Fox News All the News That's Fit to Print
 

By mistake I managed to hit a news link to the Fox Noise site. This was listed in the most popular story viewed.

Read the headline and stopped there. Didn't need to know anything beyond that.

I saw the headline and closed before the page fully opened. Ewww.

Ignoring the gory details, it's an interesting article. There apparently have been several similarly grizzly murders (largely of family members) that have been high profile in the Japanese media. There seems to be some concern that this sort of thing, and violent crime in general, is on the rise, possibly linked to economic woes and a change in social attitudes. Japan is pretty densely populated in parts and has managed to main relatively free from widespread violence of this sort. If there really is a trend in that direction, it could get pretty ugly.

Did you know a prefecture was a state? OMG!

Um, did they happen to consider that beheading is a big part of ancient Japanese culture? I mean, before they go blaming "The West" for their woes, or wondering why economic malaise doesn't result in, say, TPing houses as opposed to ritual butchery.

Actually, it's not at all what you think. The boy returns the "misappropriated" severed head to his mother with a formal apology. They cry. They make up. And then they all go to Medieval Times for brunch.

This can't be true: Medieval Times isn't open for lunch on Mondays.

agreed. the removal of the head was formerly considered polite and honorable and was in an effort to prevent pain and suffering of a family member or friend/ally when their honor was lost.

not all things of this world translate directly to western thinking

There's an interesting article in last month's The Atlantic about the recent trend of anonymous young people gathering to commit group suicide and the role of suicide in Japanese culture.

Unfortunately it is in their paid archive.