乱を起こして刑死したジョン・ブラウンについての新著の書評が出てた。↓
 ・・・Julia Ward Howe's "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"
< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwkCtuIauIE ↑
 これ有名な歌だが米国のキリスト教原理主義性をひしひしと感じるねえ。
 なお、この書評が言うところの、この歌の元歌のブラウンに言及した部分は出てこない。↓>
was inspired by a tune sung by Union troops as they tramped southward that contains the memorable words: "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, / But his soul is marching on."・・・
 <ソローもストウ夫人も、無抵抗奴隷解放じゃダメで武力的奴隷解放しかない、と思うに至ったのは、ブラウンの影響だと。↓>
 Thoreau, who had formerly espoused nonresistance but who came to realize that only violence could uproot an institution so deeply entrenched as slavery. ・・・
 ・・・the novelist Harriet Beecher Stowe, who had formerly gained fame for her portrayal of the nonresistant slave Uncle Tom, signaled a turnaround when she praised Brown for attacking slavery "with fire and sword."・・・
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100008723963904437...



#5893(2012.12.9)

 ユダヤ人にキリスト教に改宗するか亡命するか迫った520年前の政策のために亡命したユダヤ人の子孫に対し、先月、スペインが、(今なおユダヤ人=ユダヤ教徒であれば、)、望めば無条件でスペイン国籍を付与することにしたんだって。↓
 ・・・last month・・・<f>ive hundred and twenty years after the start of the Inquisition, Spainopened the door to descendants of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors had fled the Iberian Peninsula, forced, in order to live in Spain or its colonies, to choose between exile or conversion to Christianity. Or worse.・・・
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/sunday-review/a-...



#5899(2012.12.12)

 米国人の米国を特別視する意識の現状が分かるコラムだ。
 (執筆者は支那系米国人であり、結論のところは、やはり過剰適応チックだが・・。)↓
 <文化的優位意識を持つ人は5割を切ったし、大きな政府を支持する若者がどんどん増えている。↓>
 ・・・first, fewer Americans believe that our culture is superior to others (49% now, compared with 60% a decade ago); second, a rising share of young Americans support activist government. ・・・
 <しかし、米国が欧州化したと言える域には達していない。
 成功は努力の結果と考える者がまだ多いし、若者の間では年寄より福祉の増大を支持する者が多いが欧州の人々ほど多くはない。また、欧州の人々よりずっと宗教的だし、ずっと軍事介入を支持する者が多いし、多国間主義とりわけ国連への信認が低い。↓>
 Americans are far less likely than Europeans to believe that success is the result of circumstances beyond our control. And though young Americans believe more than their elders that government should help the needy, Americans overall believe that much less than Europeans do. We are still far more religious than Europeans, and far more likely to support military intervention and doubt the value of multilateralism and the U.N.
 <やっぱ、依然として裸の個人主義信奉者が多いってこと。↓>
 In other words, the U.S. in its attitudes generally remains an outlier nation, ruggedly committed to rugged individualism (even when it costs us). ・・・
 <以上を総括すれば、米国が成熟してきたということであり、決して悪いことではない。↓>
  The U.S. is always going to be the land of liberty. But as we mature, we can cherish liberty and responsibility, the individual and community. And we can wear our unparalleled appeal with confidence, not cockiness. That’s an exceptionalism to aspire to.
http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/11/are-americans-bec...

 英国(と言っても、イギリス(狭義)+ウェールズ)の2011年の国勢調査の結果が出て、10年前のと比較されてる。↓
 <白人人口は5%減り、英国生まれの白人は8割に落ち込んだ。↓>
 ・・・In 2001, white people accounted for 91% of the total population. In the latest census, that figure is down five points to 86%. Those who define themselves, in the ugly parlance of the census, as "white British" now account for just 81% of the people.・・・
 <自分をキリスト教徒だと思う人は72%から59%に減少。↓>
 Ten years ago 72% identified as Christians; now it's just 59%. ・・・
 <無宗教者がキリスト教徒に次ぐ存在になった。欧米で最も無神論的無教会的な国と言ってよい。↓>
 Non-believers now form the second-biggest denomination, dwarfing the number of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews and Buddhists combined. It confirms our place as perhaps the most godless country, the least "churched", in the industrialised world, setting us apart from the US, obviously, but also from much of continental Europe.・・・
 more than a third of Londoners are born overseas.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/1...

 ナポレオンのロシア遠征失敗の最大の原因は、シラミが媒介するチフスの兵士内での流行だってさ。冬将軍説もパルチザン説も形無しだな。↓
 ・・・Typhus had been present in Poland and Russia for many years, but it had gotten worse since the Russian army had devastated Poland while retreating from Napoleon’s forces. A lack of sanitation combined with the unusually hot summer made an ideal environment for the spread of lice. Typhus is caused by the organism Rickettsia prowazekii. It would be an entire century after the 1812 campaign before scientists realized that typhus is found in the feces of lice.・・・
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/p...



#5915(2012.12.20)

 米国のウォレン・バーガー最高裁長官は、引退する際、全米ライフル協会/銃器ロビーの憲法修正第2条による銃器保有権の主張を特殊利益集団による詐欺だと切り捨てた。↓
・・・Former Chief Justice Warren Burger, in retirement, called the gun rights movement and its reliance on the Second Amendment “one of the greatest pieces of fraud... on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/Books/Bo...

 1哲学教授による、全米ライフル協会/銃器ロビーの論理が破綻していることを紛れの余地なく「証明」するコラムだ。↓
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/wh...

 米南北戦争中に綿花密輸取り締まりのために、グラント将軍(後に米大統領)が占領していた地域から全ユダヤ人追放令を発し、それがリンカーン大統領によって覆された挿話が詳細に紹介されている。
 グラントの人種主義的偏見が、リンカーンの聖書的偏見・・イスラエルの民が神に約束された地たる米国にやってきたのを追放するなどとんでもない・・によって覆された、というだけのことってのが分かるぞ。↓
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/19/ge...



#5919(2012.12.22)

 狂ってるとしか言いようがないね。↓
 米小学校乱射:全米ライフル協会「学校に武装警官配備を」・・・
http://mainichi.jp/select/news/20121222k0000e03015...

 米国在住の日本人(?)が書いた、完璧にNRAの論理にのっかったブログ(12月21日付)を発見! オモロイから読んでみ。↓
http://scarecrowstrawberryfield.com/

 本件についてのガーディアンのコラムだ。↓
 <米国だけがいかに世界から乖離しているかが分かる。↓>
 ・・・We watch their movies, we eat their fast food. Their culture has become global culture. So it always comes as a shock to realise how different Americans are from everyone else.・・・
 <米国人達は、銃器保持権をも謳っているところの、米憲法を神聖視している。↓>
 When outsiders hear that the right to bear arms is enshrined in the second amendment of the US constitution, I suspect many imagine this is like saying it's "protected by law", something that can easily be changed, as it would be in their own countries. But this is to underestimate what the constitution means to Americans.
 <憲法をつくった、建国の父達も神サマ扱いされている。↓>
 It is indeed a sacred text. Despite, or perhaps because, the US is a country animated by faith, the "founding fathers" are treated as deities, their every word analysed as if it contained gospel truth. ・・・
 <時代遅れの憲法条項は修正すりゃいいだけの話だし、そもそも、銃器保持権に係るつい最近変更された最高裁判例を再度修正して、この権利が個人の銃器保持権を定めたものではないとするかつての判例に戻せばいいだけのことだ。↓>
 Change is possible even within the constitution. It's worth remembering that it was only by a 5-4 margin that the nine judges of the supreme court ruled in 2008 that the second amendment applied to individuals at all; until then, the court held for decades that the constitution protected only the right of a "well-regulated militia" to bear arms.・・・
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/2...



#5921(2012.12.23)

 米国で銃規制強化に賛成の人がようやく半数を超して52%になったとさ。
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/21/us/connecticut-s...
 オバマが大統領選に初勝利した時から、銃規制強化するんじゃないかと心配した連中が、それまでに買わなくっちゃっと銃がバカ売れしてて、今回の事件で更に売れてるってんだからねえ。



#5923(2012.12.24)

<苺畑カカシ>(同上)

 全米ライフル協会の姿勢について具体的にどこがおかしいのかを指摘しないで、ただ狂ってるとしか言いようがないっていう批判はおかしい。
 どこが狂ってるのかきちんと説明すべきだ。

<太田>

 米国では、先進諸国の中で、唯一、銃保持権が(憲法によって)認められている(、だから、どんな場合になら例外的に保持を禁止できるのか、といった矮小な議論しか許されない、)ことをもって、ボクは狂ってるって言ったつもりだけど、こんなに長ったらしく説明しなくったって、米国人の約半数を除いた世界中の人々(マイナス約1名?)には、私の言わんとしたことはちゃんと通じてるんじゃないかな。
 ここで、米国の銃事情に係る本日のCSMとタイム誌の記事を紹介しておこう。

 自動/半自動銃のうち一定のもの・・今回の事件の犯人が使用したライフルはそれにあたると考えられている・・は、米国で、1994年から2004年まで保持を禁止されていた。↓
 ・・・Assault weapon is a broad term commonly used to refer to semi-automatic or automatic weapons that can fire multiple bullets rapidly. From 1994 to 2004 certain assault weapons and ammunition clips of more than 10 bullets were illegal.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/USA/Late...

 NRAは、暴力的なビデオゲーム類が今回のような事件の背景にあると主張しているが、それを裏付ける証拠はない。↓
 ・・・violent video games may increase bullying or physical fighting in schools, but not mass gun violence.・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/USA/Soci...

 NRAは全米の学校に武装警備員を置け(、或いは教師に銃を持たせろ、)と主張しているが、銃のある家庭の人々は、そうでない人々に比べて殺害される可能性が高いところ、同じことが学校についても言えそうだ。
 銃が身近にあれば、自ずからそれを使う機会も増えるからだ。↓
 ・・・people with guns in the home are at greater risk than those without guns in the home of dying from a homicide there. There is no reason to think schools would be any different: the more guns there are, the more opportunities there are to use them.・・・
http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/21/viewpoint-arming-...



#5925(2012.12.25)

 この記者、(昨日のボクを含む)世界中の大部分の人々と同じ感想を記してるね。↓
 ・・・銃規制強化に賛成するリベラルな友人ですら「銃所持を違法とすべし」とは誰一人言わなかった。・・・
http://mainichi.jp/opinion/news/20121225k0000m0700...

 銃産業が訴訟に訴えられることから法的に守られていることも知っておいた方がいい。↓
 ・・・The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) shields the gun industry even when it makes guns that are unnecessarily dangerous and sells them recklessly.・・・
http://ideas.time.com/2012/12/24/why-is-congress-p...



#5927(2012.12.26)

 米国における銃文化の歴史が語られている。↓
 <1675〜76年のインディアンと入植者との死闘からそれは始まった。爾来、銃を自宅で保持することが入植者の義務とされた。↓>
 ・・・ what historian Richard Hofstadter called “America as a Gun Culture.” ・・・started with New England Indians trying to drive out settlers in King Philip’s War, 1675-76. Some 5 percent to 10 percent of settler men of fighting age were killed. Laws soon required settlers to keep firearms in their homes. ・・・
 <つまり、米国人のご先祖様っちゅうのは、存在そのものが帝国主義的かつ人種主義的であり、それを担保するものが銃だったというこった。だから、銃を黒人奴隷が持つことなんて当然ご法度だった。↓>
 In 1941, a Florida Supreme Court justice wrote an opinion that a gun-control law had been “passed for the purpose of disarming the Negro laborers and… was never intended to be applied to the white population.”・・・
 <米独立戦争の際、英本国兵は、植民地人が銃を保持するのを禁じた。↓>
 British redcoats try<ed> to seize American guns at Concord, Mass.・・・
 <こうして、カウボーイが、刀ならぬ拳銃をぶら下げる風景が日常化した。↓>
 In the 19th century, Samuel Colt brought the gleaming modernity of mass production to gunmaking. The slogan had it that God created man and Samuel Colt made them equal. Cowboys carried Colts the way noblemen carried swords, as blazons of their status. Dime-novel writers invented the quick-draw duels that almost never happened.・・・
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americans-l...



#5935(2012.12.30)

 銃規制を巡る米国の最新状況だ。↓
 <銃規制の強化に賛成する者は、過半数を超えている。↓>
 ・・・A new USA Today/Gallup poll taken shortly after the Sandy Hook massacre shows 58 percent of respondents saying they now favor stricter gun laws, up from 43 percent in October 2011.
 Similarly, a new HuffPost/YouGov poll (also taken right after Sandy Hook) finds 55 percent agreeing that that gun control laws should be made more strict, 13 percent said they should be made less strict, and 27 percent said there should be no change.・・・
 <しかし、半自動小銃の禁止に反対する者も過半数を超えている。そして、銃保持の禁止には、3分の2近くが反対しているが、これは史上最も高い数字だ。↓>
 At the same time, however, most respondents (51-44 percent) say they’re against any law making it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess "semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles.” And a very large majority (74-24 percent) opposes greater restrictions on the possession of handguns.・・・
 a record-high 74 percent oppose preventing anyone but the police or other authorized officials from owning a handgun.”・・・
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/1229/Pol...
 <そして、何と、過半数を超える者が、全米ライフル協会に良い印象を抱いている!↓>
 ・・・Even after a harshly panned press conference about the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, 54 percent of Americans still say they have a favorable view of the National Rifle Association.・・・
http://www.slate.com/blogs/trending/2012/12/28/nra...


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