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I'm a big believer in the importance of space. Remember how sacred your bedroom felt as a child? I still think about when I finally got my own room and no longer had to share with my brother. It was heaven and it was mine. Teachers are known for the thought they put into classroom design because it matters. Arrangement of furniture, lighting, color, and what adorns the walls goes a long way to making a space conducive to learning. But, as education changes to a less teacher-centered model, we'll need to rethink our spaces and design for student-centered collaboration.
You've no doubt noticed the explosion of makerspaces popping up around the country and world. These community spaces are specifically designed to foster hands-on, self-directed learning that incorporates technology, design, and engineering. But the most important aspect of a makerspace is that it is a shared, collaborative space. A good introduction to the maker movement, and a resource to which I often return, is the Makerspace Playbook.
At my school, we are now about four months into life with our new and improved Innovation Center, created by combining the existing space with the former computer lab. I was fortunate enough to be part of the team that designed the space and now coordinate its use. After a year of planning, gathering input from students and teachers, and visiting other schools, the space was finished this past August. I'm happy to say we now have an awesome community space where students can imagine and create.
In planning and designing the space, we wanted to keep things as flexible as possible so the Innovation Center is not only a makerspace, but an idea space. The open plan, moveable furniture, and plentiful whiteboard surfaces make it a perfect setting for brainstorming sessions. Multiple projectors allow for quick and easy presentations and sharing.
Our students do a lot of video work with green screen. The last iteration of the Innovation Center was often used for video projects and we knew this was an important feature to keep. Instead of painting walls green with chromakey paint we opted for a retractable green screen and LED studio lights. As shown in the photos, the studio side of the space is perfect for video work but maintains flexibility for other activities.
Lastly, the space also serves as a prototype classroom. The Innovation Center gives us an experimental setting to try new features that might become part of regular classrooms. Flexible furniture, interactive wall projectors, folding walls, and hidden whiteboards are just some things we're trying out.
The Innovation Center has opened up so many possibilities for our students and we will continue to iterate how it is used. I look forward to all that will stem from this amazing space in the years to come.


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New Pictures 6: Martin Parr closes soon, but some of his pics won't leave the MIA…
Do you remember when it was cooler than 90 degrees every day? Peer back beyond the humid haze. Only mere months ago, it did happen–the camera doesn't lie–and British photographer Martin Parr's pictures are our evidence. Summer weekends fill up fast and only a few remain for a viewing of his cold-weather photos. New Pictures 6: Martin Parr, featuring winter photographs Parr shot in the Twin Cities as an MIA-commissioned project, closes in under three weeks.
If you haven't stopped by the 2nd floor Linda & Lawrence Perlman Gallery (262) recently, Parr's January pics of Minneapolis winter sports will be on display through Sunday, August 5th. After that, the images will take a break in storage for a while, however, the MIA Photography & New Media department are proud to announce the acquisition of six Martin Parr photographs into our collection.
Come in and enjoy the free-flowing air-conditioning while you enjoy the display of twelve of Parr's visual observations of our local winter activities.
Jen Dolen, Photography & New Media intern

subset: commoncrawl


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Atlantarapper T.I. has been released from a federal prison in Arkansas and is headed to a halfway house in Georgia.
A lawyer for T.I. said the rapper was released Tuesday morning.
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris Jr., last May began serving his sentence of a year and a day for illegal firearms possession and possessing a gun as a convicted felon.
Steve Sadow said his client was expected to report to Dismas Charities halfway house in Atlanta on Tuesday night and will be there for up to three months.
Sadow said Harris "did his very best to adjust to his circumstances" in prison and knew he had to pay for his crime. He said Harris was most looking forward to getting back to his family and being as productive as he can be.
Related Content from AccessHollywood.com:
VIEW THE PHOTOS: Hottest Hip-Hop Stars!
PLAY IT NOW: Access Extended: T.I. Talks Gun Possession & Jail Time On 'The Billy Bush Show'
PLAY IT NOW: 2009 Grammy Awards Arrivals: T.I. And Smokey Robinson
MORE ACCESS ON THESE TOPICS: T.I. - TV One


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Photo courtesy of Gil Tablot.
For the second consecutive Friday, the Harvard women's lacrosse team will take on Dartmouth. This time, the Crimson is vying for a spot in the Ivy League Championship Tournament final and ultimately earning the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championships.
The Crimson and Big Green will face-off in the first semifinal game Friday at 4 p.m. at Franklin Field in Philadelphia.
Free Streaming/TV
The two semifinal games Friday will be streamed lie on Ustream.tv free of charge. The Ivy League Tournament Championship game will air live on CBS College Sports.
Scouting the Crimson
Harvard is 9-5 overall after winning seven of its last nine and five of six Thirteen Crimson players have found the back of the net for a team that averages 12.43 goals per game. Jennifer VanderMeulen paces the offense with 45 goals and five assists for 50 points. Danielle Tetreault (36g, 6a), Jess Halpern (26g, 1a) and Melanie Baskind (25g, 6a), have been scoring threats for the Crimson, which leads the Ivy League and is 26th in the nation in scoring offense.
Tetreault leads the team and is second in the Ivy League in draw controls with 25, while Baskind leads the team with 30 ground balls. Ellen Gleason and Maraih Prewarski pace the Crimson with 15 caused turnovers each. Kerry Clark has made 81 saves in the cage and sports a 10.14 goals-against average.
Last Time Out
Jennifer VanderMeulen scored a hat trick to lead the Crimson in a 14-7 loss at No. 10 Dartmouth. The Big Green held an 8-4 lead at the half. After the Crimson closed the gap to three in the second, Dartmouth fired off five straight scores to pull away. The Crimson struggled in the draw circle, winning just nine of 23 draws. Harvard took more shots, and had eight less turnovers than the Big Green.
Scouting the Big Green
Dartmouth enters the game with a 11-3 overall record and a 6-1 Ivy League mark. The Big Green has won eight of its last nine games including knocking off No. 1 Maryland, 9-8, Sunday.
Four Dartmouth players have scored 20 or more goals this season, with Kat Collins leading the group at 32 goals. Kristen Giovanniello leads the team with 35 ground balls, while Courtney Bennett has dominated in the draw circle, winning 26 draws. Shannie MacKenzie has caused 18 opponent turnovers.
Giovanniello sports a 8.09 goals-against average in the net and has made 133 saves.
Series History
The series is tied at 18 after Dartmouth won its 15th straight against the Crimson April 29.
All-Ivy Honors
Five Harvard players were selected to the 2011 All-Ivy League team, marking the most Crimson players to be honored since 1994.
Jennifer VanderMeulen and Melanie Baskind both earned spots on the All-Ivy League first-team to lead the Crimson. Danielle Tetreault and Ellen Gleason were named to the second-team, earning All-Ivy accolades for the first time. Jess Halpern earned Ancient Eight honors for the third time when she received honorable mention this season.
The Others
No. 1 Penn plays No. 4 Princeton in the second semifinal game Friday night. Princeton was the only conference team to beat the Quakers this season.
Penn, ranked seventh in the nation, is coming off a 13-10 upset of No. 4 Duke last week. Six Quakers earned a spot on the All-Ivy League team, led by Erin Brennan.
Penn leads the all-time series that dates back to 1975, 20-18. Harvard fell to the Quakers, 9-8, March 12. The Quakers have won the last 1 meetings against the Crimson. Harvard won 15 straight against the Quakers from 1981-95. The Crimson's last victory against Penn came April 9, 2000 in Philadelphia.
Like the Crimson, Princeton had five honorees on the All-Ivy League team. The Tigers enter the tournament ranked 14th in the nation after wins over Columbia and Penn State.
Princeton leads the all-time series with the Crimson, 23-17. The two teams first played in 1975 with the Tigers earning the first three wins in the series. Harvard won 11 straight from 1984-92 and is currently riding a two-game win streak.
Tournament History
Penn hosted the inaugural Ivy League Women's Lacrosse Tournament in 2010 after going 7-0 in regular-season Ivy play. The Quakers won that tournament with a 13-9 semifinal win over Princeton and a 9-8 victory over Dartmouth in the championship game. Harvard is the one newcomer to the tournament, as Cornell joined the Quakers, Big Green and Tigers in the four-team field one year ago.
National Rankings
Harvard is receiving votes in the IWLCA poll for the ninth week in a row.
Upset City
Harvard has defeated a top-20 opponent in each of the last three seasons. Last week, the Crimson earned a 9-8 win against then-No. 12 Princeton. In 2010, Harvard knocked off No. 15 New Hampshire and the previous year, the Crimson topped No. 20 Cornell.
Silencing the Offense
Kerry Clark and the Crimson defense held Yale and New Hampshire without a goal in the second half. In fact, Harvard held its opponents scoreless for 71 minutes and 14 seconds in those two games.
Eight is Great
Harvard scored at least eight goals in 13 of its 14 games. The only time the Crimson did not meet the eight-goal mark was in its season finale against No. 10 Dartmouth.
Against the Rest
The Crimson has the league's highest scoring offense and take the most shots on goal (20.43) and the second best shot percentage (.473).
Jennifer VanderMeulen leads the league and is 15th the nation in goals per game (3.21). Danielle Tetreault is not far behind ranking 41st.
One Goal Games
Harvard has played in six one-goal games this season winning three of them. Three of Harvard's five losses came by just one tally.
Second Half Scorers
The Crimson is definitely a second-half team, coming from behind in four games to earn the victory: Cornell, Johns Hopkins, New Hampshire and Columbia.
About the Same
Harvard has scored 86 first-half goals and 88 second-half goals for 174 on the season.
Scoring Streak
Jennifer VanderMeulen has scored in every game of her career, 29 straight contests for the Crimson. She has 21 games with three or more goals and 14 games with four or more scores.
In the Record Books
Two Harvard players crossed the 100 goal plateau this season. Jess Halpern scored her 100th career goal against No. 7 Virginia (April 5), while Jennifer VanderMeulen did it against Dartmouth (April 28). Halpern has 108 goals (eighth on Harvard's all-time list), 22 assists and 130 career points entering this weekend. VanderMeulen's 101 career tallies, rank 10th in the Crimson annals.
One of a Kind
Harvard has just one senior of its roster this year in Sam McMahon.
The Young Guns
Harvard boasts 16 underclassmen, including 11 freshmen on its 24-player roster.
O' Captain, My Captain
Senior Sam McMahon and juniors Melanie Baskind and Tyler Petropulos were elected captains for the 2011 season. It's the fifth time in program history three players have been selected to lead the team and only the second since 1999.
Multi Sports Stars
Several Harvard players also moonlight on fall sports teams. Melanie Baskind is a member of the women's soccer team. She was the Ivy League Rookie of the Year in 2008 and has earned second-team (2009) and first-team (2010) All-Ivy League honors as well. She was an ESPN The Magazine Academic All-America second team selection last fall.
Sophomore Nina Kucharczyk and freshmen Mariah Pewarski and Morgan Powell suit up for the field hockey team as well.


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FDC(4) NetBSD/x86 Kernel Interfaces Manual FDC(4) NAME fdc -- NEC 765 floppy disk controller driver SYNOPSIS fdc0 at isa? port 0x3f0 irq 6 drq 2 fdc* at acpi? fdc* at pnpbios? index ? fd* at fdc? drive ? DESCRIPTION The fdc driver provides support for the NEC 765 floppy disk controller and floppy disk drives, commonly found on IBM-PC compatible systems. The driver supports the following floppy diskette formats by using par- ticular partitions: 1.44MB 3.5-inch (b) 1.2MB 5.25-inch (c) 360KB 5.25-inch (1.2MB drive) (d) 360KB 5.25-inch (IBM-PC drive) (e) 720KB 3.5-inch (f) 720KB 5.25-inch (g) 360KB 3.5-inch (h) Partition a selects the default format for the attached floppy drive, as determined by the BIOS configuration for the diskette drive. FORMATTING The driver supports floppy disk formatting using the interfaces in <sys/fdio.h>: FDIOCGETFORMAT struct fdformat_parms Fetch current formatting parameters. This gets the default parameters for the open device if no parame- ters have been set during the session. FDIOCSETFORMAT struct fdformat_parms Set formatting parameters. The driver saves this state and it persists while the device is open. FDIOCFORMAT_TRACK struct fdformat_cmd Format a track on the medium. If this call returns EINVAL, the track formatting parameters were out of range for the medium. If it returns EIO, there was a medium error while formatting the track. FDIOCSETOPTS int Set driver options which persist until the device is closed. The options should be the logical OR of the desired values below: FDOPT_NORETRY Do not retry operations on failure FDOPT_SILENT Do not print error messages to the con- sole FDIOCGETOPTS int Fetch drive options. A typical use of the formatting facilities would be to open the device, call FDIOCGETFORMAT to fetch the current format parameters, perhaps change a parameter or two, display the formatting details to the user, and then call FDIOCSETFORMAT followed by a series of calls to FDIOCFORMAT_TRACK. SEE ALSO fdformat(1), acpi(4), isa(4), pnpbios(4) HISTORY The fdc formatting support appeared in NetBSD 1.3. NetBSD 8.1 September 23, 2011 NetBSD 8.1
You can also request any man page by name and (optionally) by section:


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Books, Movies, Music
JCPL Catalog
Reading programs and Book Groups
Kids & Teens
Kids Zone
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For Parents and Teachers
Student Portal
Main Content
Rensselaer Library cancellations and schedule changes
During the recent extremely cold temperatures, the Rensselaer Library experienced broken water lines within the library due to frozen pipes in the library's ceiling.
The staff areas were the most severely impacted so staff work stations have been relocated to library meeting rooms so that staff areas may be repaired, repainted, and re-carpeted.
Since the library meeting rooms are not accessible for library programs, some upcoming programs for the months of January and February have been cancelled.
In Adult Services, all programs have been cancelled with the exception of the library's Winter Reading Program, which will resume when the library reopens to the public, Blood Pressure Screenings, slated for Wednesday, February 12, 10-10:30 am, and the Adult Book Discussion, slated to be held on Thursday, January 23 @ 1 pm, which has been relocated to the Carnegie Center in Rensselaer.
In Children's Services, Story Time for 2-5 Year Olds, held each Monday, January 20 & 27 and February 10-24 at 10 am & 2 pm, will resume as planned. All other children's programs are cancelled until further notice.
Please check your local newspapers and radio broadcasts for further information regarding the status of the library's reopening and updates on upcoming program information.
For more information, please call the Rensselaer Library, 866-5881.


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Abstract:In Kappa (1927), Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892-1927) takes the reader on a journey into a subterranean land inhabited by a species of eerie-miened water sprites that carries the same name as the novella's title. Borrowing from a longstanding literary tradition of travelogue-inspired, satirical utopias initiated by Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1735), Akutagawa presents a human protagonist embarking on a series of encounters with Kappas who, despite their amphibian appearance, are endowed with a character, behavior, and society that in many respects closely resembles that of humans. Claiming to see the author's shadow looming over almost every corner of the work, critics have often regarded Kappa as being, above all, a lampoon of Akutagawa's personal life and mental anguish around the time he composed it. However, considering the type of novels upon which it is modeled, in addition to the abundance of grotesque magnifications and absurdist inversions of aspects of contemporary Japanese society that Akutagawa lets his protagonist witness in Kappaland, the story should be considered as least as much as a piece of scintillating social satire. In this respect, Kappa can perhaps be interpreted as Akutagawa's answer to the writings of the then-in-vogue proletarian literature movement. In this paper, I will first try to place Kappa in the long line of (mainly Western) utopian works and social satires that antecede it, also briefly situating the novella in its contemporary Japanese literary context. In the second part, I would like to explore in some detail Akutagawa's attitude toward the political turmoil of his time and his outlook on the feasibility and desirability of a literature dealing with political or social problems. In the last part, finally, I will explore the dimension of social satire in Kappa.
'Oh, by the way, you're a socialist aren't you?'During his lifetime, and even more so after his suicide, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke 芥川龍之介 (1892-1927) was incessantly the target of the vitriolic criticism from adherents of the proletarian literature movement. These writers and critics accused him of being a petty bourgeois disengaged from social and political reality, or an ivory-tower intellectual utterly unconcerned with the ordeals of the working-class masses. In this paper I would like to provide evidence that this assessment of Akutagawa, if not totally wrong, is at least a gross exaggeration. As I will show, Akutagawa's own attitude toward the proletarian literature movement that was rising in 1920s Japan was far more benevolent than vice versa. This can be noticed, for example, in some essays in which he took up the defense of the notion of politically inspired literature. Moreover, with the novella Kappa 河童 (1927), he even provided a work himself that deals with themes at the time monopolized by proletarian literature.
With no hesitation, I replied, 'Qua' (This is the Kappanese for our 'yes.')
(Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Kappa, 1927)
In Kappa, which was inspired by Gulliver's Travels, a mental patient visits the land of the Kappas, a species of water imps from Japanese folklore, and becomes witness of a whole range of outrageous social wrongs that are inversions or exaggerations of Japanese societal problems. Hayashi Fusao 林房雄, one of Japan's most prominent proletarian writers, confessed to be both intrigued and displeased by the fact that a piece of "satirical literature that integrated criticism of all possible social phenomena into a single work was written first by Akutagawa before a socialist writer could venture to do such a thing." (Yoshida 1942: 319) Yet Akutagawa's reputation of total self-absorption has induced many scholars to interpret Kappa as being essentially the author's own caricature portrait, instead of an attempt at social satire. Though it is certainly not my intent to deny Kappa's many striking parallels with Akutagawa's personal life, I nevertheless think it would be unfair to reduce the work to mere self-expression and to ignore the profusion of sparkling, witty satire that tackles numerous aspects of contemporary Japanese society.
In this paper, I will first contextualize Kappa in the long line of utopian and satirical novels that anteceded it, also providing some information on the background of its contemporary literary scene. Next, I would like to examine to what extent Akutagawa was really as unconcerned with societal problems and their reflection in literature as he was often accused of. Finally, I will try to controvert the claim that Kappa is almost exclusively about the author himself, and have a closer look at the dimension of social satire which, as I will argue, is an equally crucial aspect of the novella.
Kappa's literary precursors and contemporaries
"Gulliver in a Kimono"Akutagawa, who had studied English Literature at university, was an avid reader of Western fiction, and, as we can glean from his autobiographical works, until the very last months of his life he spent a great deal of his time rummaging through the bookshelves of the Maruzen bookstore, Tokyo's mecca of foreign-language literature at the time. Naturally, this absorption with Western writings showed through in his own works, to the extent even that people have criticized them for being mere patchworks pieced together from a motley range of sources. Kappa, too, betrays influences of a wide variety of Western novels, but the closest affinity that can be noticed is with Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) and Samuel Butler's Erewhon (1872), works which are rooted themselves in a longstanding 'utopian tradition' of stories dealing with imaginative lands.
(Anonymous Time reviewer, 1947)
This tradition was initiated by Thomas More's Utopia (1515-16) and Tommaso Campanella's Civitas Solis (1623), both of which described ideal societies. A considerable innovation to the genre was made by Jonathan Swift in his Gulliver's Travels, as he added a critical quality to it by making the non-existing lands depicted in the work satirical versions of the society he lived in. This is exactly was Kappa does too, which should not surprise us since, as Tsuruta Kin'ya pointed out, "Akutagawa admitted in his letter to a poet friend, Saitō Mokichi, that he was writing … Kappa after the fashion of Gulliver's Travels." (Tsuruta 1982: 37) For his use, in Aesopean fashion, of nonhuman creatures to lampoon certain the evils of humanity, Akutagawa was indebted to Swift as well, and perhaps also to Goethe's Reineke Fuchs (1793). As Yoshida Sei'ichi (1955: 125) has shown, similarities with Erewhon, a social satire by Samuel Butler (a writer of whom Akutagawa had no less than nine works in his possession (Ishizaki 1990: 332)), are rather conspicuous too. In both stories, the protagonist chances upon another land during an excursion deep into the mountains and, even more strikingly, in Erewhon as well, children enter this world voluntarily, having moreover to sign a document to assume full responsibility for their choice to be born. Ideological inspiration for his critique of capitalism in Kappa Akutagawa might have found in News from Nowhere (1890), a socialist utopia authored by William Morris, whose life and work, incidentally, had been the subject of his graduation thesis at university.
Still many other possible Western influences have been mentioned by critics (including Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward and Anatole France's L'Île des Pingouins and Balthasar), but somewhat less often noticed are the precursors Kappa may have had in classical Japanese and Chinese literature. In both traditions, we find an age-old genre sometimes labeled as senkyō tairyū setsuwa 仙境滞留説話 ('Tales of a Sojourn in an Enchanted Land') with which Kappa has certain motifs in common. The traveler of Tao Qian's 陶潜fifth-century classic Tōkagen-ki 桃花源記 ('The Peach Blossom Spring'), for instance, like Kappa's protagonist enters the enchanted land through a hole in the ground (in this case in a mountain), and with both Tōkagen-ki and the old Japanese legend of Urashima Tarō 浦島太郎, Kappa shares the figure of the fisherman as an agent who is able to commute between the normal and fantastical world.
But whatever influences of foreign and classical Chinese and Japanese literature Kappa might have had, it was extremely innovative in that it revalued, and helped to reintroduce, both the fantastical and the satirical in contemporary Japan, two features which had been largely dormant in a literary world reigned for nearly half a century by seriousness and verisimilitude, the desiderata of Tsubouchi Shōyō's 坪内逍遥 brand of realism. Save for a few exceptions (among which is Natsume Sōseki's 夏目漱石 Wagahai wa neko de aru 吾輩は猫である ('I am a Cat', 1905-06)), Japanese literature had almost completely lost its sense for satire after the great gesaku masters of the Edo period, with Kanagaki Robun 仮名垣魯文 as their last representative in early Meiji. Rare exceptions like the literary products of the Ken'yūsha coterie and isolated works as Natsume Sōseki's Yumejūya 夢十夜 ('Ten Nights' Dreams,' 1908) notwithstanding, purely imaginative and fantastical aspects in fiction had been generally suppressed as well during the four decades when verisimilitude and introspection became the domineering values. Until Tsubouchi Shōyō rejected the genre, however, Japan had known a kind of literature that was set in the future (mirai-ki 未来記) and that, albeit in a way very different from Kappa's, also described imagined social and political systems. Scholar Kyōko Kurita has called these mirai-ki, which flourished especially in the second decade of the Meiji period (1868-1911), 'futurological novels,' (as opposed to 'futuristic novels') and maintains that they are "clearly extrapolated from present realities and … dialectically concerned with social and political issues." (2000: 7) Yoshida Sei'ichi (1955: 122) mentions as examples of this type of literature: Sudō Nansui's 須藤南翠 Shinsō no kajin 新粧の佳人 (1886), Hirotsu Ryūrō's 広津柳浪 Joshi sansei shinchūrō 女子参政蜃中楼 (1887), Suehiro Tetchō's末広鉄腸 Nijūsannen miraiki 二十三年未来記 (which he mistakenly ascribes to Fukuchi Ōchi 福地桜痴), and Yano Ryūkei's 矢野竜渓 Shinshakai 新社会 (1902).
The great difference of this last type of works with Kappa is, of course, that the imaginative political systems in the former are cast in a very positive light, whereas that of the latter is presented as rather bleak and disturbing. Kappaland constitutes such an uninviting society that Susan Napier felt inclined to call Kappa "Japan's first full-blown dystopian novel." (1996: 191) The work shares this negative and critical portrayal of a society with another distinctly political genre: proletarian literature. Generally accepted to have been launched with the issuing of the magazine Tane maku hito 種蒔く人 ('The Sower') in 1921, by the time of Kappa's publication in 1927, the proletarian literature movement was gaining ever more strength, to become Japan's literary world's dominant group only a few years later. Before I turn to the analysis of the outrageous society of the Kappas, I think it is opportune to have a closer look at Akutagawa's attitude toward this burgeoning literary movement, as well as toward the relevance of social and political matters to literature.
Akutagawa, politics, and proletarian literature
You attack the present social system, why?Though Akutagawa, along with Miyamoto Kenji and other proletarian critics, placed himself squarely into the lower middle class, he was certainly not the petty bourgeois utterly unconcerned with his political and social environment they accused him to be. Critic Satō Tsuguo (2001) tries to retrace a budding political concern in Akutagawa's college years, arguing that he was much influenced by the upheavals that came with the High Treason Incident (Taigyaku jiken 大逆事件) of 1910, in which a group of twenty-six socialists and anarchists was accused of conspiring to assassinate the emperor, and twelve, among whom Kōtoku Shūsui 幸徳秋水, were executed the following year. As Satō and other scholars demonstrate, Akutagawa more than likely attended the famous speech Muhonron 謀反論 ('A Vindication of Treason') that writer Tokutomi Roka 徳冨蘆花 delivered shortly after the incident at the First Higher School where Akutagawa was enrolled. In this speech, Roka fulminated against the actions of the government and maintained that history often proves the ones who are called 'insurrectionists' to be the real heroes. Another early indication of Akutagawa's political and social consciousness is his short story Nikkō shōhin 日光小品 ('A sketch of sunlight,' estimated 1911), in which he expressed his sympathy for the humanistic slant of Pyotr Kropotkin's socialist ideas. To Satō, the impetus for the young Akutagawa to write this work should be sought in Tokutomi Roka's speech.
Because I see the evils born of capitalism.
Evils? I didn't think you discriminated between good and evil. In that case, how about your own life?
– The discussion was with an angel. Impeccable. In a silk hat. …
(Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, A Fool's Life, 1927)
Upon the execution of Kōtoku Shūsui and the others, an unremitting repression of all ideologies deemed subversive followed, and the government succeeded in squashing the socialist movement for many years after. Around the end of the First World War, however, when the so-called "rice riots" forced the state to slightly relax its stranglehold, Japanese socialist and anarchist movements quickly awoke from their state of hibernation and seized the opportunity to regroup and launch new magazines (Crump 1998), among which there was one with literary ambitions, Tane maku hito ('The Sower'). Issued for the first time in February 1921, the magazine is widely considered to be the start of the proletarian literary movement.
This 'socialist surge' does not mean, of course, that state repression had ended. In an attempt to more effectively prosecute dissidents and put a halt to the spreading of radical propaganda, a bill called Kageki shakai undō torishimari hōan 過激社会運動取締法案 ('Radical Social Movements Control Bill') was proposed in February 1922. (Mitchell 1973: 329-30) That Akutagawa's political and social concern meanwhile had not waned in the least is clear from his reaction to this bill. In an entry to Chōkōdō zakki 澄江堂雑記 ('Chōkōdō Scribblings,' 1918-1924), a collection of notes he published in the course of six years, he expressed his sympathy for the socialists and his resentment toward the government's tactics in no uncertain terms: "Socialism," he starts, "is not a question of right or wrong. It simply is a necessity. Even the sight of a fire-walking ascetic could not rouse more astonishment in me than people who do not grasp this necessity. That 'Radical Social Movements Control Bill' truly is a good example of this." (Akutagawa 1922: 97)
Another event that sent major shock waves throughout Japan was the beating to death of anarchist Ōsugi Sakae 大杉栄, his lover and his six-year-old nephew by a military police squad in the confusion following the Great Kantō Earthquake in September 1923. Naturally, this incident did not leave Akutagawa cold too. An entry to his Chōkōdō zakki called "Chaplin" illustrates well how outrageous and absurd he felt the killings were:
All who bears the name of socialist, whether a Bolshevik or not, appears to be considered a threat. Especially at the time of the recent Great Earthquake, many seem to have been cursed this way. But, if we are speaking of socialists, Charlie Chaplin was a socialist too. If we are to persecute socialists, shouldn't we persecute Chaplin as well, then? Imagine that Chaplin was killed by a military police lieutenant. Imagine that, while doing his duck-walk, all of a sudden he was stabbed to death. No one who has gazed at his figure on the screen could possibly not feel indignant. If we were to project this indignation to the present situation… Anyway, the only thing that is sure is that you, dear reader, are on the black list too. (Akutagawa 1923a: 283)
But Akutagawa's championing of socialism did not only apply to current politics-related events in Japanese society. He also seemed intent on defending the socialist movement's literary spin-off: the burgeoning but heavily chastised proletarian literature movement. In 'Kaizō' puroretaria bungei no kahi o tou 「改造」プロレタリア文学の可否を問ふ ('On the Pros and Cons of Kaizō's Proletarian Literature,' 1923), a short essay written early that year, he opens as follows: "Literature is not so unrelated to politics as many people suppose. It might more properly be said that the special characteristic of literature is that it can be related even to politics. Proletarian literature, which has finally got underway only recently, has been much too slow in making its appearance." (Keene 1984: 576) In Akutagawa's view, it could not be excluded that another Victor Hugo or Rai Sanyō would stand up among the proletarian writers. While he respected the opinions of writers who thought art was for art's sake, he said he nevertheless thought it worthier to share the joys and grieves of the common people than to congratulate oneself with one's minutely wrought but vain art. However, Akutagawa's acclaim for the proletarian writers was not unequivocal. He was at the same time very critical of their fanaticism and black-and-white thinking, and insisted that not all bourgeois people are bad, just as not all proletarians are good. What Akutagawa said he valued most of all was, after all, "the freedom of the mind." (1923b: 275-76)
Yet despite his approbation, on the whole, of proletarian literature, he in return only became the target of their continuous critique for being a member of an outmoded bourgeois intellectual class. We can hear a slightly bitter tone in Puroretaria bungaku ron プロレタリア文学論 ('A Discussion of Proletarian Literature'), another short essay on the subject he wrote nearly two years later. "I do not mean to speak evil here of proletarian literature. I want to defend it," he starts off. "However, as I am generally considered to be a bourgeois writer, probably they will tell me: 'We don't need you to defend us.'" (1924: 29) He counters the attacks on his person by arguing that it is absurd to automatically call everyone who is not explicitly proletarian a bourgeois. Just like there is not only black and white, but also red and blue, the world is not merely divided between capitalists and proletarians. He moreover exposes the irony that the practitioners and theorists of proletarian literature rarely came out of the ranks of the working class themselves: "As, in our present society, there exists no proletarian culture," he says, "… proletarian literature should be considered just another form of literature born out of bourgeois culture." (1924: 29) He proceeds by giving the example of socialist writer Bernard Shaw, who was leading a life in great luxury in a way he judges far more 'bourgeois' than the lifestyles of Japan's so-called bourgeois writers. (1924: 29-30)
In this same essay, Akutagawa also puts his finger on one of the biggest flaws that is generally mentioned with respect to Japanese proletarian literature; that is, a lack of artistic value. "After all is said and done," he concludes, "proletarian literature too should be of good quality." (1924: 31) He strongly argues against the proletarian writers' belief that for the moment a militant literature was needed to raise the political awareness in the people, so that, as soon as the working class was liberated, a splendid literature could emerge. Good proletarian literature has to be produced now, he insists. But to his frustration, despite all the fuss about proletarian literature for the last three or four years, not one proletarian work has thus far been able to really move him. Therefore, he decides, proletarian literature should be considered a still undeveloped terrain. (1924: 31-33) Perhaps his writing Kappa can be interpreted as his own attempt to make up for this lacuna in Japanese socio-politically inspired literature.
In Shuju no kotoba 侏儒の言葉 ('Words of the Ignoramus,'1925a), a collection of aphorisms and random jottings he finished about two years before Kappa and which bears many thematic resemblances with it, Akutagawa again criticizes the rigid and unaesthetic approach of hard-core Marxist writers to literature: "Suppose that every single novelist's depiction of life should be based on Marx' materialistic view of history. Then likewise every poet's verses about the sun and the moon, about mountains and rivers, should be founded on a Copernican heliocentric view. However, not to say "the sun goes down in the west," but instead, "the earth revolves so-and-so many degrees," is not necessarily aesthetically superior." (1925a: 85-86)
Akutagawa was of course not a socialist, but neither did he neatly fit the image of the decadent bourgeois intellectual totally disengaged from the very society that proletarian writers and many a scholar of his work upheld. Contrary to numerous other artists and writers of his era who advocated an art for art's sake devoid of all practical aims, Akutagawa did not exclude the possibility of good political literature. However, the one condition he imposed was that literature, political or not, should always maintain its artistic value. This was exactly the problem of proletarian literature, which was too belligerent, and too focused on liberating the masses, to be overly concerned with the kind of aesthetic principles Akutagawa held sacred. Kappa, which may well have been Akutagawa's reaction to the continuous critique of his alleged political aloofness, precisely made up for what proletarian literature was lacking: finesse, humor, and, above all, artistic skill. Let us now take a closer look at the work itself.
Social satire in Kappa
There he was, legs straddling wide, peeping through his legs at every car and every single person as they passed. …Kappa begins with a short 'Author's Preface' describing the visit of the apparent 'author' to a mental asylum. There he meets Patient No.23, a man who claims to have stayed several months in the land of the Kappas. In the course of the following seventeen relatively short chapters, the narrator tells us of his many adventures there and his numerous encounters with Kappa individuals. The personages and events that shape his account obviously reflect many stereotypical personalities and an array of social issues that can be traced back to contemporary Japanese society. Nevertheless, critics so far have tended to downplay these elements, focusing rather on the story's numerous autobiographical aspects. Yoshida Sei'ichi, Akutagawa's biographer, even went so far as to say that "the world of Kappa relates nothing but his own anguished mind." (1942: 319)
'… Everything seemed so terribly gloomy that I thought I'd have a go at looking at the world the other way up. But it turns out to be just the same, after all.'
(Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Kappa)
Perhaps Akutagawa's famous statement, made in a letter, that "Kappa was born out of my dégôut with respect to everything, especially myself" (Keene 1984: 580) may have formed the root of this rather biased approach. Admittedly, it would be hard not to recognize Akutagawa and his frame of mind in the last months of his life in descriptions of a fear of bad genes, of distressing family relations, of he-Kappas being chased by she-Kappas, of a commandment of the 'Modernist' religion saying "live vigorously," or a fire incident well-covered by insurance. Who would not associate, furthermore, the depressed chain-smoking poet Tok, who kills himself and then, posthumously, makes inquiries about his fame and the well-being of the ones he left behind, with the melancholic and suicidal Akutagawa? Withal, either a fool or an ignoramus would be the critic who missed the resemblance of both the title and the aphoristic content of Kappa Mag's work Ahō no kotoba 阿呆の言葉 ('Words of the Fool') with Akutagawa's own Shuju no kotoba 侏儒の言葉 ('Words of the Ignoramus,'1925a) and Aru ahō no isshō 或る阿呆の一生 ('A Fool's Life,' 1927).
All the same, to neglect or trivialize the elements of social satire in Kappa so flagrantly as many critics have done, is to sell the work short and to disregard the author's own ideas of what a novel should be. In the entry "Confessions" (1923) to Chōkōdō zakki, Akutagawa reveals to us his aversion to the all too candid confessional novels with which the literary scene of the 1920s inundated:
They often tell me 'to write more about your life and make a bolder confession'. I too make confessions; my stories are confessions of my own experiences to a degree. What they want is for me to make myself the hero of a novel, write of actual events concerning me without reservation, and furthermore attach to the book an identification chart of the names of the characters and the real persons. Let it be clear that I have no intention of writing such a work. Firstly, it disagrees with me no end that I exhibit my private life to those curiosity-seekers. Secondly, it gives me no pleasure to turn such a confession into profit and fame. Let us suppose that I wrote my sexual experiences like Kobayashi Issa and published it in the New Year issue of, say, Chūō kōron. My readers would be thrilled; my critics would shower me with praise: Akutagawa's great leap forward etc., and my friend would be happy, saying 'Akutagawa is now naked and truthful,' etc. Just thinking of it gives me bone-chilling shivers. (Tsuruta 1970: 23-24)
In "'Watakushi' shōsetsu ron shōken" 「私」小説論小見 ('My View on the I-Novel') he again unequivocally rejects his friend Kume Masao's 久米正雄 claim that "the true way for prosaic art is the I-novel;" to admit that "a writer cannot express anything unless it already exists inside his mind" (1925b: 24) is about as far as Akutagawa in 1925 would go.
It is true that in the last two years of his life, spurred by the thickening shadow of the death he was doubtlessly foreseeing, Akutagawa wrote works that can positively be defined as autobiographical. Yet we have to agree with Donald Keene that "[e]ven then he was still reluctant to espouse the "I Novel" in the manner of Kume Masao." (Keene 1984: 575) Moreover, since Kappa is so different from these other late works in its design, intention and content, it would be inapposite to indiscriminately throw all these literary creations into one and the same shady category. The following entry from Shuju no kotoba perhaps captures well how Kappa and its 'personal aspects' should be taken:
It is impossible for a person to confess the entirety of himself and it is impossible for him to engage in art without expressing himself. Rousseau was fond of confession but you will not see Rousseau stark naked in his Confessions. Mérimée abhorred confessions, but does not his Colomba reveal Mérimée between its lines? The borderline between literature of confession and others is not so clear as on might suppose. (Tsuruta 1970: 22)
As Kappa, which was intended neither as pure autobiography nor as undiluted fiction, belongs to the immense gray zone in between these two poles, it becomes all the more difficult and ultimately pointless to grope for that exceedingly hazy 'borderline.' This stated, for the remaining part of this paper, I will consider Kappa's many elements of satire and parody, which are constructed mainly through inversions and distortions of Japan's social and political reality.
From the initial descriptions of the Kappas' appearance and practices, we learn that they wear no clothes at all, and are conversely amused at us, humans', need to cover our nakedness. "The most puzzling of all," says the bewildered narrator, "was the confusing Kappa way of getting everything upside down: where we humans take a thing seriously, the Kappa will tend to be amused; and, similarly, what we humans find amusing the Kappa will take in deadly earnest." (Bownas 1970: 60) An extreme instance of inversion is the fact that, unlike humans, Kappa children are born as a result of their free will. When a child is about to be born, the father puts his mouth to the mother's vagina and ascertains if it really wishes to enter this world. If not, the infant is aborted immediately. (61-62)
The first distinctly social issue that comes under Akutagawa's satirical attack is the family system that is so typical for Japan. In Kappa, the family is portrayed literally as a burden: "[A] Kappa, who was still quite young was staggering along the street, gasping desperately for breath; draped round his neck were seven or eight Kappas, including two who looked like his mother and father." (66) As Akutagawa had experienced himself, the many responsibilities that the social institution of the family entails can cause a lot of distress for an individual. According to Tok the poet, Akutagawa's principal alter ego throughout the novella, "the family system was absurd beyond belief," as "parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters – all spend their time indulging their sole pleasure, that of making life burdensome for each other." (66)
The family even meddles in the love affairs of young Kappas, which at once brings us to the strange way courtship is practiced in Kappaland. There, it is the female Kappa who aggressively pursues the object of her lust. (70) However, before the reader thinks of the he-Kappa as fortunate, it should be added that a 'kiss' of a she-Kappa involves the risk of getting a 'rotten beak,' (71) an unmistakable allusion to the venereal diseases which were a widespread phenomenon in Taishō Japan. In their wanton chase, furthermore, she-Kappas are sometimes assisted by their families – an disguised critique, perhaps, of the Japanese omiai kekkon お見合い結婚, or arranged marriages, which still were the norm in late Taishō, ealy Shōwa Japan. In such marriages, it often was the family rather than the young candidates themselves who had the last word. Tellingly, also, Tok the poet was an advocate and practitioner of 'free love.' (65)
The inversion of gender patterns is not restricted the realm of love affairs, but is a consistent theme throughout the novella. So it is that in the Kappa-universe, God created the female Kappa first, and then, to dispel her tedium, "took her brain and made of it the male Kappa." (122) Brainlessness certainly does not mean powerlessness, however. That wives are the masters of households – as is the case with Gael the magnate (89) and the elder Kappa of the Great Tabernacle (124) – might not surprise us so much, but what is more likely to do so is that a she-Kappa (again Gael's spouse) is secretly in control of the Cabinet and, therefore, of the country (89). A she-Kappa, scheming to poison her husband but accidentally killing a prominent Otter of the neighboring country, even ends up starting a massive war. (90-91) But despite their pervasive authority, the overall picture that Akutagawa puts up of the female sex is not very positive: "looking quite out of [their] mind, [she-Kappas dash] pell-mell after the male (70);" they are seductive and alluring, but at the same time deceitful and crooked enough to concoct evil plots and have innocent he-Kappas killed (72); and they are said to be "more prone to jealousy than their male counterparts" (74). Even more importantly, save for the wife of the church's elder, they are not given a voice throughout the novella, as it are always the males who do the talking. In précis, despite his 'empowering' of female Kappas in a sense, in the end we cannot say that Akutagawa is making the case for feminism.
Remarkably, artists do not escape becoming the target of Akutagawa's lampoons either. On the contrary, just as he himself had been reviled by the advocates of proletarian literature for his "affectedness" and "decadence," these same traits in the Kappa intelligentsia, and especially in the artists of the 'super-Kappa-club,' an art-for-art's-sake circle, are what attracts some of Akutagawa's most cutting satire. A detail that illustrates the affectedness of 'cultured Kappas' are the programs used at their music concerts, which "like ours in Japan are usually larded with a lot of German." (76) Under the bright lights of the super-Kappa-club's salon, which is attended by "poets, novelists, playwrights, critics, painters, composers, sculptors, as well as a fair number of amateur dabblers (67)," extreme decadence rules. Examples of their limitless debauchery are a sculptor publicly engaging in homosexual activities with a young Kappa, and a woman Kappa novelist standing on a table and gulping down as much as sixty bottles of absinth, to drop dead on the spot eventually. (67-68) By means of this kind of outrageous satire, Akutagawa obviously distanced himself from the image of the affected and decadent bourgeois intellectual that perpetually haunted him. Thus, Akutagawa's grotesque caricature of exactly the same old traits the proletarian writers and critics attributed to himself, might be explained as his purposive undercutting of the argumentation used against him.
A satirical criticism that was also closely related to the practical concerns of the proletarian literary movement, was the one aimed at tyrannical censorship. In Kappa, a classical concert is suddenly interrupted by a policeman, which provokes the audience to vehemently oppose with shouting and the throwing of objects. (77-78) Mag, the philosopher among the Kappas, explains that painting and writing, because its message is supposed to be readily understood, is not subject to censorship. Music, however, only means anything to Kappas with "an ear for music," and is therefore considered potentially subversive. That, says Mag, is why there is a prohibition on performance. Censorship, in other words, is exercised for the one and only reason that the authorities do not understand what it is about. Mag's final comments directly attack the Japanese situation. When the narrator is appalled at so much political tyranny in Kappaland, Mag answers: "[O]urs is a much more progressive censorship than you find anywhere else! Look at Japan, for instance. There, only a month or so back, there was another instance of…" At this point, his speech suddenly breaks of because his head is hit by a flying bottle. (79-80) In short, it is implied that however oppressive and absurd the censorship of Kappaland may be, the situation is still better than that of Japan. In fact, it was not without reason that Mag (and Akutagawa) complained about Japanese censorship. Publication laws were very strict in pre-war Japan, and writings with sexual, religious, and especially political content were subject to rigorous scrutiny. In 1924, the Home Ministry had created a Publications Monitoring Department, which had separate sections for censorship, investigation and general affairs. Also, with the enactment of the Peace Preservation Law of 1925, the polity had obtained a new effective instrument to suppress political movements as socialism, communism and anarchism. (Mitchell 1973: 335-42; and Crump 1998) The incident of "only a month or so back" Mag refers to may have been the ban of the posthumous publication of female anarchist Kaneko Fumiko's 金子文子 poems in January 1927. (Nihon anakizumu undō jinmei jiten 2004)
Revealingly, the bulk of Kappa's satire was reserved for diverse themes related to capitalism and the predicament of the proletariat. The most important representative of the capitalist class was the Kappa Gael, called "the capitalist to end all capitalists." (81) In not very flattering terms, the narrator says of him that "not even in this land of fat paunches was there one that sagged and bellied out quite as disgustingly as Gael's." (81) He lives in the utmost luxury, using golden spoons, and dwelling in a residence where every room, and even the furniture, is gold-rimmed. (86-87) Ironically described as a cordial fellow at first, it soon will become clear that this Kappa is a businessman of the most ruthless sort.
Gael gives the narrator introductions to various factories. In those he is faced with the rapidly proceeding automation that is taking place in Kappaland. Each month, for example, as much as seven or eight hundred new kinds of machines are being invented. (82-83) This clearly is an allusion to the booming mass production and consumption that characterized 1920s Japan. An interesting and thought-provoking case of mass production in Kappaland is the way books are manufactured. All that is needed, it is said, is paper, ink and a grey-looking powder, which is soon revealed to be ass-brain. These ingredients are poured into a funnel-mouthed machine, to be, in only a few seconds, "ejected as octavos, duodecimos, royal octavos and so on." (82) It is left to the reader's imagination what the quality and intellectual level of these books made up of 'ass-brain' must have been. Music and paintings, moreover, are produced in a similar fashion. Here, Akutagawa is obviously satirizing the tendency in 1920s Japan to commodify art and literature, a trend epitomized by the enpon 円本, literary collections sold at only one yen a volume. By using the 'ass-brain' metaphor, Akutagawa is evidently pointing to the danger of diminished quality that lies in the commodification of art.
Another consequence of this rashly proceeding automation is that constantly, huge amounts of Kappa labor force become redundant. We are told that at least fourteen, fifteen thousand laborers are being dismissed every month. Nevertheless, there are no strikes in Kappaland. Instead – and this is perhaps the most grotesque satire of the whole novella – redundant laborers are gassed, whereupon their flesh is used as meat. (83) That Akutagawa should reserve his most biting satire to criticize the situation of the proletariat shows once more how wrong his critics were when condemning his purported aloofness. Though of course not in the extreme degree as in Kappaland, in real Japan too, worker's rights were very limited. All workers' organizations and strikes had been outlawed by The Public Peace Police Law of 1900, and were even further restricted by the Peace Preservation Law of 1925. (Crump 1998) In Kappaland, there is the inversion, as it were, of the concept of workers' rights. Our narrator, asking if the workers do not protest against their horrible fate, is answered by a character called Judge Pep: "It wouldn't make any difference, however much trouble they made. You see, we have a statute covering the butchery of the worker [shokkō tosatsu hō 職工屠殺法]." (84) When the narrator, aghast, goes on expressing his strong disagreement to these practices, he is countered: "Tell me, isn't it true that, in your country, the daughters of the fourth class are sold into prostitution? If this is so – and you're bound to admit it is – then it's sheer sentimentality on your part to get hot under the collar about something as trifling as eating workmen's flesh as meat!" (84) Again, Akutagawa sarcastically exposes the flaws of Japanese society by suggesting that, in the end, it is no better than Kappaland.
The political world does not escape Akutagawa's satire either. Not only are politicians in Kappaland not honest, but they are not even expected to be. The narrator points to the untruthfulness of a "distinguished statesman's" public utterances, but is silenced by the dubious rhetoric of Gael the capitalist: "[E]veryone realizes that they are lies, so, in the end, it no doubt boils down to the same thing as the truth." (87) The politicians, however, are not at the core of the problem, as they appear to be mere puppets whose strings are ultimately pulled by capitalists, or, more precisely, the wives of capitalists. The power hierarchy in Kappaland is most unusual. The Cabinet, we learn, is controlled by a "socialist" newspaper. However – and this is the purest irony – this "socialist" newspaper is itself also under the control of Gael, the biggest capitalist in the country. (87-88) In short, political parties and the press are just marionettes in the hands of capitalists, used to exert power over the working class. To emphasize their instrumentality, the names of political parties and newspapers consist of mere interjections with no meaning. (88)
It was mentioned earlier that there had been a war between the Kappas and their neighboring country, inhabited by the Otters. No less than 369,500 Kappas had lost their lives in that conflict. Gael seems fatalistic when he says: there will be war "as long as we have neighbours." (89) The truth is, however, that this tycoon had shamelessly gained profit out the war, supplying coal cinders as food for the troops. This was no problem, Gael remarks, since "as long as our bellies are empty, we Kappas will get our teeth into anything under the sun." (91) The narrator notes that this sort of thing would surely cause a scandal in Japan, but is again riposted with the most outrageous type of twisted rhetoric: "Here, too. Scandal and no mistake! But as long as I myself concede the fact of scandal, no one makes an issue out of it." (91) No wonder, as he is in control of both the press and the political world.
The penal system of Kappaland is characterized by absurd laws, and knows the death penalty too, but again, Japanese legislation is presented as nothing better, or even worse, than Kappa law. When asked if there exists capital punishment in Japan as well, the narrator reluctantly admits that they have hanging, but then exclaims: "I suppose you're going to tell me that capital punishment in this country is far more enlightened than it is in Japan!" The Kappa judge Pep answers: "Naturally, far more enlightened." (108)
Obviously, Kappa was not born out of Akutagawa's dégôut with himself alone, but, as he said, with everything. The last topic of Kappa I will touch upon here, religion, was described by Akutagawa in words dripping with cynicism. The prevalent creed of the Kappas is Modernism, also called Viverism. Ironically, despite the name Viverism and its adage 'live life vigorously,' the saints of this religion are all suicidal, insane, or die untimely. (119-22) The aged priest of the Great Tabernacle, moreover, admits that he does not believe in the 'Tree of Life,' their main object of worship. (124) Whether social, political, or religious, virtually no institution was spared from Akutagawa's acerbic pen.
In the last years of his short life, Akutagawa's physical and mental health was rapidly deteriorating. In Shuju no kotoba he called life "more hellish than hell itself" (1925a: 34), and in a letter he wrote on October 29, 1926, a little bit over three months before Kappa, he wrote: "My head feels so weird. … [E]ven the most futile matter … causes me to sink, inevitably, into a state of melancholy. When I ask myself how many New Years I will be able to welcome hereafter, I feel wretched beyond description." (Ishizaki 1990: 339-40) Yet despite his mental agonies, within half a year from his suicide on July 24, 1927, he surprisingly still found the time and the energy to produce a work that is so concerned with the various problems that existed in Japanese society. Considering his anguish, which caused him to "subsist on opium extracts, strychnine, laxatives, and Veronal," (Ishizaki 1990: 340) one cannot but marvel that he managed to write a ravishing work so full of scintillating satire as Kappa. Writing Kappa, however, appears to have been quite engaging to him. He said he wrote it with "a speed he had not known lately" (Yoshida 1955: 124), and revealed that after he had "finished the 106-page-manuscript of Kappa, [he felt] a little relieved." (Yoshida 1955: 124)
Yet, as I explained earlier, his effort has not always been recognized justly. Seiji Lippit eloquently summarizes how Akutagawa's literary work and his untimely death were perceived by the advocates of proletarian literature and the Japanese literary world in general:
A number of writers and critics … interpreted his death as marking the defeat of an intellectual (or aestheticized) literary practice disengaged from historical and social reality. This point was particularly emphasized by several prominent Marxist critics, who read his personal crisis as "one aspect of a collapsing bourgeoisie." Miyamoto Kenji crystallized this sentiment in his landmark 1929 essay, "Haiboku no bungaku" (The Literature of Defeat), in which he wrote that Akutagawa's late writings and death constituted a warning to bourgeois intellectuals of the inevitable and disastrous results of their aestheticism and hermeticism. (Lippit 1999: 27)
I hope that this paper has sufficiently shown that this kind of assessment of Akutagawa and his work is not exactly fair. Akutagawa was in fact not at all indifferent to the socio-political events that took place around him, and neither was he a diehard aesthete totally against the idea of engaged literature. On the contrary, with the essayistic jottings of Chōkōdō zakki, Shuju no kotoba, and Aru ahō no isshō, and especially with Kappa, he demonstrated that he himself was capable of producing literature that, albeit humorous and aesthetically pleasing, was also of a political nature.
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Ishizaki Hitoshi 石崎等. "Yuganda jigazō: "Kappa" shiron." ゆがんだ自画像:『河童』試論. In Sakkaron: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke 作家論:芥川龍之介. Sōbunsha shuppan, 1990.
Donald Keene. Dawn to the West: Japanese Literature of the Modern Era. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984.
Kurita Kyōko. "Meiji Japan's Y23 Crisis and the Discovery of the Future: Suehiro Tetcho's Nijusan-nen mirai-ki." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 60:1 (2000), pp.5-43.
Seiji M. Lippit. "The Disintegrating Machinery of the Modern: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's Late Writings." The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 58:1 (February 1999), pp.27-50.
Richard H. Mitchell. "Japan's Peace Preservation Law of 1925: Its Origins and Significance Source." Monumenta Nipponica, 28:3, (Autumn 1973), pp.317-45.
Suzan Napier. The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature. London: Routledge, 1996.
Nihon anakizumu undō jinmei jiten 2004
"Kaneko Fumiko" 金子文子. Nihon anakizumu undō jinmei jiten 日本アナキズム運動人名事典, 2004. [Online] Available at: http://members2.jcom.home.ne.jp/anarchism/anarchism.html.
Will Petersen, trans. A Fool's Life, by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. New York: Grossman Publishers, 1970.
Satō Tsuguo 佐藤嗣男. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: sono bungaku no, chikasui o saguru 芥川龍之介:その文学の、地下水を探る. Ōfū, 2001.
Time. "Gulliver in a Kimono." 25 August 1947, p.24.
Tsuruta Kin'ya. "Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and I-Novelists." Monumenta Nipponica, 25:1/2 (1970), pp.13-27.
Tsuruta Kin'ya. "Kappa." In Approaches to the Modern Japanese Short Story. Waseda University Press, 1982.
Yoshida Sei'ichi 吉田精一. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke 芥川龍之介. Orig. pub. Sanshōdō, 1942; repr. Nihon Tosho Sentā, 1993.
Yoshida Sei'ichi 吉田精一. "Kaisetsu" 解説. Orig. pub. 1955; repr. in Kappa, hoka nihen 河童 他二篇. Iwanami shoten, 2003.


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Fat-Oxidizing Agent L-Carnitine Linked to Enhanced Recovery and Growth
[ Editor's Note:
In the supplement industry, new products usually appear months or even years after scientific breakthroughs, as manufacturers scurry to keep up with current science (or merely issue "copycat" formulations approximating new technologies already brought to market by the industry's few truly innovative companies. It's interesting to note, however, that BioQuest often inverts this process. A new BioQuest technology will appear, and then clinical studies will appear in great number, validating the research and development efforts of the BioQuest team. Such is the case with AndroCept, an androgen receptor growth catalyst first introduced more than a year ago. Here, supplement science expert Jeff Volek, PhD, takes a close look at clinical science associated with L-Carnitine L-Tartrate and its benefits for athletes.]
has long been known as the "fat burning" supplement. Recent studies, however, suggest that there's a lot more to carnitine than the crucial role it plays in helping athletes
get and stay lean
. Carnitine is a nutrient that accumulates in cells where it helps transport fat into the mitochondria to be burned. Since carnitine is natural, non-toxic, and deficiencies have been linked to profound impairment in muscle function, there is little downside--and plenty of upside--to considering this supplement in your nutritional arsenal, especially when you consider the exciting science that has been done in the last few years.
Fat Burning
Without carnitine, fats cannot be
burned for energy
. This explains the fascination with carnitine supplementation as a fat burner. In two separate studies, supplementation of carnitine (3 grams per day) for 10 days resulted in
significantly higher rates of fat oxidation
(1,2). This work was recently validated by researchers in the United Kingdom (3). They studied healthy endurance-trained men who supplemented with 80 grams of carbohydrate 2 times per day for 24 weeks. One group also received 2 grams
l-carnitine l-tartrate (LCLT)
in their carbohydrate beverage. Resting muscle carnitine was unchanged after 12 weeks but increased by 21% after 24 weeks in the carnitine group. When the carnitine group exercised at a low intensity after 24 weeks of supplementation, they showed the higher muscle carnitine was linked to
significant muscle glycogen sparing
(55% less) compared to controls. Work output was 35% greater than controls.
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for a chance to win this product!
Recovery from Exercise
Several lines of evidence support a role of carnitine in other processes beyond muscle fat burning. Much of this work has been done over the last decade in my laboratory at the University of Connecticut. Building on prior work that had showed carnitine had
(promotes dilation) effects, we conducted a series of studies aimed at elucidating the role of LCLT in
exercise recovery
In our first study we reported that healthy men who supplemented with LCLT (2 g/day for 3 wks) showed significantly less accumulation of markers of post-exercise stress including less formation of free radicals, tissue damage, and muscle soreness after moderate intensity squat exercise (4). We performed a follow-up study to validate those findings and determine whether a smaller dose of LCLT was effective (5). Healthy men performed a resistance exercise challenge that included 5 sets of squat exercise on 3 separate occasions. For 3 weeks prior to each test, subjects ingested either 1 gram LCLT/day, 2 g LCLT/day, or a placebo. Similar to our previous work we showed that
LCLT supplementation
was effective at reducing the acute response of several markers of biochemical stress after resistance exercise. In addition, perception of muscle soreness was lower after exercise. A novel finding was that 1 g/day LCLT was as effective as 2 g/day. Since our prior work was in young men, we performed a third experiment in middle-aged men and women 40-65 years of age (6). We used a similar methodology and LCLT dose (2 grams per day). Similar to the previous two studies, we validated that LCLT supplementation lowered post-exercise markers of metabolic stress, muscle disruption, and muscle soreness in baby boomers.
RELATED: Read here for THE BEST PROTEIN FOR BUILDING MUSCLE
There are several lines of evidence pointing to a possible role of carnitine in testosterone metabolism so we performed another study to examine the influence of LCLT on testosterone responses to resistance exercise. Resistance exercise is a reliable stimulus for transiently i
ncreasing testosterone,
but one of the puzzling issues is that ingesting calories after exercise consistently reduces the testosterone response. Testosterone can bind to almost any cell in the body so simply increasing testosterone levels will not necessarily result in anabolic effects in muscle unless the hormone actually binds to androgen receptors on muscle. So we thought that ingesting calories after exercise would increase androgen receptors on muscle explaining why blood levels of testosterone were lower and that LCLT might play a role as well. Indeed we showed that feeding after exercise decreased the testosterone response but that androgen receptors in muscle were upregulated. Further we showed that 3 weeks of
LCLT supplementation
increased resting androgen receptor content (7).
Vascular Health
Carnitine has other benefits on overall health. A large number of studies have shown that carnitine has vasoactive effects improving the ability of blood vessels to dilate. In another experiment, we set out to examine the effects of carnitine supplementation on flow mediated dilation of the brachial artery as a measure of vascular health (8). Healthy subjects consumed a high fat meal which has been shown to cause impairment of vascular health. We showed that ingestion of 2 grams LCLT with the meal enhanced vascular responses (increased dilation) to the high fat meal. This was most apparent in those subjects who had the greatest decrease in vascular function. Because vascular dysfunction is an early event in heart disease, this finding is of considerable interest and worthy of further study.
In addition to potentially enhancing fat burning at rest and during exercise,
carnitine supplementation
enhances recovery from exercise, decreases exercise-induced muscle damage, decreases muscle soreness, increases anti-oxidant effects, enhances androgen receptors, and improves vascular function. An innovative product that incorporates LCLT is
AndroCept from BioQuest
. It contains the same dose of LCLT used in all our prior work with additional co-factors.
1. Wutzke KD, Lorenz H. The effect of l-carnitine on fat oxidation, protein turnover, and body composition in slightly overweight subjects. Metabolism. 2004 Aug;53(8):1002-6.
2. Müller DM, Seim H, Kiess W, Löster H, Richter T. Effects of oral L-carnitine supplementation on in vivo long-chain fatty acid oxidation in healthy adults. Metabolism. 2002 Nov;51(11):1389-91.
3. Wall BT, Stephens FB, Constantin-Teodosiu D, Marimuthu K, Macdonald IA, Greenhaff PL. Chronic oral ingestion of L-carnitine and carbohydrate increases muscle carnitine content and alters muscle fuel metabolism during exercise in humans: the dual role of muscle carnitine in exercise metabolism. J Physiol. 2011 Jan 4.
4. Volek, J. S., Kraemer, W. J., Rubin, M. R., Gomez, A. L., Ratamess, N. A. & Gaynor, P. L-Carnitine L-tartrate supplementation favorably affects markers of recovery from exercise stress. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. (2002); 282:E474-482.
5. Spiering, B. A., Kraemer, W. J., Vingren, J. L., Hatfield, D. L., Fragala, M. S., Ho, J. Y., Maresh, C. M., Anderson, J. M. & Volek, J. S. Responses of criterion variables to different supplemental doses of L-carnitine L-tartrate. J Strength Cond Res. (2007); 21:259-264.
6. Ho JY, Kraemer WJ, Volek JS, Fragala MS, Thomas GA, Dunn-Lewis C, Coday M, Häkkinen K, Maresh CM. l-Carnitine l-tartrate supplementation favorably affects biochemical markers of recovery from physical exertion in middle-aged men and women. Metabolism. 2010 Aug;59(8):1190-9.
7. Kraemer WJ, Spiering BA, Volek JS, Ratamess NA, Sharman MJ, Rubin MR, French DN, Silvestre R, Hatfield DL, Van Heest JL, Vingren JL, Judelson DA, Deschenes MR, Maresh CM. Androgenic responses to resistance exercise: effects of feeding and L-carnitine. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2006 Jul;38(7):1288-96. Erratum in: Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2006 Oct;38(10):1861.
8. Volek JS, Judelson DA, Silvestre R, Yamamoto LM, Spiering BA, Hatfield DL, Vingren JL, Quann EE, Anderson JM, Maresh CM, Kraemer WJ. Effects of carnitine supplementation on flow-mediated dilation and vascular inflammatory responses to a high-fat meal in healthy young adults. Am J Cardiol. 2008 Nov 15;102(10):1413-7.
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Production: Hot and Cold Setting Together in Far East
By: Mark Vruno
Heatset/coldset hybrid printing press technologies have been around for more than a decade. But a more global trend started nearly three years ago, when China's newspapers began embracing foreign equipment and cooperation. The latest example is the daily Guizhou Ribao, covering Guizhou province in southwest China.
In order to fulfill Chinese readers' growing demand for color, more pages, and better print quality, the Guizhou Ribao Press Group installed a new UNISET last September. The eight-page system from manroland web systems features a hybrid configuration that combines both heatset and coldset production possibilities in a single web-offset press. Heatset presses can print on both coated (glossy) and uncoated paper stock, while coldset presses are restricted to uncoated paper, such as newsprint. Other press manufacturers, including KBA, offer hybrid models as well. The UNISET configuration consists of four eight-couple towers, two folders, four reel splicers, and a dryer with an integrated afterburner. Maximum production speed is 80,000 copies per hour in non-collect runs, 40,000 cph in collect runs, or 35,000 cph in collect runs for heatset products.
Before signing the contract in mid-September, Guizhou executives consulted other printing companies that had started production on UNISET hybrid presses in China. "Guizhou Ribao scrutinized all the options very critically and intensely before making this investment," said manroland vice president of sales Frank Tietsche in a statement. "This is the first milestone in our new partnership, in which we are now poised to demonstrate our competence with excellent project management."
The UNISET press will be installed alongside existing printing systems inside a new facility in Guiyang that is still under construction. When the facility is finished, Guizhou Ribao will have invested the USD equivalent of nearly $33 million in the 272,000-square-foot printing center.
With 145 employees, the Guizhou Group prints more than 40 publications, including various business newspapers and news magazines. The new UNISET will boost capacities in coldset and heatset printing to 660,000 broadsheet pages per hour, raising annual output from 897 million broadsheet pages to 1.2 billion each year.
Coldset and heatset modules foster flexibility
According to manroland web systems, the UNISET was designed to offer production modules to meet any demand. With the combination of heatset and coldset modules, as well as the option to operate up to four webs in the eight-couple tower, the web-offset press is always ready for change.
- Versatile configurations: The UNISET is available in widths of two or three plates, but it also offers the option to combine both designs. Modular folding systems with various superstructures leave almost no configuration wish unfulfilled.
- Variable web widths: By making use of the web width variability of the single-width press, different signatures can be produced for diverse and flexible press utilization. This also goes for the heatset area.
- Proven folding systems: The UNISET folder superstructure is optimally adjusted to various folder components. The robust, pin-type jaw folder with a 2:3:3 system is designed for high performance with up to 80 pages in broadsheet format. With the pin-type jaw folder with a 2:5:5 system, 112 pages can be collected. Folder equipment such as quarter fold, gluing, and stitching provides the technical basis for a large value-added depth in inline production.
- Creative press concepts: Installation of different levels can be implemented just as easily as installation in a row, or arrangement of a reel changer at a 90-degree angle to the printing towers.
WAN-IFRA Show Recap
New thermal plate
At the WAN-IFRA show in Frankfurt, Germany last fall, Kodak presented systems and solutions for newspaper and semi-commercial newspaper printers, including the introduction of a no-preheat newspaper plate. The firm's research and development has focused on the advantages of thermal over violet technology, with the former addressing environmental issues as well as enhanced sustainability through low chemistry and true process-free production. Leading the way is the new Sonora News Process Free Plate, which enables the complete elimination of plate-processing equipment and processing chemistry.
As the only process-free plates specifically designed for newspaper applications, they help save time and money, and reduce environmental impact compared to violet plates and even chemistry-free plates. While violet plates require a preheat step, some sort of processing equipment, and chemistry, and have special plate handling conditions, press-ready technology enables the Sonora News Plates to remove all sources of potential variability, so printers can count on more stable, consistent plates for reliable quality. Running on the Generation News Platesetter, Sonora News Plates image at up to 240 plates per hour — fast enough even for some larger newspaper operations.
Working well in both manual and highly automated platemaking environments, they enable newspaper printers to get their jobs to press fast by eliminating the time needed for traditional processing. In addition, Sonora News Plates can be used with vision punch benders from a variety of vendors, including NELA, Glunz & Jensen, and Burgess. Finally, because there is no chemistry to buy, store, and dispose of, printers are able to reduce costs and environmental impact.
"Getting to press fast is critical in the newspaper-publishing industry," said Philip Cullimore, managing director of Kodak's consumer and commercial businesses in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. "Because Sonora News Plates remove the processing step, newspapers can reduce that time by simply imaging and punch/bending the plate and going quickly to press. These plates are the next logical step in improving newspaper production."
Chem-free plates get greener
Also at IFRA, Agfa Graphics announced improvements to its newest chem-free violet plate for newspapers, the :N94-VCF, that further reduce its environmental footprint. The introduction of a new violet newspaper gum, which lowers consumption and extends bath life by 30 percent, helps newspapers reduce maintenance and operational costs. Newspaper printers also can benefit from 30 percent longer bath life with the plates, which are manufactured in Branchburg, N.J.
The :N94-VCF plate from Agfa already offers a series of advantages compared to conventionally processed plates. In the :VXCF85 clean-out unit, a pH neutral gum solution washes and protects the polymer plates and makes them ready for press. It eliminates processing parameters, is efficient in use, and dramatically reduces chemical waste. The new newspaper gum extends these benefits even further.
"Replenishment with gum is effectively eliminated, which also extends the bath lifecycle from 1200 m2 to 1800 m2," said Eric Elyn, plant manager at Coldset Printing Partners, in Brussels, Belgium. "This is again a step forward in terms of cost savings and waste reduction, on top of the achievements inherent to using chem-free plates so far."
Reinhilde Alaert, product marketing manager for visible light plates at Agfa, said, "Violet chem-free plates make pre-press for newspapers much easier. The system is more convenient to use than a conventional processor, is so much cleaner to operate as it only involves a pH-neutral gum solution, and the plate performs equally well on press. With the new violet newspaper gum, the cleaning is even easier, and the maintenance is reduced, which helps to better control the total cost per plate."
Thank You, Mr. President
Helmut (John) Dangelmaier stepped down as president of the PrintCity Alliance on Dec. 31, 2012. When Dangelmaier joined PrintCity a dozen years ago, it was in its early days following drupa 2000, Alliance members said in a statement. He played a leading role in guiding and helping grow all Alliance worldwide activities and the PrintCity team.
With more than 40 years in the graphics industry and experience working at research organizations FOGRA and GATF, cross-industry organizations such as the Web Offset Champion Group, plus 12 years as president of MEGTEC Systems, Dangelmaier brought PrintCity unique experience.
"A unique idea needs unique people, acting with great passion to make it successful. John was extremely well regarded in the global supply industry," said Josef Aumiller of manroland web systems and a PrintCity vice president. "His magic touch at PrintCity was to bring people together, to focus all member companies in supporting one overall target: making print more successful."
Arno Durr, Weilburger Graphics, and representative for all PrintCity members, said, "It has always been a pleasure to work with John. He has lived PrintCity and offered all his experiences, knowledge, and personal network, to make PrintCity successful."
Rainer Kuhn, PrintCity managing director, summarized the importance of Dangelmaier's work: "We could not have achieved the significant member-added value or worldwide market recognition without his advice and guidance. My special thanks to John for his commitment, passion, and friendship over so many years."


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It's been awhile, hasn't it? My life has consisted of school and work and not much else, therefore there has been no real reason for outfit photos. Except the first one. I got that printed crop top at Target for $8. I haven't worn flip flops with an outfit for a significant amount of time, but when I packed up all my summer clothes, I packed up all my sandals as well. Smooth move, Emily. You live in Southern California and clearly didn't think that through. Thank goodness I kept one pair out.
Today I decided to do garden-y things. I cut some sprigs off my Rosemary bush, which is pictured. It smells so good. I guess it's an acquired aroma, but I think it smells so fresh and earthy, I love it. I'm thinking of roasting a chicken so I can use it, and because a roasted chicken is the only thing I know that has rosemary as an ingredient. I also planted some pumpkins. Technically, where I live, you're suppose to plant pumpkins around May, but I saw this really cool idea on Pinterest where you cut open a pumpkin, put soil directly in it covering the seeds and the pumpkin acts like a pot. Then when it starts to sprout you plant the entire pumpkin. Genius, right? I still had pumpkins left over from Halloween. Seriously. They were still perfect, too. So I decided to try it, filled it with composted soil and it worked! It started to sprout. The pumpkins were starting to get soggy so I figured it was about time to plant them. I'm pretty sure I looked like one of the Klopeks off of The 'Burbs digging a hole in my backyard, but regardless! They're all nice and snug in the ground now, and hopefully they'll last until autumn.
I also planted a Bonsai tree. Super random, I know. My brother got it for me two Christmases ago as a gag gift. (For weeks leading up to Christmas he'd just keep telling me, "You're going to love your present. It's going to change your life.") I just now finally decided to plant it. I'm surprisingly excited about it. Who am I, Mr. Belding?
That's all that's really been going on. Oh! and if you were planning on participating in the flower theme granny squares over at Squares That Care you have a week to send them in! And if you don't even know what I'm talking about--go visit Squares That Care! It's really cool (or at least I think so :]) Alright, welp, off with ya me lads and be merry!


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Business Categories
Need accommodation in Rutherglen Bed and Breakfast, Cottages to Hotels are here, there is plenty of room come and stay.
A very rewarding experience is discovering the attractions of Rutherglen. From our landmarks to our amazing produce there is so much to take in.
Need a quick bite to eat or maybe a coffee? best Coffee shops and Cafe's in Rutherglen.
Check out all the best Rutherglen has to offer for food & restaurants. If you want traditional or modern you will be spoilt by choice.
So many Wineries to choose from after checking in why not try them all! Book Wine Tours at your accommodation.
Enjoy cellar door tastings & dine on local produce at winery restaurants. We have the big reds at Rutherglen, come along & create your own Victorian wine experience.


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I often have discussions with people who are new to the social web. We talk about lots of things. How pen and paper come before pixels and pinterest. How different ideas require different tools — tools that may require heavy lifting. How the angle of the camera held above a lunch can make or break a meal. Never ruin a meal with a bad photo. Mmmmm, burritos.
We get sidetracked sometimes. That's what makes it social. #burritos
We also talk about what success on the social web looks like. I mostly listen at the beginning.
- Followers. Lots of followers.
- Likes. Lots and lots of likes.
- Retweets, shares, stars, ribbons, trophies…
Twitter counts followers for you. Easy.
Facebook likes to show you likes. Easy.
They make cases to fill with ribbons and trophies. Easy.
The problem with this approach is that their success is directly related to the actions of others. It's tied to a number — a number that can be misleading.
It's possible to get 20,000+ followers on a twitter account by the end of the week if you have a shiny credit card and dull ethics. Extremely successful companies do it… but is it social web success? You can launch an untargeted "like" campaign on facebook and grow your audience with imaginary profiles that will do more to destroy your community than build it. That doesn't sound like success.
My definition of social web success removes the potential fan/follower from the equation. Social web success for any department or office tasked with joining twitter, facebook, instagram, [next big thing] is:
To sustain efforts for a set amount of time… no matter how awful, futile and demoralizing it becomes.
Inspiring, isn't it?
Two months. Four months. Six months. It's their choice. But if they can possess the same amount of zeal in week one as in week 25, they're a success in my eyes.
It doesn't happen overnight, it takes time. The social web garden requires you to bust the sod, turn the earth, plant the seeds, water and weed. Many stop watering before the seedlings emerge — they don't see the numbers they have dreamed about, the momentum dries up, failure becomes a reality.
Sustaining efforts when things look bleak, having permission to fail at the numbers game, placing value in consistently feeding the beast. Things that are in their control.
It kind of sounds simple, but it's not. Lots of accounts are created one month and forgotten the next. It's easy to stop.
But with persistence, they can discover their niche, their voice, and eventually their success.
Note: This is only for people starting out, not for those who've been playing for over 6 months. Much like in life, the definition of success changes as you age.


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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Among the stocks that could see active trade in Wednesday's session are Georgia Gulf Corp., Carlyle Group LP and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc.
Blue chip Kraft Foods Inc. KFT stands out among companies on deck to report earnings, but it hardly stops there. Notables on Thursday's calendar also include General Motors Co. GM, +1.90%, Lear Corp. LEA, +1.14%, Mettler-Toledo International Inc. MTD, +0.96%, Sara Lee Corp. SLE, +1.03%, Dole Food Co. DOLE, Hain Celestial Group Inc. HAIN, -0.12%, Beam Inc. BEAM, +0.00%, Harris Teeter Supermarkets Inc. HTSI , MGM Resorts International MGM, +0.76%, Hyatt Hotels Corp. H, +1.56%, Viacom Inc. VIAB, +1.63% VIA, -0.80%, Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. SNI, +1.83%, LinkedIn Corp. LNKD, American International Group Inc. AIG, +2.09%, Navigators Group Inc. NAVG, Teradata Corp. TDC, +3.09%, Cardinal Health Inc. CAH, +0.94%, Apache Corp. APA, +0.82% and Fluor Corp. FLR, +1.89%, among others.
In what will rank as the largest initial public offering so far in 2012, Carlyle Group CG, +0.11% priced the sale of 30.5 million common units at $22 each, with trading scheduled to begin Thursday on Nasdaq. The private-equity firm, which had about $147 billion of assets under management in 89 active funds and 52 fund-of-fund vehicles at the end of 2011, has given underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 15% of the units if investor demand warrants. Net proceeds will be used to pay down debt and for general corporate purposes, Carlyle said. The $22-a-unit pricing on the IPO reportedly came in below the company's expected range of $23 to $25.
Also late Wednesday, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters GMCR cut its profit and revenue outlook for fiscal 2012 following disappointing financial results for the company's second quarter ended March 24. Quarterly sales increased 37% to $885.1 million, but this came in well shy of the consensus analyst forecast of $972 million as compiled by FactSet Research. Second-quarter profit reached $93 million, or 58 cents a share, up from $65.4 million, or 44 cents, earned in the year-earlier period. "After several quarters of robust adoption, we now expect a more moderated growth trajectory going forward for both Keurig brewer and K-Cup pack sales," said Larry Blanford, chief executive of the Waterbury, Vt.-based company, in a statement. Read more about Green Mountain Coffee.
Newport Corp. NEWP warned it expects to experience a hiccup in its growth prospects for 2012. Sales and earnings on an adjusted basis for the second quarter are forecast to be "similar to the levels" generated during the first three months of the year, the Irvine, Calif.-based company said as it reported first-quarter results late Wednesday. The supplier of advanced technology products also projected that sales would increase by about 7% to 12% during the latter half of 2012 over first-half levels, which would put full-year sales in a range of $650 million to $665 million. For the first quarter, Newport posted net income of $6.6 million, or 17 cents a share, with earnings on an adjusted basis pegged at $12.1 million, or 31 a share, as sales rose 22% from the prior year to $157.2 million. New orders of $186.1 million for the March quarter represented a company record, as a result of Newport's recent acquisitions.
Along with reporting results for the second quarter ended March 31, Concur Technologies Inc. CNQR raised its target for revenue growth in fiscal 2012. As revised, the Redmond, Wash.-based provider of travel and expense-management services said it now projects generating top-line growth of about 26% over fiscal 2011. Revenue of $108.4 million in the second quarter climbed 28% from the year-ago period. "Our results were exceptionally strong in the second quarter of fiscal 2012. We beat our expectations across all key metrics and are raising our full-year business outlook for revenue, operating margin, earnings and cash flow," said Steve Singh, chairman and CEO, in a statement.
Along with reporting results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended March 31, Triumph Group Inc. TGI, -0.07% issued financial targets for fiscal 2013. On an adjusted basis, earnings from continuing operations are projected by the Berwyn, Pa.-based company at $5.45 to $5.55 a share, on sales of $3.5 billion to $3.7 billion. Also on an adjusted basis, Triumph Group's income from continuing operations for fiscal 2012 came to $259.7 million, or $5.01 a share, as sales totaled $3.4 billion.
The board of ManpowerGroup MAN, +0.87% approved a 8% increase in the company's semi-annual dividend, to 43 cents a share. The new dividend's payable June 15 to stockholders of record as of June 1, the Milwaukee-based company said.
PMC-Sierra Inc. PMCS said it's entered into a deal with Goldman Sachs & Co. to accelerate stock repurchases. The agreement covers $160 million of common stock, which Sunnyvale, Calif.-based PMC-Sierra will acquire as part of a $275 million buyback program announced in mid-March. Terms call for PMC-Sierra to pay Goldman Sachs $160 million May 8 and in turn receive delivery of a majority of the shares on the same date. The rest will be repurchased by next January or sooner. The actual number of shares repurchased will be determined at the completion of the accelerated buyback program, PMC-Sierra said.
The board Atmel Corp. ATML approved the authorization of another $200 million to be used for the San Jose, Calif.-based company's stock-buyback program. Most of the wireless components manufacturer's previously authorized $500 million program has been used up, with Atmel noting that some 49.9 million common shares have been repurchased at an average price of $9.80.
The board of Validus Holdings Ltd. VR, -50.00% approved a plan to buy back up to $200 million in common stock under a modified Dutch auction format. A tender offer will be conducted under which Validus stockholders may tender all or a portion of their common shares at a price of not less than $30.50 and not more than $33.50, in increments of 25 cents a share. Alternatively, they can tender without specifying a price, in which case stock would be bought at the purchase price as determined in accordance with the tender offer, the Bermuda-based provider of reinsurance and insurance services said.
Wednesday earnings recap
Georgia Gulf GGC, +3.96% reported results that its CEO said were the best on an an operating basis for a first quarter in the past six years: net earnings of $35.3 million, or $1.01 a diluted share, on sales of $859.9 million. These compare to $12.1 million, or 35 cents a share, earned on sales of $787.9 million that the Atlanta-based company generated in the first three months of 2011. "Looking at the remainder of 2012 and slightly beyond, we are cautiously optimistic that the North American housing market has started to recover after record-low levels the past few years," said Paul Carrico, Georgia Gulf's president and CEO, in a statement. "We also expect that the cost advantage of domestic natural gas and growing global demand should provide solid support for attractive operating rates in the vinyl industry, especially for housing and water infrastructure applications."


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Business can refuse to accept your check
Q. I went to pay for something and the clerk said, "Cash only." Is it legal for a store to refuse to accept a check or take a credit card? I thought a check was just like cash?
A. When you buy something at a store, you are entering into a contract. The terms of that contract are what you and the store agree to. If the store wants to accept cash only, it may make that a term of your agreement. While most businesses will take a check or credit card, there are business reasons for accepting only cash, especially for a small business. Credit cards cost the store money, and checks can bounce.
I suggest you offer to pay by a check and see if the store accepts your proposal. If it does not, your choice is to deal on the store's terms or shop elsewhere. Merchants who accept checks or credit cards do so voluntarily. There is no legal obligation to do so.
Q. I am a landlord. What can happen when my tenants break a lease? I see it coming soon. If I hire a lawyer, it is going to cost me as much as the rent. Is there hope, or I will be throwing away money? Please help me.
A. If your tenant breaks the lease, you are entitled to retain the security deposit and collect rent until the property has been rented to another tenant. If the amount you are owed is less than $10,000, you can file a claim in small claims court without an attorney. Small claims court is a real "people's court," and you should not have a problem representing yourself. As the next question explains, however, collecting money after you win in small claims court can be difficult.
Q. I am set to go to small claims court. If I win, will he be forced to pay me? Does he have to pay court costs if I sue?
A. If you win in small claims court, the court will award a judgment in your favor that includes the court costs. Unfortunately, winning and getting your money are two very different things. A court cannot force a person to pay a judgment. If the person does not voluntarily pay, you must take steps to collect your judgment. The first thing to do is file an "abstract of judgment." This makes your judgment public record, but you must take steps to recover any money. You enforce your judgment by getting a court order to take and sell "non-exempt" property. In Texas, most of what the average person owns is "exempt" and cannot be taken. For example, wages, a homestead and most personal property are exempt. If the person owns rental property, you can get a lien on that property and force its sale. You also can get a writ of garnishment and take money in a bank account if you know where he banks. The bottom line is that getting paid can be difficult. Most people voluntarily pay the amount of the judgment, but if they do not, it might be a while until you see any money. For a discussion of collecting a judgment, look at the debt collection and small claims court material on my Web site, www.peopleslawyer.net.
Q. Several years ago, I was sued. A judgment was entered against me. I have not heard anything from them for more than seven years. How long is the judgment good for?
A. After getting a judgment, the plaintiff must file an "abstract of judgment." This creates a lien on certain property and authorizes collection efforts. An abstract of judgment is valid for 10 years. It may be continued indefinitely, however, if the plaintiff takes steps to renew it. You will have to wait three more years to see what steps, if any, are taken by the creditor. If the creditor does nothing, the judgment will no longer be enforceable.
Do you want to learn more about your legal rights? Pick up a copy of my new book, the 8th edition of "Know Your Rights."