29/06 VOX POPULI: Human activities hasten global extinction of species

Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a daily column that runs on Page 1 of the vernacular Asahi Shimbun.
2011/06/29

Adjectives to describe reptiles include slippery, creepy and cold. Be it snakes or lizards, reptiles are shiny and appear cold. But surprisingly, dinosaurs that once ruled the planet had body temperatures comparable to humans, according to an article that appeared in a Tokyo edition of The Asahi Shimbun.

A team of American and German researchers published findings that Brachiosaurus and Camarasaurus, both herbivores, had body temperatures of 36 to 38 degrees. However, since it had been estimated that their temperature was around 40 degrees, the adjustment was downward. In recent years, researchers have pushed the theory that dinosaurs are the origin of birds, but as an amateur, I find the combination of dinosaurs and human body temperature interesting.

Brachiosaurus is estimated to have measured 23 meters long and weighed 40 tons. To maintain its huge body, large quantities of food were needed. According to researchers, it is possible that the gigantic animal minimized energy consumption by curbing its body temperature to that of humans. But such "efforts" are believed to have come to naught when an asteroid struck Earth 65 million years ago.

The impact generated a huge dust cloud, blocking sunlight and causing many species to go extinct from the cold and a shortage of food. Since it is said that the larger the animals, the weaker they were, the event was fatal to dinosaurs.

Nowadays, about 100 species are said to become extinct every day. Humans are likened to "modern asteroids" that bring harm. Yet, the word "biodiversity" that we frequently saw and heard last year is hardly heard these days. Come to think of it, it has never appeared in this column, either, this year.

While reflecting on my negligence, I worry about our planet where creatures prosper. Warning bells that Earth has entered a period of mass extinction of species caused by human activities are growing louder. The death of the environment leads to the death of civilization. We must not forget our own crisis that is slowly closing in.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 28


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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

28/06 EDITORIAL: Rebuilding plan needs more work to avoid vested-interest trap

2011/06/28

The Reconstruction Design Council has submitted a proposal to Prime Minister Naoto Kan that talks about "keeping our hearts as one with the people in the areas affected by the quake and tsunami, and to light the flame of hope in those areas through national solidarity and mutual support."

The proposal puts forth such lofty principles as "the basis of reconstruction efforts should place local communities at its center," and that we should "pursue the possibilities of an economic society that would lead the way into a possible future." The proposal also includes various prescriptions for reconstruction.

Specifically, the council proposes options for rebuilding communities that reduce the risk of disasters and plans for reviving industries in the affected areas. The options are designed to fit the actual situation in each area. The plan also proposes setting "special reconstruction zones" to make best use of local communities' abilities. The idea to create locations for developing renewable energy that nurture industries of the 21st century in Fukushima Prefecture is also very good.

Some directions in this proposal overlap with areas that we have been seeking.

However, more than a few points seem to require deeper thought.

Take the matter of land, for example. The complex web of ownership rights needs to be sorted out soon, as it is obstructing reconstruction. The proposal sidesteps this thorny problem by saying "necessary measures must be considered," and that government procurement of land is "problematic."

The proposal includes using special zoning, but would it not have been better to offer a more specific solution for a breakthrough?

Also, we cannot see how the affected local governments will be able to actually apply these proposals. A road map that lays out which project should take priority, and what kind of preparation is necessary, is essential.

If not, local governments have no choice but to let central government ministries decide for them when to start a particular project or how to design a particular system. And if that happens, the principle of putting the local communities first is just an empty promise.

On the other hand, the proposal includes a plan to re-energize and revitalize the fishing industry by drawing in private sector funds.

This resulted from strong lobbying by Yoshihiro Murai, the governor of Miyagi Prefecture. Even so, some local fishermen question the plan or are against it.

In reality, many issues must be overcome. The Reconstruction Design Council is expected to have a say in the usual ministry-led process of coordinating the many conflicting interests of interested parties and point to a new path.

The council chairman, Makoto Iokibe, decided against delaying a final recommendation to the end of the year, as originally planned, and instead moved up the schedule to include proposals at this juncture. This might have been due to a sense of urgency created by Prime Minister Naoto Kan's offer to resign, for it was Kan who initiated the creation of the council.

It is true the Kan administration has wavered in the process of selecting the minister for reconstruction. The future role of the Reconstruction Design Council is also unclear.

Although the proposal takes into account the difficult conditions in the disaster-hit areas and opened up some hope, it needs to be deepened. We intend to keep a sharp eye on the proceedings, lest reconstruction efforts end up falling into the trap of coordinating various vested interests.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 26

28/06 天声人語 - いま１日に１００種の生物が絶滅しているという

2011年6月28日（火）付

爬虫類（はちゅうるい）のイメージを擬態語で表せば、ヌルリ、ゾクリ、ヒヤリ、だろうか。蛇にせよ蜥蜴（とかげ）にせよ、てらてら光って冷たそうだ。だが意外と言うべきか、かつて栄えた恐竜は「人肌」の体温があったと、東京で読んだ紙面が伝えていた▼米独の研究チームが、草食恐竜ブラキオサウルスとカマラサウルスの体温は３６～３８度だったと発表した。もっとも、これまでは４０度前後と推定されていたから、下方修正らしい。近年は鳥類の起源ともされる恐竜だが、素人には人肌との取り合わせが面白い▼ブラキオは推定で体長２３メートル、体重が４０トンあった。巨体の維持には大量の食物がいる。体温を人肌なみに抑えることでエネルギー消費を少なくしていた可能性もあるという。しかし、そんな「努力」も小惑星の衝突で無に帰したとされる▼約６５００万年前に小惑星が地球にぶつかった。飛散した粉じんが太陽光を遮り、寒さと食料の欠乏で多くの生き物が絶滅した。巨体ほどもろかったというから、恐竜には受難だった▼時は巡り、いま１日に１００種の生物が絶滅しているという。災いをもたらす「現代の小惑星」に人類は例えられる。なのに、去年は随分見聞きした「生物多様性」の一語は遠のいた印象だ。気がつけば小欄も、今年は一度も書いていない▼反省しつつ、生き物のにぎわう星を案じる。人為による生物の大量絶滅期に入ったとの警鐘は声高だ。環境の死は文明の死を招く。ジワリと迫る私たち自身の危機を、忘れてはいけない。

28/06 よみうり寸評 - 〈灯火 ともしび のまさに消えんと欲する時、光を増すに異ならず〉

６月２８日付

　〈灯火ともしびのまさに消えんと欲する時、光を増すに異ならず〉――自ら退陣を表明しながら、なりふり構わぬ人事を断行した菅首相に、こんな言葉を思い浮かべる◆灯火が消える寸前に明るさを増すのは最後に一時、力を盛り返す様子に例えられるからだ。が、首相のハッスルは盛り返すというより迷走にしか見えない◆首相は第２次補正、特例公債、再生可能エネルギーの３案件成立を退陣のメドとしたが、野党ばかりか民主党執行部からも「こんなことでは……」と激しい批判が噴出する始末。これでは国会運営の先行きはおぼつかない◆とりわけ自民党参院議員を政務官ポストで一本釣りした手法には猛反発があり、「責任は持てない」と安住民主党国対委員長◆「積み上げてきたものが、すべてパーになりかねない」と仙谷代表代行。首相と周辺の亀裂は深刻だが、国会が動かなければ、３案件成立をメドとする首相退陣は先に延びるという妙な関係◆政府・与党の人物相関図に〈信〉の関係が見えないのはまことに不幸だ。

（2011年6月28日13時40分  読売新聞）

28/06 編集手帳 - 名誉欲、色欲、金銭欲…煩悩にもいろいろある

６月２８日付

　名誉欲、色欲、金銭欲…煩悩にもいろいろある。逸材を常に欲して“人材煩悩”と評されたのは、東京市長を務めて関東大震災の復興に尽くした後藤新平である。「午後３時の人間は使わない。お昼前の人間を使うのだ」と、語録にある◆感覚的な表現ながら、意味するところは察しがつく。退勤時刻を気にして尻の落ち着かない人に大事な仕事を任せるのは不安なことだろう。退陣をすでに表明している菅首相の場合には、日没も遠くない夕暮れである◆復興相を新設して震災復興の体制を整えたが、たそがれの人に率いられて、どれだけ機能するだろう◆復興予算に限らず、社会保障であれ、何であれ、腰を据えた財源論議は期待しにくい。辞める首相に、まともに外交の相手をしてくれる国はないだろう。引きずり降ろされる形で辞めたくない、というメンツ第一の“延命煩悩”は代償が大きすぎる◆暮れ方の薄暗い時刻を、昔の人は「おおまがとき」（逢魔時、大禍時）と呼んで警戒した。午後６時過ぎの首相が招いた国政の空白期に、これ以上の災難や凶事が持ち上がらないことを切に祈るばかりである。

（2011年6月28日01時53分  読売新聞）

28/06 Bà mẹ bốn con Madonna vẫn cặp kè "phi công trẻ"

28/06/2011 | 08:48:00

Từ khóa : Madonna, Brahim Zaibat, Hẹn hò, Tôn giáo

Madonna và Zaibat trên đường phố Paris. (Nguồn: Internet)

Hôm 26/6, các tay săn ảnh đã chộp được những bức hình "nữ hoàng" nhạc pop Madonna tay trong tay cùng người tình trẻ Brahim Zaibat xuất hiện tại Paris.

Sau khi những bức hình đó được tung ra báo chí lại rộ lên tin đồn Madonna và Zaibat vẫn chưa "đường ai nấy đi."

Madonna và "phi công trẻ" Zaibat luôn dành cho nhau những cử chỉ thân mật khi đi dạo trên phố. Họ nổi bật giữa dòng người tấp nập bởi vậy không khó để nhận ra.

Bà mẹ bốn con trông thật hạnh phúc bên người tình kém cô gần 30 tuổi.

Cách đây không lâu người ta đã nghĩ Madonna và người tình 24 tuổi sẽ chấm dứt mối quan hệ mặn nồng kéo dài 9 tháng bất chấp sự chênh lệch của tuổi tác bởi họ không cùng tôn giáo.

Thế nhưng có vẻ như nữ ca sỹ 52 tuổi và chàng vũ công người Pháp vẫn mặn nồng như thuở mới quen.

Trước Zaibat, Madonna cũng đã từng có quãng thời gian hẹn hò với người tình trẻ kém cô nhiều tuổi có tên Jesuz Luz./.

Lan Phương (Vietnam+)

28/06 Gaga bị kiện vì "xù" lời hứa từ thiện với Nhật Bản

28/06/2011 | 20:26:00

Từ khóa : Nhật Bản, Lady Gaga, Từ thiện, Du lịch, Born This Way

Mẫu vòng tay "We Pray For Japan." (Nguồn: Internet)

Mới đây, dị nữ Lady Gaga đã bị hãng luật 1800LAWFIRM kiện sau khi số tiền thu được từ chương trình bán vòng đeo tay từ thiện để ủng hộ Nhật Bản đã không được gửi toàn bộ tới các nạn nhân như lời hứa ban đầu.

Không những thế, 1800LAWFIRM còn cáo buộc dị nữ cùng các công ty có liên quan tới quy trình bán và marketing chiếc vòng "We Pray for Japan" trị giá 5 USD là đã đưa vào phí vận chuyển không hợp lý, cũng như công bố số tiền ủng hộ vượt trội so với sự thật.

Đại diện của 1800LAWFIRM nói rằng dù Lady Gaga đã rất nỗ lực trong các hoạt động từ thiện dành cho người dân Nhật Bản, song điều đó không có nghĩa là việc "ăn bớt" tiền ủng hộ có thể được bỏ qua.

Trước đó, Lady Gaga vừa được Cơ quan Du lịch Nhật Bản trao tặng giấy chứng nhận nhằm bày tỏ lòng biết ơn của họ đối với những đóng góp của cô trong việc quảng bá nền du lịch cho nước này.

Hiện nữ ca sỹ "Born This Way" chưa đưa ra bất kỳ bình luận nào liên quan tới thông tin "vạch xấu" nói trên./.

Văn Hưng (Vietnam+)

28/06 Andrew Cuomo beats the odds — spectacularly

Richard Cohen

Opinion Writer

By Richard Cohen, Published: June 28

Years ago, I played some pool with Andrew Cuomo. As we circled the table, Cuomo, who was then Bill Clinton’s housing secretary, told me how he was going to become the next governor of New York. He would challenge Carl McCall, who might have become the state’s first black governor. This was going to be easy, Cuomo said, emitting political pheromones that New York was his for the taking. Now, a humiliating defeat and much personal pain later, it finally is.

Rarely has a politician come off the canvas to triumph in such a cinematic fashion. Not only did Cuomo become governor, but since doing so, he’s dominated the cantankerous Legislature, brought in a budget on time and — history take note — passed a law to legalize same-sex marriage. He did this with the state Senate controlled by Republicans, the bill having been defeated just two years before, and the Roman Catholic Church strongly opposed. Baseball analogies are in order. This was a triple play, a no-hitter and a grand slam. Andrew Mark Cuomo has become a masterful politician.

Cuomo was born a prince of the Democratic Party. He is the son of Mario Cuomo, a three-term governor of New York and the personification of old-style liberalism. He married Kerry Kennedy, a daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and an indefatigable human rights advocate. He spent a lifetime on the political launching pad, fueled by lineage and connections to go clear to the White House. Then fate, goaded by arrogance, intervened.

The challenge to McCall, in 2002, was ineptly mounted. Cuomo didn’t just lose, he got crushed. And the Republican, George Pataki, took the statehouse. The tumble was hard and seemingly unending. Cuomo’sbeautiful marriage went tabloid ugly. The liberalism that the name Cuomo represented turned stale, on the shelf way past its pull date. Cuomo was a lesson right out of the Bible: “Pride goeth before destruction.”

Oddly, that Cuomo seems to have vanished. The new one is no showboat, and if he thinks more of himself than he does of others, he does not show it. To review how Cuomo got the Legislature to approve same-sex marriage — it was, really, his bill — is to see a shrewd politician apply his craft. He went across the aisle, not just to Republicans in the Legislature, but to Republican fundraisers across the state. He got some of these people to assure wavering legislators that if they voted for the bill, they would have the campaign funds to protect themselves. In some cases, it worked.

Cuomo got the fractious gay-lesbian-bisexual-transsexual community to unite. He got them to curtail some counterproductive lobbying efforts. The negotiations on this bill went down to the last minute. Cuomo never blinked. This was his bill, a campaign promise fulfilled just because he thought it was right.

I am the brother of a woman in a longtime same-sex relationship. I am the friend of gays and lesbians, some of whom I have known since they were infants. This is a cause whose justness has long been apparent to me. The opponents have no case other than ignorance and misconception and prejudice. Every time I hear the phrase “the sanctity of marriage,” I think of Elizabeth Taylor or Larry King. If they could marry for the umpteenth time, couldn’t a same-sex couple marry once? “The Normal Heart,” the title of Larry Kramer’s play, beats in us all.

It has been forever since a single politician did so much to advance what is, after all, a civil rights cause. Certainly, Barack Obama has never done so. Aside from his own presidency — no small matter, I grant you — he has been Mr. On-The-Other-Hand, a man so contained he is his own political sump hole, into which hot issues just disappear. On same-sex marriage, he is nowhere — for civil unions, he says. He will not commit. In Obama, the fires of social justice throw no heat.

Obama occupies the White House and will almost certainly do so for another term. So it is far too early to talk about Cuomo running for president — although, as you might have noticed, I just did. Still, the mention is deserved. Cuomo handled the Legislature, corralled the unions and brought in a same-sex marriage bill that always seemed on the verge of failing. He refutes F. Scott Fitzgerald’s line about how there are no second acts in American lives. He may never be president, but he’ll be best man at plenty of same-sex weddings.

cohenr@washpost.com

28/06 At shareholders meeting, Tepco rejects motion to abandon nuclear power

(TORU YAMANAKA/ AFP/GETTY IMAGES ) - Clad in white radiation protection gear, activists of Greenpeace hold a banner denouncing Tokyo Electric Power Corporation (TEPCO) before its shareholders meeting in Tokyo on June 28, 2011.

By Chico Harlan, Published: June 28

TOKYO —At the downtown hotel where Tokyo Electric Power Co. executives met Tuesday with thousands of shareholders, about 250 riot police officers were called in to provide extra security. Anti-nuclear demonstrators crowded the sidewalks. The meeting lasted for six hours, a go-round of apologies and jeers.

Facing shareholders for the first time since the onset of a nuclear crisis with no endpoint, Japan’s largest utility reappointed its chairman and rejected a motion for the company to abandon nuclear energy.

For some in the raucous audience, those status-quo actions reinforced the image of a company that is tone-deaf to the despair it has caused. But the decisions, more tellingly, also signaled why Japan’s national debate over nuclear energy remains a stalemate of painful options.

The nuclear catastrophe at Tepco’s Fukushima Daiichi plant has driven about 85,000 Japanese from their homes and pushed the utility toward financial ruin. But reliance on nuclear energy underpins the economy of resource-poor Japan, which since the crisis has even less capacity to take on the economic hardship that nuclear abandonment would bring.

More than 9,000 shareholders attended Tuesday’s annual meeting, triple the record set last year. Some interrupted the meeting with yelling and were ushered out by security. Facing executives seated at the front of the room, one shareholder screamed that the company leaders deserved ritual disembowelment. Another said the executives should “jump into the reactors and die.”

“On behalf of all of the executives, I want to apologize to investors and local people for all the trouble caused by the Fukushima Daiichi accident,” said the company’s chairman, Tsunehisa Katsumata.

Briefly, Katsumata faced a motion calling for his own dismissal, submitted by a shareholder who said, nearly in tears: “If you are really feeling responsible, how dare you serve as chairman.”

Some applauded the statement. But the motion was defeated.

Many in attendance were elderly investors who once viewed Tepco as a safe place to put their money. Since the March 11 disaster, Tepco shares have lost nearly 85 percent of their value. One month ago, Tepco announced that the company had lost $15 billion for the latest fiscal year, which ended in March. The rating agency Moody’s this month cut Tepco’s credit rating to junk status.

Some experts have warned that Tepco, which faces at least $136 billion in compensation payouts, could run short of funds as soon as this fall.

To help meet the compensation claims, Tepco has secured massive emergency loans, and it intends to sell off many of its nonessential assets. It is also considering plans for layoffs and cuts to employee salaries, while asking executives to return bonus payments.

The extent to which Tepco can pay the compensation claims, though, will be largely dictated by a contentious plan currently under debate in parliament. The bill calls for the creation of a new agency — a de facto fundraiser for Tepco — that could draw money from Japan’s major power companies, as well as from special-issue government bonds. Such a rescue plan has already been approved by Prime Minister Naoto Kan’s cabinet, but it so far has gotten little cooperation from the major opposition party.

At the shareholders’ meeting, Katsumata, the chairman, promised that Tepco would pay out the compensation claims as soon as possible. He added that the company was trying its best to stabilize Fukushima Daiichi’s crippled reactors, three of which suffered meltdowns when an earthquake-tsunami combo knocked out the plant’s cooling systems.

The company’s president, Masataka Shimizu, who has already signaled his intention to resign, added that radiation leaks could be under control by mid-July.

The motion to abandon nuclear energy was submitted by a bloc of 402 shareholders. The group has submitted such a proposal every year for two decades, spurred by a lesser nuclear plant malfunction in 1989.

This year, as usual, the motion was roundly defeated, as the bulk of Tepco’s shareholders submitted their votes over the Internet.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is Tepco’s fifth-largest shareholder. The four largest are banks and insurance firms.

Before the March 11 disaster, nuclear energy accounted for one-third of Tepco’s power-generating capacity, according to company data. Tepco has about 30 million customers, supplying power to the Tokyo region.

It is the largest of Japan’s major power companies — and politically powerful as well, with historical ties to the government’s economy and trade ministry, responsible for promoting nuclear power and nuclear safety.

LulzSec bị săn lùng, Anonymous vẫn tiếp tục hack

Thứ Ba, 28/06/2011, 16:11

* A-Team "đi săn" thành viên LulzSec

TTO - Mặc cho "đối tác" LulzSec vừa ra quyết định gác kiếm, nhóm hacker Anonymous vẫn tiếp tục tấn công vào các hệ thống website tổ chức chính phủ ở các quốc gia thực thi việc quản lý kiểm duyệt gắt gao internet. Website chính phủ Tunisia là nạn nhân mới nhất của nhóm này.

• Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ trấn áp nhóm hacker Anonymous
• Sau CIA, website chính phủ Malaysia cũng bị hack

Bất chấp các hoạt động truy lùng của những tổ chức an ninh mạng trên toàn thế giới, Anonymous vẫn tiếp tục những hoạt động hack của mình - Ảnh minh họa: Internet

Khi truy cập vào website chính phủ Tunisia vào sáng ngày 28-6, mọi người sẽ chỉ thấy hình ảnh đặc trưng đại diện cho nhóm Anonymous là người đeo mặt nạ kèm theo thông điệp "tên miền này đã bị thu giữ bởi#ANTISEC" (tạm dịch: “chiến dịch chống an ninh”).

ANTISEC là một chiến dịch được khởi xướng vào tuần trước bởi LulzSec, nhóm hacker đã tấn công vào các hệ thống trực tuyến của những cơ quan chính phủ và các liên hiệp tổ chức như Cơ quan phòng chống tội phạm có tổ chức nghiêm trọng của Anh (SCOA) hay InfraGard, một tổ chức thành viên của Cục Điều tra Liên bang Mỹ (FBI). (Xem Hacker tấn công website cảnh sát Anh và InfraGard)

Anonymous đưa ra lời cảnh báo đối với Chính phủ Tunisia vì đã làm ngơ trước những yêu cầu của Anonymous về việc giảm bớt chế độ kiểm soát internet ở nước này. Anonymous còn cho biết đã có rất nhiều thành viên mới gia nhập nhóm này để tham gia vào các chiến dịch chống lại những quốc gia có cơ chế kiểm duyệt internet chặt chẽ.

Chính phủ Tunisia có cơ chế quản lý Internet rất gắt gao, đặc biệt là dưới thời cầm quyền của cựu tổng thống Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, người vừa bị chính phủ Tunisia kết án 35 năm tù vì tội biển thủ công quỹ và các tội danh khác. Mặc dù chính quyền Ben Ali đã kết thúc nhưng còn rất nhiều website vẫn bị chặn tại quốc gia Ả Rập này.

Chưa hết, Anonymous còn đe dọa nhà chức trách tại thành phố Orlando thuộc bang Florida, Hoa Kỳ bằng các các đợt tấn công từ chối dịch vụ (DDoS) vào các website của thành phố này.

A-Team "đi săn" thành viên LulzSec

• LulzSec quyết định “nghỉ hưu"
• LulzSec "dính đòn" từ nhóm hacker khác

“Bình minh của LulzSec đã hết, thay bằng ánh hoàng hôn…” - Ảnh minh họa: Internet

Câu chuyện về nhóm hacker LulzSec quyết định "gác kiếm" sau 50 ngày tung hoành không gian mạng vẫn chưa đến hồi kết khi một nhóm hacker khác mang bí danh A-Team công bố danh tánh, vị trí và cả những thành viên trong gia đình của từng hacker thuộc nhóm LulzSec lên mạng PasteBin.

* Giải mã: Đằng sau làn sóng tin tặc

Trong thông điệp gửi gắm đến LulzSec, A-Team cho rằng nhóm này không đủ kỹ năng để tiếp tục. Sau hệ thống mạng của Sony, họ (ám chỉ nhóm LulzSec) không còn thâm nhập vào bất kỳ đâu được nữa nên chuyển hướng sang các mục tiêu ngẫu nhiên không xác định, mang tính chất vô nghĩa. Tiếp đó, họ lại kêu gọi mọi người tham gia vào nhóm để thực hiện chiến dịch "ANTI-SEC".

Những thành viên của LulzSec như Sabu, Topiary, Kayla cũng bị A-Team theo dõi sát sao. A-Team cho rằng LulzSec chỉ là nhóm hacker tìm kiếm lỗ hổng SQL Injection từ các website cũng như các lỗi tập tinRemote File Include / Local File (dạng tập tin "cửa hậu" cho phép truy xuất và từ đó thâm nhập vào phần quản trị của hệ thống qua các thủ thuật hack). Khi đã hack được hệ thống, cơ sở dữ liệu tên tài khoản và mật khẩu sẽ được LulzSec tải về rồi công bố một cách tùy tiện.

LulzSec có vẻ đã làm các nhóm hacker "đàn anh" bực dọc vì những "trò gây rối" của mình. Website của LulzSec cũng đã bị nhóm hacker “TeaMpOisoN" tấn công vào ngày 23-6 và dọa sẽ công bố thông tin về các thành viên của LulzSec.

THANH TRỰC

28/06 春秋

2011/6/28付

　頭の上に黒い電話機を乗せて現れる。シャボン玉で全身を包んだような服でピアノを弾き始める。奇抜とか派手とかいう前に、思わず愉快な気分になってしまう。大人気の米国の歌手、レディー・ガガさんが、復興支援のため来日した。

▼日本が好きなのだそうだ。震災の翌日、３月12日には「日本の為に祈りを」と記したリストバンドを売り出し、１億２千万円を寄付した。記者会見では、ティーカップにキスしてみせ、オークションにかけて収益を被災地に送ると語った。観光庁から感謝状を贈られたが、「本当はこんなものいらないの」と言う。

▼ポップス愛好家に限らず、見る人が自然にニコリとするのは、このアイドルの「突き抜け感」が心に響くからだろう。被災者の避難所暮らしには終わりが見えない。原発事故は心理的にずっしり重くのしかかる。何か常識外れのことをしたい、されたい、という気持ちを、日本の誰もがいま抱いているに違いない。

▼ガガさんはロックスターのデヴィッド・ボウイとクイーンを、自分の活動の手本にしたそうだ。演劇のような表現と、物語を感じさせる存在感。それらが「入り口」となって、観衆を日常生活から連れ出すからだと話している。人々が求めるものを感じ取るショービジネスの才能は、日本の政治家より勝っている。

28/06 余録：鈴の愛好家でコレクターだった国学者の本居宣長は…

　鈴の愛好家でコレクターだった国学者の本居宣長は、床柱に鈴をかけた書斎を「鈴屋」と称した。「物むつかしきをりをり引きならして、それが音を聞けば、ここちもすがすがしくおもほゆ」。鈴の音は気持ちを清め、いやしたのだ▲宣長は鈴の音がいにしえをしのぶよすがになったという歌も残している。自分の学問を「古学」と呼んだ彼のことだ。鈴を鳴らすことで、その澄んだ音にこの世ならない神秘を感じた昔の人と心の波長を合わせたのだろう▲神社で拝礼の際に鈴を鳴らすように、神と人も仲立ちしてくれる鈴の音である。その昔は大事な誓約の際、神社の宝鈴を鳴らしたとの話も聞く。鈴には神仏をその場に招き寄せ、誓約の神聖を裏打ちする力もあった。さらに魔よけや病封じの力も信じられた鈴の音だ▲宣長のコレクションに風鈴はないようだが、今年は例年になく澄んだ鈴の音が聞こえる夏となりそうだ。もちろん節電によって打ち水や夕涼みなど「エアコン以前」の消夏法や納涼文化が復活し、その中で音によって涼しさを呼び寄せる風鈴も注目されているからだ▲集合住宅などでは「騒音」とみなされ、近年はあまり聞かれない盛夏の鈴の音である。つるし方には近隣への心配りが要るが、涼風を音にして楽しめば、その音に魔よけの効能を感じた昔の人の気持ちも分かろう。被災した岩手県には南部風鈴という特産品もある▲被災地では鈴を鳴らす風に亡くなった肉親の気配を感じ瞑目（めいもく）する方もおられよう。うだる暑さの中で音でしか感じられない涼味を初めて知る方もいよう。人の心をいやす鈴の霊力をよみがえらせたい夏だ。

• 余録：風鈴の霊力
• ほっとするニュース：涼やかに…伊万里・大川内山で「風鈴まつり」
• ほっとするニュース：南部風鈴１０００個　涼やかに出迎え－水沢駅
• 風鈴まつり：磁器製、涼やかに　窯元が伝統の技－－伊万里・大川内山　／佐賀
• タウンたうん：風鈴まつり、１８日から開催－－伊万里　／佐賀

毎日新聞　2011年6月28日　東京朝刊