This week's issue is my final as a staff editor at The Japan Times Weekly. I'd like to thank all the readers of The Weekly for their continued support of the publication.

I'd also like to offer the following as parting words: News, like the English language, is a fluid thing. Definitions and circumstances are constantly in a state of flux.

While this by no means means that one should take reliable reported news with a grain of salt, it does mean that as time passes, new evidence, tendencies and revised or abbreviated rules can alter the facts and final outcome of an event.

Those readers of The Weekly who have ever agonized over the correct placing of a comma would do well to consider that these rules, much like the realities of events, are often changed or broken.