Talk:Red Harvest
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[edit] What-All
The Marv storyline in sin city sounds inspired by this...
Is is obvious to anyone who has read the book and seen the movies that Yojimbo is inspired in Red Harvest, and the connections between Yojimbo, For a Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing are well documented. Just watch the movies.
It is not obvious to me and that's why I think this can be a good discussion. Kurosawa never claimed Red Harvest as an influence. I've never seen any mainstream critic - such as Keal or Ebert - make such a claim. Most of their analysis centers around Yojimbo's western (as in Western, the movie genre) influences.There is lots of primary and authoritative (established through the citation of primary sources) secondary source material available to cite the relationship and legal history between Yojimbo and Fistful of Dollars. Last Man Standing directly credits Yojimbo. My the point I want to drive home or the question I want to raise is this - Where are the sources for Red Harvest to Yojimbo? My suspicion is that the supposed relationship between Yojimbo and Red Harvest was suggested or asserted in a critical essay - probably an essay by Manny Farber or David Desser. The essays are probably applying some form of Marxist literary analysis to Red Harvest, in which in which the work is seen as a sort of literary disparagement about the degeneracy of the capitalistic system. This type of analysis has been applied to many works of the "hard boiled" mystery sub-genre, in fact some Marxist critics will probably assert that the whole of the sub-genre is basically such a comment, but particularly Red Harvest since it is often credited as one, if not the first, example of the "hard boiled" genre, In turn, Farber or Desser or whoever, applied the same type of analysis to Yojimbo. I think that type of analytical comparison, within that context, is absolutely fair. I think it is fair, accurate, and honest to have an analysis section where various analytical interpretations are allowed their appropriate place. I think there is a certain amount of validity to the idea that both Yojimbo and Red Harvest can be seen, in part at least, as a negative comment on capitalism. I don't think it is fair, accurate, or honest to say that Yojimbo's plot or story is derived from Red Harvest simply based upon the fact that one type of critical analysis can draw similarties between the works. I have seen Yojimbo and I have read Red Harvest. I don't think they have the same plot. I think the plots are distinctly different. To simply assert that they are the same without proof or reasoned argument smacks of opinion to me. I guess I'm just, in a good natured way and intellectually honest way, throwing down the gauntlet to all in the Wikipedia community to provide the citation or proof of this claim or drop it from this and any other article concerning Akira Kurosawa, Yojimbo, Last Man Standing, Red Harvest, or Dashiel Hammet. Seriously, I want to stress I'm not just trying to be difficult, I look forward to the discussion because it honestly interests me. They claim doesn't ring true to me and I've read/watched both so I really want to try to drive to the truth here and mark it down correctly from this point forward Davidalanreese 22:57, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Dear David,
Wikipedia is about facts. References are good, as they show previous work on the issue. But references are not everything, as I am sure no one needs references to assert that the earth has a sphere-like shape.
The plot of Red Harvest shows a man in a violent city who cleans the city pitching gangs against each other. This is exactly the same plot device of Yojimbo, Last Man Standing and a Fistful of Dollars. Isn't it?
Did Kurosawa read Red Harvest? I am not sure, and I agree this merits some further investigation.
I have nothing to say about the meaning of Red Harvest, neither for or against capitalism.
Check this, it's got some good info on the subject: http://www.metroactive.com/papers/metro/09.26.96/last-man-9639.html
Vaceituno,
I apologize in advance for this being so long but I don't know any other way to discuss the point. Now, if I was to say that the earth was flat and you say its round we have only two ways to resolve the argument. One of us could produce data from an authoritative source which we both agreed was reliable or we can try to demonstrate how the fact is true. Let me demonstrate how I think Yojimbo and Red Harvest are more different than alike.
If you haven't read Red Harvest in awhile, check out this plot synopsis which I think is fairly accurate:
http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/engl/marling/hardboiled/Redharvest.html
Now, if we agree that the basic plot of Red Harvest is as stated in the previous article, let me begin my demonstration.
1. The Continental Op is specifically hired to solve a crime. When he arrives in the town, the man who hired him is dead. The Op is then hired by the dead man's father to find the killer. The Op's investigation centers first on one man but he starts learning that everyone is corrupt. The Op finds Dinah Brand who has all sorts of secret info on everyone - this secret info is important to starting the process of getting all the crooks in town to turn on each other. In the end, it turns out that the bank clerk killed the original dead guy out of jealousy over Dinah. Does that sound like the first third of Yojimbo to you? The Bodyguard throws a stick into the air to decide which fork in a road to follow. He enters a town that is divided in two distinct camps - not everyone against everyone. The two factions are already at war. Yojimbo mets up with the Innkeeper but doesn't have money to pay for food, drink or lodging. The Innkeeper provides anyway. So, Yojimbo then decides he can pay the Innkeeper if he gets a job from one of the factions. Maybe it's just me but that seems distinctly different. 2 Part two of Red Harvest sees the Op deciding to have the whole town go after each other. So, he messes up a fixed boxing match for a gangster thus causing the gangster to lose Dinah. In return, Dinah gives info back to the Op. The Op takes the new info to the police chief who then uses it to go after Thaler but the info is wrong but then it turns out that there is another woman who has covered up information for years that who they though killed the cops brother actually was her old boyfriend. Does that sound anything like Yojimbo? The bodyguard shows of his abilities by killing a few goons. Then the leaders of the respective sides try to recruit him. The bodyguard picks on side but then he happens to hear that they are going to kill him rather than pay him when all the work is done. So then he quits, leaving them in a lurch. He joins with the other group but then he sees the spectacle of the man and child who only get to see their wife and mother pass by. The Innkeeper talks about how bad it is. Then the bodyguard decides to set the couple back together. His attempt leads to him getting badly beaten. Once again, I don't see anything very close. 3 Finally, in the last part, the Op gets help from the main office as two more agents come to town. Dinah drugs him. He has a dream/revelation sequence, wakes up, and finds Dinah dead. He had to cover himself so he gets an alibi and then starts working over time revealing new info that gets more and more of the people in the town to kill each other off, or failing that kills them himself, until he gets down to the fact that the murderer was also the man who provided him with his alibi - who then gets killed. Yojimbo is nothing like this. The bodyguard has to be hidden by the innkeeper until he heals up. Then the bodyguard is ready to come back but now the guy with the gun shows up and his faction takes out the other faction. In the end, the bodyguard has to take on the man with the gun.
Frankly, I just don't see how people can keep saying that the two stories are all that common, certainly not to the point that it would be ok to claim that Yojimbo is an "uncreditied version of Red Harvest". Compare it to how close Fisful of Dollars is to Yojimbo or how close Magnificent Seven is to Seven Samurai. I get what your saying that on a basic level it's a story about a man that goes into a corrupt town and cleans it up but that really doesn't do justice to either story, does it? Red Harvest is about the power of secrets, lust, and money. It has a whole different thing going on with Dinah Brand than anything in Yojimbo. The Op and all the town people are in constant shifting alliances that change from minute to minute. Yojimbo is two distinct factions fighting not for individual goals but for the groups ability to control the town. There is no one like the innkeeper in Red Harvest and the Op never tried to save a family at possible personal cost like the bodyguard does. The whole end of Yojimbo has so much going on with the gun versus the sword, new versus old, easy versus hard. They are two different experiences all together and I just don't see how anyone seeing/reading both can honestly say that Yojimbo is Red Harvest. At the most, there are a few plot elements in common but you can say that about any two works of fiction.
Maybe you see it different and can explain it to me how I'm seeing it wrong? I'd really appreciate it if you could.
[edit] Books and Movies
The main point of this discussion is ¿how can you compare two plots and tell if they are similar or different? I am sure there are differences between Yojimbo, For a Fistful of Dollars and Last Man Standing. A judge found the differences between the two first in the list too small, and Kurosawa could collect some money for his intellectual property.
To compare movie to movie plots is easier than movie to book. The reason for this is that most exact renditions of a book on film results in a bad movie. These media have different techniques for storytelling. Most books get rendered into movies in an abridged fashion, and sometimes there are other big changes, made normally for production reasons (too expensive) or for technical reasons, as the best for a movie is to show, second best to hear and third best to tell. Compare watching someone die, hear someone dying and getting someone telling "I die". The third is really bad storytelling in movies, and this kind of non-visual stuff gets changed from books to movies all the time.
A manyfold of characters in a movie are very difficult to handle, as the viewer won't remember quickly who they are and their relationships. For this reasons characters are axed every time is possible in adaptations.
From the sources we have been reviewing, I would tell that Kurosawa might or might not base Yojimbo on Red Harvest. Do you agree on this factual account?:
"Whereas is frequently asserted in Internet newsgroups and on websites that Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett inspired Yojimbo's plot (and therefore versions of Yojimbo like Last Man Standing and For a Fistful of Dollars), there are no reliable sources of Kurosawa acknowledging such an influence. The reason for this widely spread belief is that the core plot of the book and the movies shows a man in a violent city who cleans the city pitching gangs against each other." User:Vaceituno
Hey Vaceituno, How's it going today? You ready for me to disappear, yet :) I think your probably doing a better job of trying to create a compromise than I am. To me, the assertion is just so wrongheaded and I believe it misses so much of what Yojimbo or Red Harvest are about that I have a hard time seeing any compromise. But that's my personal opinion. As a matter of scholarship and reportage, I think the goal is to describe what is. In that spirit, let me make a counter suggestion. I think Red Harvest needs to focus on Red Harvest and Yojimbo needs to focus on Yojimbo. I think in this article, the Red Harvest article, we can focus on how Red Harvest has been influential in literature and movies. I think that is more accurate and honest - and from a literary analysis standpoint a more important way of looking at Red Harvest than focusing on the simple "RH is Yojimbo" thing. Inside of this proposed influence section, we can add sourced info on how Red Harvest has influenced various movies and movie genres. Included in that discussion, we can add in the info from Farber and Desser to the effect that they believe that Red Harvest influenced Yojimbo. Within that context, I don't think we need to even address all the other opinions about Yojimbo that don't include anything about Red Harvest. That way, I think the Red Harvest article is accurate and the "RH is Yojimbo" issue gets completely removed from it. I think it's more intellectually honest and I don't think we even have to address what Kurosawa said or Richie says or anything else. Then, over in Yojimbo, we use Kurosawa's comments about how he came about to do Yojimbo, describe the movie, and then include a section on influences/analysis into which we can include more of the opinion oriented stuff that includes Richie, Kael, etc. In that group we can include Farber and Desser again. Once again, I think this is more intellectually honest in presentation and context. We stay away from "point counterpoint" as to whether or not "Yojimbo is RH" That way, when we are done, Yojimbo is focused on Yojimbo and Red Harvest is focused on Red Harvest. The opinion that Yojimbo is influenced/adapted/inspired by Red Harvest will still be in both articles but it will be sourced and put into a contextual framework that doesn't overshadow other opinions and ideas about the two works. I would suggest with this approach we don't have to mention web pages, internet newsgroups, wide spread beliefs, or core plot of the two books - all areas that are full of potential conflict and probably not really essential to an encyclopedia article on either work. I'm sorry I even added the section I did before because I can see now that it's the wrong approach.
I tell you what, I'm going to start working on a new, differently organized Red Harvest page. When I'm done I'll post it for you to look over and see what you think. If it doesn't work, we will try something else. I hope I'm not coming off as a righteous know-it-all, I will readily acknowledge that I have some strong opinions on the subject but not so much that I think no one can say that RH influenced Yojimbo. My problem is seeing things like "uncredited adaptation", "adaptation", or "Yojimbo is Red Harvest". Those type of words or statements make a very specific allegation that calls into question Mr. Kurosawa's artistic and intellectual honesty. To throw those allegations around without being sourced or demonstrated is, in my opinion, morally wrong. To take statements out of context from other works, particularly works of opinion to try and establish them as a point of fact is also intellectually dishonest and morally wrong. So, I'm kinda picky about the semantics of expressing whatever relationship that other's have opined and the manner in which those opinions are presented.
Anyway, nice to continue to chat and I'll be back with some goodies here very shortly that will hopefully make us both happy.--Davidalanreese 00:40, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Sorry for not being verbose at all, but yes, I do agree with you. The Red Harvest article should reflect the influence of the novel, and the Yojimbo article can be richer if we include what some critics said about it. Did you know that a Star Wars movie was code named "Blue Harvest", after Red Harvest? I hope to see your update on the article soon. User:Vaceituno
[edit] Discussion on Barra article
My personal opinion - I stress my opinion because I'd be interested in your thoughts on the article after reading some of my comments - of the Barra article is that it's the root of a lot of this "Yojimbo is an uncredited adaptation of RH stuff". I ran across the article when I first ran into some of the "Yojimbo is RH" stuff. Nothing in the article appears unreasonable on first glance but I think the tone of the article implies more than any facts in the article establish.
In the first section, Barra states that the basic plot of the Yojimbo is the same as Red Harvest. There is no demonstration of the point, just the assertion. Then Barra introduces the son of Albert Grimaldi who makes the statement that Yojimbo "practically" is Red Harvest. Once again, someone wants to imply that Yojimbo is like Red Harvest instead of making a statement. Also, I think it's interesting that Grimaldi Productions own the rights to all of Leone's films except for Fitful of Dollars and Grimaldi productions own the rights to Red Harvest. I can see why they might want to establish a Yojimbo is Red Harvest claim.
Then Barra comes back and says that American film critics such as Farber, Sarris, and Desser have "assumed" (once again, a hedging type of assertion at best using a word like assume) that Yojimbo was an uncredited version of Red Harvest. He then quotes from a Farber essay that calls Yojimbo a "bowdlerized version" of Red Harvest. I've read the essay and it does state make that statement. Once again, though, using "bowdlerized" sort of minimizes just how strong of an assertion one is making. On top of that, taking such a quote out of a critical essay which is nothing more than an opinion in the first place doesn't really help to establish the idea that Yojimbo is RH as a matter of fact. Farber just threw that statement out there in a middle of the essay with no other discussion about Red Harvest or Yojimbo. The other quote is from Desser and it is the most direct. I haven't read the essay in question so I can't say anything else about it. Farber, Sarris and Desser are all legitimate social and cinema essayists. They deal in the world of opinion, analysis, and critique. What they have written is legitimate critical analysis and deserves appropriate attention for what it is - a form of analysis. It doesn't establish a point of fact about actual authorship though.
Now, read those last four paragraphs, after the header of Samurai Gangster and tell me what that article is saying? Is it a statement? Or is it an implication? Does it really say anything?
First you have the question - "But is Yojimbo, finally, a "version" of Red Harvest" What a sentence. Here in the very last section of the story, Barra is not making a statement but he asks a question about Yojimbo and Red Harvest. On top of that, he further qualifies that question by putting one word, version, in quotation marks. Why does Barra do that? What does putting the word, version, into quotations do? I say that Barra is changing the game here That's an ambiguous statement - a question - composed with an ambiguous direct object which opens the door for Barra to imply even the smallest similarity establishes the tie-in. Barra then quotes Kurosawa who never discussed Red Harvest. Then the next paragraph quotes Richie and makes note of the fact that Richie thinks it's simply coincidence. OK, so we have a question in which the filmmaker himself and the filmmaker's major biographer do not acknowledge any tie with Red Harvest beyond coincidence.
Then we have the last two paragraphs. An nameless "former colleague" of Kurosawa is the source of paragraph three. We have just seen quotes from Kurosawa's principal biographer whose book on Kurosawa has made it into a third edition and Kurosawa himself - a filmmaker who has won awards all over the world including top prizes at Venice, Cannes as well as a recipient of three Academy Awards including a lifetime achievement award; a filmmaker who has a long history of work that ended up becoming unauthorized adaptations such as Rashoman, Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo; a filmmaker who acknowledged freely throughout his career the many and varied influences on his work such as Shakespeare, Noh theater, Russian literature, Ed McBain, John Ford, Western (both genre and world view) movies - and Barra choses to put up a quote from a nameless "former colleague" who implies that Kurosawa's The Quiet Duel owes a great deal to Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych? What? This is absurdity. The Quiet Duel is about a doctor who catches syphilis when he is at war and returns back home to his fiance. The doctor has to reject his fiance despite his and his fiances love and need for each other so he doesn't pass on the syphilis. Ivan Ilych isn't a doctor, doesn't have syphilis, and is more about the empty mundane life and death of a mid-level man. Then, to compound the first ridiculous assertion, the "former colleague" goes on to say "He could easily have done the same with Hammett's novel" Do what, not use it? This is just complete and utter nonsense. In one paragraph of utter nonsense, Barra has granted this "former colleague" and his ridiculous statement that Barra either didn't fact check or didn't care to fact check, as much authority in this article that he has granted Akira Kurosawa and Donald Richie. That's just wrong. Barra pulled out quotes from Desser and Farber earlier in the article, why not approach them for a quote? They are both alive and still writing criticism. No, Barra has found a anonymous "former colleague" who makes a statement that is patently and demonstrably false - to the effect that it cancels what Kurosawa and Richie have to say. Then, as a final act, Barra takes a quote from Hill who says "I don't think any honest person could make a '20's gangster film and not acknowledge a debt to Hammett". OK, but the start of this section was framed with the question "But is Yojimbo, finally, a "version" of Red Harvest?" Then Barra ends the article with Hill relating a "quote" from Borges - "all fiction was either a telling of the Odyssey or the Crucifixion". While Borges may have said something like that that doesn't answer the question at all. Ultimately, I don't think this article actually says anything - I think it makes a very vague (and nasty) swipe at the authenticity of Kurosawa's authorship but not with any real factual or demonstrable evidence. I also think it can work because almost no one who ends up reading this article has ever read Red Harvest or The Death of Ivan Ilych or seen Yojimbo, or The Quiet Duel. Certainly the audience that actually has seen all four is pretty small.
So, read the article over again and tell me what you think. Do you really still think that article says anything of authority? I'd like to see the Desser essay - it's the only thing I haven't seen and it seems to have the most direct assertion in it.
- --
I didn't think the article was supporting any particular position, just that it was a good source for research, as you have shown. Proposal for an agreement in this issue above (Books and Film) Vaceituno
I'll grant that, it does provide a way to find some sources. I wish I knew who the "anonymous colleague" was, though. That whole statement attributed to him is just so terrible that I have a hard time believing there really was an colleague. --Davidalanreese 00:40, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)
[edit] sources?
can anyone provide sources for the following?
- It is frequently asserted that the plot was the inspiration for Yōjimbō, a 1961 film by Akira Kurosawa. Yōjimbō in turn was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars, a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, and remade, yet again, in a 20th century "gangster" genre, as Last Man Standing, starring Bruce Willis.
if not, then we should recall Wikipedia:No_original_research and remove the opinion from the article. Iain 15:52, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
[edit] references
http://www.jitterbug.com/origins/kurosawa.html http://www.geocities.com/evil_spoon/yojimbo1961.htm http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055630/
Talks about Yojimbo/Per un pugno di dollari/Last Man Standing
So the fact is that it is frequently asserted, but there is no primary source to show the link between Red Harvest and Yojimbo. Hence the "It is frequently asserted" heading.
If anyone cares to look, IMDB no longer shows Hammett as a writer, credited or uncredited for Yojimbo. I think IMDB has made the right and appropriate choice. As for the other two sources, I'll let the Wikipedia community decide over time what constitutes an authoratative references. My opinion is that jitterbug and goatdog are in and of themselves not authorities on the subject, provide no actual analysis of the assertion, and are merely repeating the same bit of misinformation they gathered from some other uninformed or misinformed source - very probably the Wikipedia article itself. I propose that the article on Red Harvest deals with Red Harvest and the influence is has had on detective fiction, hard-boiled detective fiction, and detective movies. This can all be well documented by those that have the time and inclination. Continuing to assert that Red Harvest served as a primary source for Yojimbo and therefore for Last Man Standing, no matter how many uncredited, undocumented references to that fact appear across the Internet, is not factual. Even beyond that, to stress this so-called "tie" between Red Harvest and Yojimbo is a disservice to Wikipedia readers. Red Harvest is an important work but a Wikipedia reader gets an undocumented and unsupportable assertion which, in essence, calls Akira Kurosawa an artistic liar and cheat. Why not more information about the seminal influence Red Harvest had/has on detective fiction and films? How about the influence that Red Harvest and Hammett had on dialog in all American literary fiction and film.
--Davidalanreese 23:30, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
David, you are into the habit of removing anything you don't like or feel is not referenced enough. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086190/ http://www.blueharvest.net/ It took to me just a google "star wars red harvest" to find dozens of links with the "blue harvest" reference. Do you think this is worthy of talking directly to George Lucas, or this well-known trivia can be kept in the page? Please put it back. Thanks a lot.
If you think the reference is missing, ADD IT! Collaborate, don't act as "wikipedia police".
--vaceituno 23:30, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Editorial Commentary
This discussion page is impossible to read. Nobody signs their comments ...nobody knows who is saying what to whom. But maybe I'm just old-fashioned. What are you all trying to settle here?
I changed the opening a bit. I thought to add my own two cents but "vaceituno" shot me down. Well enough and OK. I think what I've left there should stand up to scrutiny. Guernseykid 21:52, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
- I am reinserting this content (at the bottom of the page, where it belongs) that was deleted by an anonymous user back on 17 April. I agree with Guernseykid: this talk page is damned near worthless. The consistent failure to use proper formatting and/or to sign comments has resulted in long blocks of text, without breaks, and the result of all this is that it is impossible to tell who is commenting to whom, what the debate or discussion entails, or whether it is of any import. As I said, damned near worthless. Furthermore, there is no such film titled For a Fistful of Dollars---there are two films, one titled A Fistful of Dollars the other titled For a Few Dollars More---so, let's try to keep that straight. Now, does anyone have anything to say about Hammett's novel Red Harvest, given the fact that this is the title of the article? ---Charles 18:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Servant of Two Masters
As Sir Christopher Frayling points out in Spaghetti Westerns (1981 RKP): Sergio Leone has claimed a thematic debt, for both Fistful and Yojimbo, to Carlo Goldoni's A Servant of Two Masters - the basic premise of the protagonist playing two camps off against each other. For Leone, this rooted the origination of Fistful/Yojimbo in European, and specifically Italian culture. Obviously, it can be claimed that Leone has a vested interest in doing this - distancing the accusations of his stealing Kurosawa's ideas, if those ideas were already borrowed from an Italian classic.
Frayling points out that Red Harvest also contains elements of the Servant of Two Masters plot - as well as being close in tone to a Jacobean Revenger's Tragedy. Leone himself clearly believed that Red Harvest influenced Yojimbo:
"Kurosawa's Yojimbo was inspired by an American novel of the serie-noire so I was really taking the story back home again." (Spaghetti Westerns, page 151)
Although this is far from being proof that it is true!
The fact remains that there is nothing new under the sun - and who knows where the trail of influences (conscious and unconscious) sometimes ends. That Kurosawa was influenced by American film (especially westerns) is well documented; elements of European culture influence American culture and so on, ad infinitum.Daisyabigael 10:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Red Harvest and Yojimbo
From a Salon article by Allen Barra:
- Several film critics over the years, beginning with Andrew Sarris, saw the parallels between the great American gangster novel [i.e., Red Harvest] and the great samurai film classic [i.e., Yojimbo]. Manny Farber stated flatly that "Yojimbo" was "a version of 'Red Harvest' -- a bowdlerized version." Not everyone was so sure. Donald Richie, perhaps the leading scholar on Kurosawa's work, said in a 1996 interview, "I think the similarity in themes is just coincidence. Kurosawa has always acknowledged his sources." Kurosawa was a reader of American crime fiction; his 1960 film "Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru," or "The Bad Sleep Well," was adapted from an Ed McBain novel. But some feel Kurosawa was not so open in acknowledging his sources; his 1949 film "The Quiet Duel" owes much to Tolstoy's "The Death of Ivan Ilych." David Desser, another Kurosawa scholar, in his book "The Samurai Films of Akira Kurosawa," states categorically that "Yojimbo is an adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 'Red Harvest'" and "the basic situation that motivates the plot in Yojimbo is adapted from Hammett's 'Red Harvest'."
The current sentence about Yojimbo is really quite bad. I think we should say that many critics and scholars have called Yojimbo an adaptation of Red Harvest, but that it was not stated to be such, and that some have disputed a direct influence. We should avoid passive voice statements like "It is frequently claimed." john k 15:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
- I rewrote that sentence based on the source you provided. Thanks. Nandesuka 15:52, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
