Kenzaburo Oe, the Japanese Nobel Prize-winner, has come out against the rewriting of history books used in the nation's schools. The story appears on the Web site Japan Today, which provides a news feed for the hip Tokyo magazine Metropolis.

I reported a story in Italian journal La Stampa in which Haruki Murakami voices his objections to growing nationalism in his country of birth.

Oe's contribution to the debate is welcome.

A commenter, nutsagain, says that what happened in Okinawa when the Americans were approaching toward the end of hostilisties was "Horrific stuff, especially the machine gunning of the nurses and high school students, born from the loopy logical thinking that they'd be 'polluted' by the GIs". And Noripinhead writes: "one of the old guys said, "We were more afraid of the Japanese army than the American army." Enough said."