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CA: Author/journalist found dead of gunshot wound in Los Gatos (Iris Chang/The Rape of Nanking)
Mercury News ^ | 11/10/04 | Chuck Carroll

Posted on 11/10/2004 7:57:43 PM PST by NormsRevenge

Iris Chang, whose haunting childhood memories of oral stories about the rape and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians at the hands of Japanese soldiers compelled her to write an acclaimed book about the atrocity, was found dead Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot.

Chang apparently drove down a road south of Los Gatos and shot herself to death in her car.

Santa Clara County Deputy Terrance Helm said a motorist driving Tuesday morning on Highway 17 south of The Cats restaurant in unincorporated Los Gatos and noticed a car a short distance down a private water district road. He pulled over to check on the vehicle and called 911 when he realized what had happened.

Helm said investigators concluded Chang had shot herself with a single-shot to the head, and that there was ``other evidence'' to support that conclusion.

(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; US: California
KEYWORDS: author; dead; found; gunshot; irischang; journalist; losgatos; nanking; therapeofnanking; wound
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To: dennisw
Chang suffered a breakdown and was hospitalized during a recent trip researching her fourth book about U.S. soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II, according to her former editor and agent Susan Rabiner.

I wonder if the subject just wore her down. A friend of my late parents was one of those soldiers in the Bataan Death March. He survived and came home to raise a family, but was haunted until his death by the experience.

41 posted on 11/10/2004 9:11:29 PM PST by SuziQ (Bush in 2004-Because we are Americans!!!!)
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To: NormsRevenge
I'm sorry for OUR loss, as well as her family's. The Rape of Nanking was an amzing work and it must have been stressful telling such an unpopular story, to the "PC History Police" anyway

God be with you, and I hope you are at peace.

42 posted on 11/10/2004 9:14:01 PM PST by Former Dodger (Congrats on 4 MORE YEARS< Mr. President! Now let's FLATTEN FALLUJAH!)
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To: WorkingClassFilth

Clinical depression can be deadly.


43 posted on 11/10/2004 9:15:30 PM PST by MEG33 ( Congratulations President Bush!..Thank you God. Four More Years!)
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To: MEG33

It would seem so. Too bad for this promising young lady and those she leaves behind.


44 posted on 11/10/2004 9:27:11 PM PST by WorkingClassFilth (From Ku Klux Klan to the modern era of the Koo Kleft Klan...the true legacy of RATs.)
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To: churchillbuff

See post #24.


45 posted on 11/10/2004 9:28:29 PM PST by WorkingClassFilth (From Ku Klux Klan to the modern era of the Koo Kleft Klan...the true legacy of RATs.)
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To: NormsRevenge

So sorry to learn of this.


46 posted on 11/10/2004 9:39:58 PM PST by Swede Girl
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To: NormsRevenge

This is sad news, and I'm not just bandying the phrase about. She was a talented, committed, and important author who helped to bring a great overlooked atrocity to light, and she helped the surviving victims of the (now, thanks to Iris) infamous Rape of Nanking obtain the acknowledgement they deserve.

I don't know why she felt like she had to end it all.
Life is such sorrow, I know.


47 posted on 11/10/2004 9:43:01 PM PST by RockAgainsttheLeft04 ("America...F**K YEAH !" -Team America: World Police)
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To: mywholebodyisaweapon
Ms. Chang chose to shoot herself at all, much less in the head. Women just don't do that, hardly ever, at all.

In my personal experience you're wrong, though I'm curious as to where you think women do shoot themselves and why.

48 posted on 11/10/2004 9:54:45 PM PST by stands2reason
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To: WorkingClassFilth
I thought firearms were the last resort for women taking the last resort. In addition, I seem to remember that they didn't usually choose a head shot if they did choose a firearm.

I'd say, second resort (after not being able to keep the pills down), and I don't see why any women would NOT choose the head. The object is to DIE, not to be maimed for life.

49 posted on 11/10/2004 10:01:33 PM PST by stands2reason
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To: NormsRevenge

How very sad. What a waste of a brilliant mind. I didn't realize she was that young. I read the book a few years back.


50 posted on 11/10/2004 10:01:55 PM PST by conservative cat
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To: SuziQ

I thought the same thing. My step-brother's grandfather was the ranking officer at Bataan and extra-special treatment was reserved for him.

In addition, my father spent a great deal of time in there in WWII as an OSS agent. Never got a lot of stories out of him, but the ones that I managed to wrest out of him explained why he slept with a gun under his bed until the day he died.


51 posted on 11/10/2004 10:08:04 PM PST by ConservativeGadfly (Want to join the judicial nominations battle? Go to www.fairjudiciary.com!!!!!)
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To: SuziQ
I wonder if the subject just wore her down.

Quite possibly, I am a death historian (Thanatologist) and there are times when you need to take a break from the subject, which is hard when you are trying to get a book done.

52 posted on 11/10/2004 10:20:16 PM PST by reaganaut (Abortion - 1 Dead, 1 Wounded)
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To: SuziQ

Gunshots are very violent. Women usually do more subtle suicides.


53 posted on 11/10/2004 10:26:45 PM PST by processing please hold (All I ever need to know about Islam, I learned on 9-11)
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To: SuziQ

You friend suffered first hand on the Bataan Death march. She suffered second hand and not physically via starvation and Jap cruelty. Nor the way the people of Nanking did.


54 posted on 11/11/2004 1:15:21 AM PST by dennisw (G_D - against Amelek for all generations.)
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To: NormsRevenge; All
I'm not saying that this couldn't be fouls play, but check this para from the Yahoo account:

Her agent, Susan Rabiner, said Chang had suffered from "classical clinical depression" and had been hospitalized earlier this year. She said Chang left a note to her family asking that she be remembered as she was before her illness.

Seems like the background facts fit suicide. Here's the most horrible part: Her son is only two years old.

55 posted on 11/11/2004 12:39:09 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned: I couldn't concentrate.)
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To: NormsRevenge
Here's another photo. According to Reuters, this was her official "author's headshot."

Rest in peace, Iris.

56 posted on 11/11/2004 12:43:37 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned: I couldn't concentrate.)
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To: WorkingClassFilth
Attractive woman in her prime and with recent success and a promising future. Very strange indeed.

Clinical depression is one of the strangest things going.

57 posted on 11/11/2004 12:47:28 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned: I couldn't concentrate.)
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To: jamaly
She was an embezzler and found out that the company knew what she was doing. Rather than face the consequences of her actions she committed suicide leaving behind two teenage children and two toddlers.

In her case, she probably chose a firearm "to be sure," so she wouldn't be revived and prosecuted.

58 posted on 11/11/2004 12:51:36 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned: I couldn't concentrate.)
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To: reaganaut

May I ask what you've written about specifically? If you wish, send me freepmail.


59 posted on 11/11/2004 12:56:14 PM PST by Mr. Silverback (I used to work in an orange juice factory, but I got canned: I couldn't concentrate.)
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To: dandelion
She was excorated and reviled by the Japanese community, and by many in academia for her exposure of these atrocities; they did not want to ever lose the image of the Japanese as "innocent" victims of atomic attack at the hands of Evil Americans. The constant harrassment from those who hated her "politically incorrect" account of history must have been draining - just read some of the reviews online, and you will understand what may have contributed to her untimely death.

I loved the guy on Amazon who posted as a "review" the news report about the Chinese submarine...as if what the Japanese did to Nanking was justified by a Chinese nuclear submarine entering Japanese waters 67 years later...

60 posted on 11/11/2004 1:03:42 PM PST by Poohbah (Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!)
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