November 28, 2009 archive

THE WORLD OF SPORT

Students dressed as ninjas at the University of California, Berkeley, produced a record 101m-long California sushi roll to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the school’s Center for Japanese Studies. Over 90kg of rice, 80 kilos of fish, and a combined 70kg of avocado and cucumber were used, as well as a bunch of tofu.

World Series MVP Hideki Matsui paid a visit to the David Letterman show along with New York Yankees teammates Jorge Posada, Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte, but Godzilla let the other guys do all the talking.

Before former US President George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch for Game 3 of the Japan Series at Tokyo Dome last month, he was overheard telling some of the Giants that it was impressive they were about to clinch the championship. Though Dubya turned out to be right, it seemed a little premature to hang the “Mission Accomplished” banner with the series tied 1-1 at the time.

It was revealed that Nippon Ham Fighters ace Yu Darvish, who pitched in Game 2 of the Japan Series and got the win, was not only playing with a bad back and a sore shoulder, but also had a broken finger on his throwing hand.

In Wakayama, a high-ranking yakuza member and the brother of popular enka singer Fuyumi Sakamoto were arrested-for the second time-for placing illegal bets on Japanese baseball games.

A 16-year-old boy died after taking an arrow between the eyes at archery practice in Meguro. The 17-year-old student who shot the fatal arrow, a member of the same high school archery club, said it was an accident.

In Chiba, a policewoman had her bag snatched by a man on a scooter just meters away from the police station.

Original article, by Séamus Loughlin, via Socialist Appeal (UK):

Ireland: Well over 250,000 Irish workers in the public sector were on strike on the 24th of this month. There would have been many more, but the unions guaranteed emergency cover including flood relief in the west, the midlands and the Shannon area and in Cork City. It’s a feature of every major strike, not just here, but throughout the world, that the well fed representatives of the bourgeois and particularly the mean spirited and greedy petty bourgeois attempt to criticise and attack the worker’s movement. These fine gentlemen and ladies are always the first to reach for the box of tissues as they weep crocodile tears about the poor and the vulnerable who they claim (wringing their hands in woe) are being let down by the strikers. The fact that the government have been slashing and burning public services for the last year and attacking the vulnerable seems conveniently to have been forgotten.