MagnusGarstin said...

MagnusGarstin at 08:27 AM JST - 17th November

He was simply being polite for goodness sake - or is that so very out of fashion in the States nowadays?

I'm pretty sure he'd also bow if he met the Queen of England - it's just protocol.

Posted in Obama's bow to emperor causes outrage in Washington at 08:27 AM JST - 17th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:34 AM JST - 17th November

You wouldn't have been able to do a lot of things without being tortured five hundred years ago

Certainly - if I'd lived in a "god-fearing" (the lower-case "g" is deliberate) Christian country! I'd have been terrified of enjoying even the most simple human pleasures in life for fear of…

Posted in DPJ's Ozawa calls Christianity 'self-righteous' at 12:34 AM JST - 17th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:25 AM JST - 17th November

Maybe I'm commenting with a slight sense of bravado because I know that I can question such a text without having my nails torn from my fingers or the marrow crushed from my thigh bones - not something I would have cared to wager on three or four hundred years…

Posted in DPJ's Ozawa calls Christianity 'self-righteous' at 12:25 AM JST - 17th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:08 AM JST - 17th November

Have you really read the Bible? Somehow I don't think that's true.

Why? - because I said I think it's ludicrous?

I assure you, I've read a great many books, several of them standard religious texts, that I think are completely absurd.

Posted in DPJ's Ozawa calls Christianity 'self-righteous' at 12:08 AM JST - 17th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:49 PM JST - 16th November

On a more personal note, I am always bemused by the fact that, although being a fairly-respectable, besuited, middle-aged English businessman, I can nearly always expect the myriad Japanese passengers on any train in which I travel to categorically avoid the empty seat next to me - no matter how…

Posted in Is chivalry dead on Tokyo trains? at 12:49 PM JST - 16th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:34 PM JST - 16th November

I guess he is losing his marbles

Isn't that a prerequisite to be a politician in this country?

Posted in DPJ's Ozawa calls Christianity 'self-righteous' at 12:34 PM JST - 16th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:24 PM JST - 16th November

but the tripe that has been spouted on this thread provoked what, admittedly, must sound like I'm joining Ozawa in his particularly anti-Christian stance and I wanted to emphasise that this wasn't the case.

Ooops - that should have read "but the tripe that has been spouted on this thread…

Posted in DPJ's Ozawa calls Christianity 'self-righteous' at 12:24 PM JST - 16th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:14 PM JST - 16th November

I think it’s important to distinguish European and American Christianity. We have had a pretty good experience in the US with Christianity.

Er ....Incas, Aztecs, Mayans anyone?

OK, OK - that's South America, not the good old US of A proper. So how about the Salem witch trials? And talking…

Posted in DPJ's Ozawa calls Christianity 'self-righteous' at 12:14 PM JST - 16th November
MagnusGarstin at 12:07 PM JST - 16th November

As others have pointed out, chivalry on Tokyo trains isn't dead - it has never existed.

I own a fascinating book called "Japan, Aspects and Destinies" written by an English gentleman named W. Petrie Watson which is 105 years old - having been published in 1904.

Among the many wonderful…

Posted in Is chivalry dead on Tokyo trains? at 12:07 PM JST - 16th November
MagnusGarstin at 09:33 AM JST - 15th November

Hakujinsensei sarcastically said:

Why before all of this christian influence, only 150 years ago, only the lords of the land could own property, education was for none less than the samurai, and no form of democracy existed at all, unwanted babies were unceremoniously tossed in the rivers, and samurai could…

Posted in DPJ's Ozawa calls Christianity 'self-righteous' at 09:33 AM JST - 15th November