Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Dangerous Head Games

Below is my comment on the article of “Head GamesTIME dated on December 10, 2007.

ヘディングAs the father of two young daughters, I was shocked to know the fact that U.S. female soccer athletes suffered almost 40% more concussions than males did. Wasn’t there any strict guidance to prevent such female suffering on the teachers’ side at school so far?

Popular sports often require athletes to use their souls and bodies to the limit to win the game or to defeat the opponent, whether or not there are some gender differences between men and women.

However, now that the gender related vulnerability of women to men in specific sports techniques such as heading became clear, we should recommend some kind of protections or alternative sports for women to keep them safer, not only in the schoolyards but also in the professional sports, based upon the scientific research.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Water Worries

Below is my comment on the article of "Water Worries", TIME dated on November 26, 2007.

豪州の旱魃It was a fresh surprise for me that climate change has never been on the election issue in Australia before this election.

Since water is vital to every living creature on earth and climate change is taking it away from many ordinary citizens over there in the form of a long droughtit is with good reason that worry is so ballooning among them that the future course of politics in Australia could be affected by the stance on climate change by political leaders at the election as one of the important election issues.

Based upon such recognition, your article kindly indicated to me that this election would also be the turning point for many political leaders in the world to tackle climate change seriously not for a hypocritical or superficial slogan such as “Save the earth!” but for their own political survival now and in the near future. In that sense, politicians in Japan, my country, are not the exception.