Because the headline caught my eye by succeeding in having that humourous cynical wit I so love.

Call me a liberal, a leftist, or even an anti-capitalist if you want - for once I don't mind -, but this doesn't really has anything to do with any of that; my total approval of this editorial is entirely based on - what do they call it - oh yes, common sense. Or fundamental ethical principles, maybe.

Plus, it has Michael Eisner's name in it.

Cycling is my new favourite sport in the olympics, and no, I don't care very much for the actual sport, but last Sunday when I happened to catch it on TV I noticed that it provided some nice footage of the northeast Chinese landscape. A landscape that looks pretty nice in all its lush, mountainous and semi-exotic style. So that's why I now favours it, even if I sometimes get a little irritated when they focus too much on the competitors. I want to see sweeping road footage from a distance please, not closeups of the cyclists. In fact, today when the commentators kept babbling about the silver medalist - who happened to be a Swede, but who cares, I have no more relation to him than to the Swiss who got the gold - I muted the TV for a while since it disturbed my landscape studies...

One of the sites in my bookmark list for my global news sweeps is the Mainichi Daily News one. But it must have been a while since I last was there, because I hadn't spotted their big "Forgive us" splash page until today. It seems like they have had quite a stir-up over "inappropriate content" and "bad journalistic behaviour" over there, something that kind of intrigues both the professional and the hobbyist in me.

In short it's about the English-language Mainichi Daily News carrying the WaiWai column which presented translated articles from diverse Japanese magazines and newspapers, and the selection seem to have been somewhat, well, raunchy, more often than not. All run by what appears to be a single, bilingual editor without much overseeing, who in hindsight seem to have been hired mostly due to the fact that he was bilingual and not so much due to his journalistic skills and copyright ethics. And it seems it took quite some years for the higher-ups to actually notice that their English language version had this sleaziness built in. But when they did, the result is intriguing in all its thoroughness. A very public apology and public declarations of what they think went wrong. I can't help but think that that in itself is a very Japanese response. And one that I personally like.

(Yes, I've read the WaiWai column occasionally, and yes, it wasn't exactly hard news in it. And I did on occasion wonder a little why a seemingly serious news site chose to have such a yellow press, or if you want - J-otaku blog-like -, part too. But in any case I supposed it was meant to be that way. What can I say, I'm a hardened web veteran and educated to be critical of facts in all kind of communications; sleaze and pseudo-news aren't exactly a new thing for me to see. For better or worse. And the Japanese culture student in me is kind of proud of the fact that I apparently know enough to be able to separate the real Japan from the wacky otaku-Japan that's presented there. Never mind that that same knowledge apparently made me totally unaware of the probably relevant fear the newspaper staff had that people outside Japan actually could see those stories as images of true Japanese culture.)

I found myself actually watching all of the pope's funeral yesterday, even though I only had planned to have a glimpse of it now and then. After all, it was an very special event. One of those few moments when you actually can feel history being written. And not being very well-oriented in roman-catholic rites, I found it to be interesting from a cultural studies point-of-view too.

Pope Ioannes Paulus II was an extraordinary person, no doubt about it. And most likely a remarkable pope as well, even if I personally have very little to compare with in that aspect. I can't help but admire him. Yes, he did have some very conservative views that differ a lot from mine, but in his case it is obvious that they were his beliefs and not empty words to woo a constituency. He did what he believed deeply in, and I must admire him for that. It's actually very comforting to see a man filled with real compassion, unlike some other politicians who use religion and thwarts it for their own political agenda when it fits them, but only then. In a world filled with hypocrites and opportunists, egoists and fanatics, the pope in a way was a solid rock to lean on for a lot of people, and I finally think I can understand why.

Watched the news again. I'm currently a newsaholic, partially due to the fact that I take every opportunity to not trying to write the things I'm supposed to do (because it's so boooring), and partially because of my near-unhealthy fascination for provisions regarding political successions. And let's face it, few acts of succession are as interestingly archaic as the apostolic one.

That aside, I'm so glad I'm not a devoutly religious man. It looks exhausting. I'm also glad I'm not living in Rome right now. Which my cousin and his family are, and on Saturday they are supposed to fly from Rome (which is a no-fly zone tomorrow, and most likely not back to normal on the day after that, and with a couple of millions of pilgrims on the streets) to Malmö-Sturup (which has a shortage of flight controllers due to some quarrel over working conditions). Sounds like a fun trip.