What a magnificent actor Caan was. I was such a scary character in some of his films. I mostly remember as Sonny Corleone and Paul Sheldon in Misery. Also, liked his character in ā Garden of Stone.
Yeah RIP Shizo. Such a shocking death for Japan. A stalwart of Japanese politics - even if his domestic achievements were fairly modest; judged against some of the pygmies he shared the global stage with, he was a giant of a statesman.
Weird story, but apparently James Caan was a family friend of an ex of mine and taught her to play the paino. Might have to watch Misery tonight in honour of him.
Im struggling to understand the furore around the identification of him as a Japanese Nationalist. That seemed to be a pretty uncontroversial way to describe his politics when he was alive/PM, but Iām seeing a ton of really intense criticism of that framing today.
Iāve seen Noah Smith, an economist who wrote a piece on Abe attacked by people on twitter who were being critical of Abe because of his stance when leader on comfort women. They may also have been critical of his nationalist stance too (I didnāt read all of their criticisms they didnt express them but were too busy slagging off Noah).
I wonder if the criticism you are referring to is perhaps because some of the framing is taking it out of the context of the wider Japanese political sphere?
NPR are being ratioed for referring to him in their headline as an ultranationalist. I read the context as that being possibly related to why someone would want to assassinate him. Irresponsible speculation maybe, but that doesnt seem to the context of the criticism. And that now seems to have spread across twitter to any mention of his nationalist leanings.
this is such an incredibly sad story. A father grieving for his three childrenās involuntary manslaughter by a drunk driver is not looked after by his nationās justice system, their killer is already out of jail and heās now committed suicide.
This is another huge wake-up call on a highly-repeatable issue of mental health following severe trauma, and how our countryās public health system (for all itās wonder of being nationalized) has again truly failed when it comes to the support system.