Section 27 Entry 0001. Date: 2003 March 17 Monday.
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Here in Japan, four university students committed suicide. This was on the TV news today. The interesting thing about this incident is that it may be yet another case of an Internet suicide.

While this is not yet an epidemic, there have now been at least a couple of cases in which people have used the Internet to enter into suicide pacts with strangers. Let it be clearly stated that, here in Japan, this is not regarded as normative. As one Japanese national said to me, "Who would want to commit suicide with a total stranger?"

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Section 27 Entry 0002. Date: 2003 March 17 Monday
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Until today, I hadn't updated the "how to write" project since December last year (personally, I blame George Bush for this delay) but today I finally got round to adding something new, an if-all-else-fails fingerexercises page, called write, which might help with the problem of writer's block. If you want guidance on writing, and if none of this helps, you could try reading the new story added to the site today, On the Wings of a Cockroach  Jozanna Yu, poet, wakes up and finds she's been turned into a cockroach. Again. And she thinks she knows who's responsible. In fact, there's only one suspect - boyfriend Gregor Samsa. A story about being a poet and writing poetry - a story about creative writing. This story includes a chunk of Professor Taft's lecture about writing (juxtapositions and so forth). Check it out!

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Section 27 Entry 0003. Date: 2003 March 18 Tuesday (Monday in America).
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Well, I'm sitting here in Japan, and President Bush is about to begin the speech in which he will give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum, and in just a few minutes from now I will be watching this live on CNN.

I've found myself with a morning free, so I've kept myself busy working on the website, adding a poem from 1977, The Kraken Wakes, which seems to fit the present moment.

... a CNN commentator draws my attention to some whistling which you "may be able to hear in the background" ... yes, I can hear the whistling ... protesters in the vicinity of the White House, apparently ... and now Bush is on ... and suddenly the cable TV goes on the blink ... I don't believe this! ... instead of watching history, I'm watching a flashing blue error message ...

I've missed part of what Bush said, but the TV is on in time for me to catch a "could" from Bush. This is what it's all about. "This danger will be removed" - the danger being that Saddam Hussein could give nuclear, chemical and biological weapons to terrorists.

And what drops into my mind, automatically, is the words "Aum Shin Rikyo," the name of a Japanese cult which was implicated in the release of a nerve gas, sarin, in a Japanese subway. (The trial of Shoko Asahara, the boss man of this cult, a trial which has been dragging on for years, is now in its seventh year).

The Japanese people who made nerve gas right here in Japan, for their own uniquely Japanese reasons (which I don't pretend to even begin to understand) did so domestically, without any help from anyone.

The causes of terrorism are social and political, and educated people in an industrialized society are perfectly capable of making whatever weapons they need to further their cause, regardless of whether they do or do not have overseas support.

"If, could, might, maybe" - this is the basis of Bush's speech, which is tantamount to a declaration of war. Saddam Hussein and his sons have 48 hours to flee the country or else.

Well, no immediate reaction to the president's speech here in Japan ... no reaction from the two bags of garbage which some sociopath has dumped in the street at the garbage collection point, even though today is not a garbage collection day ... no thunder from the cloudy sky ... cat dawdling across the empty street looks unimpressed ....

Over the horizon is North Korea, ruled by Kim Jong Il, the lord of the nukes of Pyongyang. We're in more or less the same time zone, so it's the middle of the morning in Pyongyang. I'm sure that Kim Jong Il has just been watching George Bush's speech (it's hard to imagine that he could have been doing anything else) and now he will be thinking about it.

And Kim Jong Il will be well aware that, from a George Bush perspective, North Korea is a regular petri dish swarming with "if, could, might, maybe" and their mutant variants.

"When he says 48 hours we should not look much beyond that" - a commentator on CNN. War in Iraq, then, some time on Wednesday, American time, which will be Thursday here in Japan. And war in North Korea? Well, who knows. But George Bush's decision to make war on "if, could, might and maybe" has definitely taken us one step closer to war on the Korean peninsular, maybe this year, maybe next.

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I just did a Google search for "Aum Shin Rikyo" and got only one hit, plus the question "Did you mean to search for: aum shinrikyo". An alternative spelling elsewhere on the Internet is "Aum Shinri-kyo". Take your pick.

The sarin nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system was on 1995 March 20, at a time when I was living in New Zealand. It is an example of homegrown terrorism unsupported by foreign bogeymen.

An all-American example of domestic terrorism is the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City on 1995 April 19, using a truck bomb.

The point here is that terrorism is ultimately a matter of hearts and minds. It's a political problem, not a technological problem. It's not something you can annihilate by putting a finger on a map, saying "X marks the locus of evil" and then launching three thousand warheads at X (which, in this case, happens to be a heavily populated civilian city, most of whom are entirely innocent of anything, and at least half of whom are kids.)

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Salam in Baghdad says you now can't find earplugs in the shops - "you have to pre-order". Those people know what is coming.

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