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Japan Hub



04/19/2007


Thousands Take Part In Tokyo's Rainbow Week

TokyoYesterday, about 12,000 people took to the streets of Tokyo to march in in Japan's very first Rainbow Week.

The AFP reports:

"This is our first attempt to link up with many groups" of sexual minorities, said one of the organisers, Hiroko Masuhara, 35. "The parade is a symbolic event in the (Tokyo) Rainbow Week programme." Masuhara, who held a wedding with her partner at Tokyo Disney Resort last month, said support for gay rights was rising in Japan. "We have an impression that we are seeing more women and various nationalities of people participating in our parade in recent years," she said.

Masuhara and her partner became the first gay couple to be married at Tokyo's Disneyland.

Rainbow Week ends May 6. Watch a video of the parade, AFTER THE JUMP.

Continue reading "Thousands Take Part In Tokyo's Rainbow Week" »


News: Boehner's Potty Mouth, Shirtless Jude, Sci-Fi Faith, Shojo

1NewsIcon Stacie Laughton, the first transgender person elected to office in New Hampshire, will not run for the seat she resigned after it was revealed she was convicted of conspiracy to commit credit card fraud.

BoehnerReid1NewsIcon House Speaker John Boehner had some choice words for Sen. Harry Reid during the fiscal cliff negotiations at the White House: "Go f*ck yourself."

1NewsIcon Meanwhile, right-wing website Breitbart is starting to beat the "oust Boehner" drum.

1NewsIcon Here's a fun interactive graph about where the 50 United States stand on LGBT rights.

1NewsIcon Richard Socarides on the push for marriage equality in Illinois: "Illinois, being the President's home state and containing four per cent of the total U.S. population, would be a big win for marriage-equality advocates."

1NewsIcon Hillary Clinton has left New York Presbyterian as she continues to recover from a blood clot near her brain.

1NewsIcon Natural born smooth talker: "Just hours after they're born, babies seem to be able to tell the difference between sounds in their native tongue and a foreign one, according to a new study that suggests language learning begins in utero."

Judebeach1NewsIcon A shirtless Jude Law looks fit and fine vacationing in Maui.

1NewsIcon Anne Hathaway looks lovely on the cover of Harper's Bazaar UK.

1NewsIcon Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie reportedly tied the knot on Christmas.

1NewsIcon NYE fireworks in reverse.

1NewsIcon Take some time to read my old friend Cord Jefferson's wonderful piece about depression, adventure and finding clarity in life.

1NewsIcon Katie Holmes and Jake Gyllenhaal are not a couple.

1NewsIcon New track from Azaelia Banks, "Bad Bitches Doin'."

1NewsIcon Lindsay Lohan has been evicted from her home in Hollywood. Hopefully this will inspire her to get the help she so desperately needs.

1NewsIcon "Whatever happened to comic books?"

1NewsIcon A completely sci-fi prediction about religion in 2060 from homophobic hate leader David Barton: "Conservative Christians will be treated as second class citizens, much like African Americans were prior to civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Family as we know it will be drastically changed with the state taking charge of the children beginning at birth. Marriage will include two, three, four or any number of participants. Marriage will not be important, with individuals moving in and out of a 'family' group at will. Church buildings will be little used, with many sold to secular buyers and the money received going to the government. Churches will not be allowed to discuss any political issues, even if it affects the church directly." Yeah, right.

Manga1NewsIcon A look at the wild popularity of shojo manga, a genre that focuses on teen boys' gay love, among straight women in Japan: "The genre of boys' love, in other words, allows [authors and] readers to place themselves in a position of power and aggrandizement that is rare for women—as the distanced, masterful position, letting his (or her) eyes roam across variegated objects of desire."

1NewsIcon "The Private War That Killed Spencer Cox."

1NewsIcon If you can, pick up this week's edition of The New Yorker to read Daniel Mendelsohn's incredible piece about how historical novelist Mary Renault's work helped him come to terms with his own sexuality. The magazine's abstract elaborates: "Reading her books, the writer felt a shock of recognition... After reading Renault’s The Charioteer, which is set during the Second World War and wrestles with the issue of 'Greek love,' the writer wrote in his diary, 'I know what I am. Now I must think what to do with it.'"

1NewsIcon From "The Catholic Church’s new gay insult:" "It would be unrealistic to expect the Catholic Church to make a sudden about-face on the issue of equality. It’s been doing the 'Homosexuality is an offense to God' shtick a really long time and that’s a hard habit to break. But the religion whose pope declared in 1866 that slavery wasn’t necessarily against 'natural' law does have a track record of sometimes evolving in light of compelling social change."


North Korea Launches Long Range Rocket, Claims to Put Satellite in Orbit: VIDEO

Nkorea

North Korea launched a long-range rocket and claimed to have launched a satellite into space yesterday, in a move that angered the world community, particularly South Korea and Japan, which the rocket's path traversed, NBC News reports:

U.S. officials told NBC News that it appeared the North Koreans had indeed launched an object, possibly a satellite, into space.

In a statement, the White House said the rocket launch was a highly provocative act that threatens regional security and violates U.N. resolutions. A spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he "deplores" the launch.

Ban said it was "all the more regrettable because it defies the unified and strong call from the international community." He added that he was "in close touch with the government concerned."

Missile warning systems detected the launch at 7:49 p.m. ET, and initial reports indicate that the first stage fell into the Yellow Sea. The second stage was predicted to fall into the Philippine Sea, according to a statement issued by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

Pyongyang's official KCNA news agency said earlier that the rocket was fired from the Sohae Satellite Launch Center on the secretive country's west coast, and said that the Kwangmyongsong weather satellite went into orbit as planned.

Watch RT's report and the Japanese and South Korean reaction, AFTER THE JUMP...

The White House has condemned the launch. Said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor:

"North Korea is only further isolating itself by engaging in such provocative acts. Devoting scarce resources to the development of ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons has not brought it security and acceptance by the international community — and never will. North Korea will only truly strengthen itself by abiding by international norms, living up to its commitments and international obligations, and working to feed its citizens, to educate its children, and to win the trust of its neighbors."

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Watch Japanese Racer Play 'Jingle Bells' With His Car: VIDEO

Jinglebells
Sure, it's not the most pleasant of tones, but this racer definitely has the holiday spirit, and wants to share it via his vehicle.

Watch the video AFTER THE JUMP...

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Ke$ha Annoys Tokyo Subway Passengers with Preview of Her New Single 'Die Young': VIDEO

Kesha

Ke$ha brightened the days of a few Japanese commuters with a snippet of her new single "Die Young", sung a capella on the Tokyo subway. The track, produced by Dr. Luke, is released on September 25.

Watch (and see the single's artwork), AFTER THE JUMP...

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Sneaky Robot Cheats At Rock, Paper, Scissors: VIDEO

RobotCheat
Engineers in Japan have built a robot hand that can "beat" any human any time at any game of rock, paper, scissors. How does it do it?

According to New Scientist, the sneaky machine has a high-speed camera that monitors humans' wrist and finger movement to beat us to the punch — or, rather, beat us to the paper.

It seems like a vanity device at the moment, but Sara Reardon reports that this development could help with some robotic sleuthing in the future.

The robot's visual recognition program needs only one millisecond to figure out which shape your hand will take, and choose the one that will beat you.

This kind of high speed vision may have a more practical use than arming robots so they'll always get to bat first at robot baseball. Robots can recognize speech in real time by the forms the human mouth takes, cooperate with humans performing precision tasks that take two, and maybe intervene in an accident before it happens. The janken game is an early example of what Oku's lab calls "meta-perception": the Sherlock Holmes-like ability of machines to pick up information humans would miss.

Watch the robot in action AFTER THE JUMP!

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