Michael Stout's List: Global Issues

• M.S.: I interviewed Akira Kurosawa after he made "Hachi-gatsu no Kyoshikyoku (Rhapsody in August)" (1991). He had a press conference with a lot of American reporters and they asked him the same thing: "You're talking about the atomic bombings in the film, but what about Pearl Harbor?" And he just blew up. When I went to the interview, the PR guy said, "Don't ask him about that." But I had to get it out of the way, so I said, "I know you had this experience at the foreign press club. How did you feel about it?" And he went on for about 15 minutes: "My whole intention was to make an antiwar film." And it was. They seemed to be criticizing him for not showing American victims.

  • Here's an example of a connection being made between Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is the first time I've seen a connection being made in print. I've always thought that the atomic bombings were intended as a message to Stalin, not as retribution. Interesting!
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• For the first time in the Great Lakes, scientists have discovered that a type of Asian carp has successfully spawned in the Sandusky River in Ohio.
• dreaded
• spawn
• “If they reach some point where they go through a rapid population increase then we’re going to have problems,” he said Monday from Missouri.
• Grass carp were introduced into the United States in the 1960s to control vegetation and they and other Asian carp escaped into the Mississippi River basin.

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• The sperm whale had plastic in its stomach, an increasing common phenomenon say researchers at the Biodiversity Centre Naturalis.
• necropsy
• Cause of death was intestinal blockage.

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