— and not, that is, just a Western journalist’s overreaction to Japan’s general low level of backround right-wing zealotry —

[AP] Just a few years ago, talk about possessing nuclear weapons would have been the pinnacle of taboo in Japan, the only nation to suffer atomic attacks. But the nuclear ambitions of neighboring North Korea now have this nation thinking the unthinkable, even as it marks the anniversaries this week of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings — should Japan have its own atomic arsenal? . . . “If people had voiced such opinions a few years ago, they would have been branded weirdoes,” said Hideo Hosoi, editor in chief of The Shokun. “We’re starting to be able to talk about it in a rational and normal way.”

— then the world is in even worse shape than I thought it was.