Will, the right-wing magazine, seems quite concerned about global warming. More so about China, though. The world waits for the right-wingers in Japan to take the lead in solving global problems since they have done so well at home. Look for all the answers in the May issue.

Let's quit since our leadership has no new ideas

Japan faces a raft of problems related to its place in a changing world that are all likely to get remorselessly more difficult and exacerbated by the triple whammy of an aging and declining population and high government debts. There are measures that could be taken, including greater participation in the economy by women, careful restructuring to encourage consumption, and greater immigration....

.... Japanese media regularly forgets that a free press doing its job properly should be constantly questioning the government and bureaucracy, raising the issues that officialdom would rather see buried, promoting debate and exploring all the options....Kevin Rafferty, Japan Times.

or the old fogies running the country should give up and take Japan back to a mythical past. After all, they have already got theirs. Screw the next generations.

...Nowadays, Ms. Bando [the ex- government bureaucrat author of "The Dignity of a Woman"] believes that a “society in which everyone can lead modest little lives isn’t bad, though it’s not an attractive way of thinking”...

...Japan, in the past, was more open to challenges, she said. “But,” she added, “once you reach a certain level, challenges and competition aren’t necessarily a plus anymore.” Norimitsu Onishi NYTimes.

Isn't that level called death?

Hillary to stay the course

No, not necessarily in the war in Iraq that she voted for, but in the war against Obama. It is vital to the U.S.A. and the world that she win the nomination. Then she can carry the fight against John McCain citing, her 500 years of "experience", including short-selling cattle futures, being a lawyer, and leading a ground assault through withering sniper and artillery fire in Bosnia to counter John's silly little claims of leadership experience.

Perhaps Bush should send her ass to Iraq to fight. She'll stay the course until the last, win or lose, no matter who it harms as long as she comes out on top. It's all about her, after all. Her and hubby Bubba.

She did have a good comeback against Obama when he said that he could no more reject his pastor than he could his grandmother. Hillary, sharp as a razor despite suffering severe PTSD from combat in Bosnia, said that we are stuck with our relatives, but we can choose our pastor. Wonder if she chose her husband?

I have to admit, I did not expect the Democrats to be able to blow any change of winning the presidency this time after 8 years of little Bush. I think I was wrong. I think that they will blow it.

Hillary's threat here.

Tokyo Gov't blinks for Blinky

The news is a bit old, but "Binky" Ishihara's masterpiece of incompetence, Shinginko Tokyo Bank, has been sinking into a cesspool of non-performing loans. It sort of seems like the loan officers were approving loans without much concern for the creditworthiness of the applicants. This is what used to happen back in the bubble days.

Blinky has denied any personal responsibility, but so far he has not blamed it on the Chinese, or the US, or other non-Japanese. He blamed it on the folks he picked to run the bank. How could it be his fault if they were idiots?

Anyway, in the face of public opposition---So?---the Tokyo Metropolitan ASSembly has approved a ￥40 billion bailout of the bank. Strangely, even small businesses which Blinky claimed the bank was to help say that it is "not useful." But WTF cares what the public thinks? Not Blinky. Not the Tokyo Metro ASS.

Interestingly, or not, Blinky has claimed to be a buddy of Dick Cheney. That could explain a lot, including the blinking. "Don't shoot Dicky. We are hunting peasants. Shoot them, not me." (Sorry, the birds are actually "pheasants." My error.)

Article here.

More security and better services for bakagaijin

And it includes non-gaijin foreigners too. (meaning not Caucasian)

Report urges closer watch on foreigners (Japan Time headlines)

Foreigners living in Japan should be allowed five-year visas but kept under the eye of a new unified Justice Ministry-run nationwide identification system, a government panel on immigration control said in its report released Wednesday.

...a new foreigner registration system and revision of the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law should aim at creating "a symbiotic community" by providing a "pleasant environment for foreign residents in Japan...

Of course. This has to be a good idea since it will place non-Japanese under the benevolent care of Hatoyama's ministry.

...critics view the new registry system as increased state control.

Cynical fools. If they don't like it, why don't they just shut up and leave? This is a democracy, after all.

This thoughtful measure could also prevent me (and other untrustworthy bakagaijin/criminal/terrorist types) from overstaying visas, working illegally, going into a bar in Tokyo to complain about noise and getting killed, being murdered by sexual predators, and other such things. Plus, we could get better access to all the educational opportunities here. And, it's for security. We need to trust Hatoyama-sama, a man with personal knowledge about the danger of terrorists.

I can't wait to read about it in a Japanese article, even if I get a headache doing so. Full article here

Coming to Japan

Under the stern gaze of passport officials and the even sterner gaze of television cameras, the two British citizens, fresh off a morning flight from London on Tuesday, passed through customs at Kennedy International Airport separately and came to separate conclusions.

Under a new Homeland Security system at Kennedy Airport, most foreign visitors must submit to a biometric scan of all 10 fingerprints.

Both pressed one thumb, then the other fingers on the glowing screen of a small white box. Then the process was repeated for the other hand...

For security. One guy didn't just meekly swallow that line for some reason:

“Pretty soon it’ll be a full naked body scan, with my irises and my DNA profile. It makes the honest visitor to America, of which 99.9999 percent coming through here are, feel unwelcome so you guys can catch the 0.0001 percent of people who are a problem.”

What's he mean by "feel" unwelcome?

The new system, whose image-capture units each cost as much as $3,000, will eventually cost more than $280 million, paid for by the federal government, rather than the airlines.

Huh? Where does the federal government get money? Oh, that's right. It borrows from foreigners. I almost said from taxpayers, but that's on down the line. Article is free here at the New York Times for now.

Lindsay Hawker's family has returned to Japan to try to nudge the investigation into their daughter's murder by Tatsuya Ichihashi.

Although the murderer has not been caught, things have changed since Lucy (Lucie?) Blackman was murdered. In that case, it took a personal plea from Tony Blair to former Prime Minister Koizumi to force the police to get serious about solving the case. Unfortunately, the man accused of killing her avoided conviction in court. Not enough proper evidence said the court. I assume that the police are serious this time especially since Ms. Hawker's form of employment was more...acceptable?

Meanwhile, in a case which has been barely mentioned in the media, Scott Tucker's killer is expected to receive leniency for that homicide in Tokyo.

Another member of the US military is under some suspicion of a major crime in Japan. This time, a cab driver was murdered and a credit card belonging to an AWOL sailer was discovered in the cab.

When I first heard this Friday night, I thought not again. As of yet, he has not been charged with the crime. (The US has found him and took him into custody.)

I, like many non-Japanese (and some Japanese) who have lived here for a while, tend to be sensitive to these types of things as we know that the media and politicians will sensationalize it and imply that foreigners have some kind of criminal tendencies. In this case, I thought that it was very convenient to find a credit card belonging to someone in the U.S. military. It proves nothing at all by itself. It may no more than show that this guy forgot or lost his card in the cab. In cases like this, I can appreciate SOFA.

We don't know if the guy is connected or not. I hope not, though to the murdered cab driver it won't make much difference. The best we can hope for him and his family and society (Japanese and non-Japanese in Japan) is that the real killer is caught and punished.

But there are a lot of questions. MTC of the political blog Shisaku ponders some of them here and here.

No problem---it's for security

Americans and Japanese apparently aren't alone in shivering in their undies at the fear of terrorism. The official explanation of "security" reduces the trembling and with luck will prevent us from becoming so frightened as to soil our dainty underwear.



While this may be an example of incompetent law enforcement officers, taking photographs (and similar threatening behavior) can be a risky business nowadays.

Are Japan's leaders merely readers on climate change? Japan Times headline.

A very simple answer: Yes, if that is not giving them too much credit. Since the Kyoto Accord was signed in Japan, there seems to be some belief that Japan is a world leader in fighting global warming. The nihonronists and members of the Department of an Imaginary Japans like to spout this as it goes right along with the "special" relationship with nature that Japan mythically has. Some of the right-wing nutjobs even count their own brand of environmentalism as part of their ideals, so no doubt they would love to believe that Japan is or should be the natural leader in this.

Strangely though, Japan did not ratify the Accords until Boy George pulled the U.S. out of the agreement. (OK, most countries curiously declined to act until Bush said the U.S. would not participate.) In addition, one often reads/hears about how difficult if will be for Japan to become even more energy efficient than it already, anyone who lives in Tokyo ought to be able to think of numerous was that Japan could easily reduce energy usage and emissions further. The use of proper insulation in homes and less wrapping/packaging, for example.

..."Fukuda's speech at Davos was compiled by officials of the Environment Ministry and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry...those bureaucrats are actually controlling policies on global warming to ensure they are ineffective and insufficient...

Tetsunari Iida, [from the Tokyo-based Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies] explained the government, greatly influenced by big energy industries, hammered out the targets — targets which have actually been preventing the promotion of renewable energy. Read the full article at The Japan Times here.

The good thing for the US is that Boy George will soon be a former president like Bubba Clinton and we won't hear much from him unless his wife---god forbid---runs for president. For Japan, it is likely that the same bunch of hair-dyeing, barcode-headed old geezers mainly from the LDP (and the bureaucracy) will still be running the country for the foreseeable future. So leadership from Japan on the issue is about as realistic as the uniquely special relationship that Japan has with nature.

You don't wanna be arrested in Japan

as the chance of time in the slammer is very, very high. Arrested=guilty in most cases. Unless, perhaps, you are a rapist:

Crimes by women and crimes against women in Japan receive uneven coverage in the press. Female suspects, particularly those charged with serious offenses, are so thoroughly skewered in the media that defense attorneys often complain that a fair trial is near impossible. Crimes against women receive little attention unless, for example, the woman is a well known figure, Caucasian, or the perpetrator is a U.S. serviceman charged with a sexual crime.

Nobody knows this better than Masako Hirano. Her world changed abruptly in the wee hours of June 13, 1995...

and in another sexual assault:

...Since the perpetrator had shown "remorse," the incident was recorded as "a minor molestation." The assailant was released and no indictment was filed. ..Japan Times article by Michael H. Fox here.

I am sure that someone can explain this sort of thing away by saying similar things happen in every country. Even if so, it does not excuse the Japanese criminal justice system.

Arlington National Cemetary

...not about a troop surge or a war spending bill or whether we should be fighting these wars at all. It is about ordinary people trying to get through something so hard that most of us can’t ever imagine it. Everyone I met that afternoon had a gut-wrenching story to tell. Getty Images.

Bizzaro World

As I see the real interest rate in the US drop to zero and hear Bush talk about establishing "order" in the financial markets, I feel like I am in some sort of alternate galaxy.

Isn't that Japan? Interest rates at zero and worries of "confusion" in the market? Another nail in the coffin of Japan's unique uniqueness myth.

Thank you Boy George and Hillary

...that whoever succeeds President Bush might restore something of the United States' battered image and standing overseas but that 'the magic is over.' . . .Washington Post.

Not that the U.S. was ever as loved overseas as Americans have been led to believe, but the change is palpable now---or at least people are more open about the dislike of many things American.

Not only should we thank Bush and Clinton (Hillary, without having bothered to read all pertinent reports available to her at the time, voted for a war that she now opposes), but all Americans who didn't take Colin Powell seriously when he said about Iraq, "If we break it, we own it."

It was a nice day until

I went to debito.org. There I found an entry on a story that I had read in the Japan Times last week.

It seems that a wealthy U.S. citizen lost his life to homicide in a bar in Tokyo. His killer is reportedly expected to get a light sentence because after a thorough, professional investigation by the Tokyo police, it was discovered that the foreigner was being troublesome.

Now I don't know the true details of the homicide, so I can't really say whether or not the killer deserves a harsh or lenient sentence. Friends of the deceased---both American and Japanese---seemed to be shocked by the whole thing.

But the thing I do wonder about is: Why has this not been all over the TV and in newspapers since it happened? Why was there not endless, sensational, emotional coverage? A cynic might claim that there are double standards here. Perhaps even pure hypocrisy. Perhaps open discrimination. Or it could be because so many non-Japanese are killed by Japanese that it isn't news while a Japanese citizen being killed by a non-Japanese is rare and therefore is news.

Me, I don't know. I am confused. I know non-Japanese are generally the ones at fault in any confrontation. Just watch TV programs or even ads. Or ask someone here. But still....

Oh, the debito.org article is here with the Japan Times reports as well as the victim's (Scott Tucker) hometown newspaper report. Ask around. See how many people are aware of this and then ask why they think that coverage has been so sparse compared to what one could expect had a wealthy Japanese been killed by a non-Japanese. Or by a member of the U.S. military.

More nature than any other country

So I have recently been informed. I like to go out in the woods as often as I can. This ain't often in Tokyo.

About 2 hours from Tokyo is Nikko which is fairly convenient for a one day trip. I last went there in February. As I was hiking up a trail to the top of a 3,000 foot plus hill, enjoying the sugi trees (planted as a crop by the bureaucrats years ago) and hinoki trees and the silence (rarely did I even hear a bird), I suddenly heard a loud, disturbing noise. No, not a sneeze from one of the many who have developed an allergy to the unnaturally over-abundant sugi trees, but a fellow hiker with his transistor radio at full blast. (That's him in the photo.) Apparently, this is a traditional way for a lot of old guys to enjoy nature. Fill the silence with AM radio. Scare away any living thing within hundreds of yards.

I stopped and let grandpa pass and stayed back taking photos and just enjoying the walk for a while. Unfortunately, I could not walk slowly enough and once the trail started up hill, grandpa slowed to a crawl. I wanted to pass him as I sure didn't want to spend the next two hours listening to his radio. He wouldn't move off the trail even slightly to let me pass either---as I had done for him. So I went through the woods and around him an nearly ran up the next two slopes to get away from him and his noise. Later as I had stopped on the other side of the top of the hill to take photos, I heard Rajio-ojiisama again. I put away my camera and took off down the hill. Rajio-ojii actually tried to speed up after me for some reason (wanted to get in front to block the trail again or entertain me with the radio?) Unfortunately for him, he fell flat on his a**, and I kept going.

A fine East Asian tradition

that I wouldn't want to disappear.

This morning as I got on the 6:30am train to Kamiyacho, I was pleased to discover that it was only somewhat crowded. The crush was 25-30 minutes away. This meant that I would have enough room to be able to breathe. I was especially aware of this ability to breathe as I was standing next to a slim, attractive, young woman who had obviously indulged in the increasingly popular garlic fest the night before. How pleasant, I thought as I watched the guy with either an allergy or a bad cold sneeze repeatedly. As for the runny nose and his creative use of his hands---well, perhaps he forgot his handkerchief.

About an hour later after a breakfast which I could only hope was prepared by a cook without an allergy or bad cold, I was chatting with a young lady who was telling me about how she was so happy to live in Japan, because (as she had recently read in a "mini-column") Japan has more "nature" than any other country on earth. I damn near barfed in my hands.

At this time of year with the cedar tree pollen allergy so common (due to Japan's "nature" in which bureaucrats decided to cut down huge parts of the natural forest and replace the trees with cedars) as well as during the cold and flu seasons, I truly appreciate the custom of bowing that is traditional in many parts of Asia. Perhaps, as one fine fellow explained to me, it spread because of kind, generous Japan which during its occupation of Korea taught the Koreans how to bow.

I admire this. (The tradition, not the claim that it was taught to other peoples by Japan.) After all, you don't really want to go around fondling the mucous-covered hands of someone. You don't want to shake the hand of someone who just puked into them after hearing the latest nihonjinron.

Annual Cycling Editorial

Oh. Rant, I mean.

I believe I missed it last year, so I will start early this year. The media usually starts in about June expressing shock and dismay that most cyclists in Japan ignore the law and wobble about negligently, recklessly, idiotically, and as one put it "with no sense of anticipation."

Last year, the police---who often are prime examples of the negligent, reckless, and idiotic cyclist---proposed forcing all cyclists onto the sidewalk. One of the English language newspapers, either the Japan Times or the Asahi Shimbun, worried that if that happened, cyclists would think they owned the sidewalks. Don't they already think that?

This year, they are thinking of getting cyclists off the sidewalk; stopping them from holding umbrellas in one hand (often directly in front of their face so that they cannot see a thing beyond their front tire); prohibiting the extremely common use of cell phones while riding and other dangerous riding behavior.

I ride my road bike a lot. I have averaged 4,500 to 5,000 miles per year over the last 5-6 years. Most of this is along the Tamagawa, but some of it on roads. Frankly, the problem is that most mama-chari riders (and many road bike riders) don't appear to have any awareness of their surroundings, no sense of anticipation, no sense of danger, and often a total disregard of anyone or anything else. Most would seem to prefer to run into someone else and seriously injure or kill themselves and the other person rather than to take any action which would be "troublesome." You know, applying the brakes, staying in the correct lane, taking evasive action to avoid a collision, or even watching where they are going. Lest one think that only Japanese do this, I have seen plenty on non-Japanese adopt this sort of head-up-the-ass riding behavior. What non-Japanese often don't know is that many cycling violations are not traffic violations, but violations of criminal law (according to an article from a few years ago by the head of, if memory serves, the Japan Cycling Association). And you DON'T want to be arrested for a crime in Japan.

I have mixed feelings about this newest idea. I won't ride on the sidewalk unless I have no other choice, and then only for as short of a distance as possible. Too dangerous. I hate walking down the sidewalk with some wobbling fool reading his/her e-mail and clanging that damned bell ordering everyone out of the way. My wife refuses to budge for them. She has more balls that I do. They'll run you down and kill you---as some woman did to an elderly lady a few weeks ago. That woman is likely to spend some time in the pokey.

One the other had, if these mama-chari riders are forced onto the road and they don't change their behavior, natural selection will deal with many. That's the way the cookie crumbles, but then I will have to deal with them too when I am riding on the road. They are extremely dangerous to approach or pass no matter where they are. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. One cannot trust them or take his/her eyes off them for a split second. Did I say that these wobbling, reckless, negligent riders are EXTREMELY DANGEROUS? I am perhaps understating it a bit. They will kill you and themselves in a heartbeat. BEWARE!

Last year a politician wrote an editorial in one of the newspapers suggesting that an education and licensing system for cyclists was an answer. He thought that the reason that cyclists were so lacking in safe riding practices is because most Japanese don't learn to drive and therefore have no real sense of the rules or dangers of the road.

Whatever the reason, a license isn't going to help anytime soon. Despite some suggestions, most places aren't going to have cycling paths either and even if they did, they'd become an extra sidewalk for absent-minded pedestrians and another parking space for cars. (One of the most dangerous places to ride along the Tamagawa is a short section in which the cycling path is separated from the pedestrian path by a line. There you have cyclists on the pedestrian path and pedestrians on the cycling path. As soon as they approach one another, they each try to get into the correct path, resulting in "confusion.")

I have no idea on how to reduce the dangers here. It would require a whole new approach to more than just cycling. People are riding a bike in the same way that people walk---without watching where they are going, without awareness of where they are, without awareness of what they are doing, without any rules of where to walk (the right or left side) and without concern about running into someone else. Plus, the rule is go as slow as a dead 3-legged turtle in molasses in mid-January unless you see someone else heading toward the same spot as you. Then run like a bat out of hell just to get in front, and then slow down and block the way. Just like folks ride bikes.

Solomons Prime Minister Derek Sikua is a big fibber

according to Hideki Moronuki, of the Japan's Fisheries Association. PM Sikua had been reported as saying that Japan had offered to pay to send the Solomon Island's delegates to the International Whaling Commission meeting in London last week, but that he declined the payment and thus did not send representatives.

Moronuki (no, Moronuki is not long for "moron." Pardon, childish.) said, "There is no truth to it." "Japan has never made any offer at all to pay costs." Story at AFP.

This could be another case like that of the former sex slaves of the Japanese Imperial Army during WW2, who have been claiming that the military systematically set up the sex slave abductions and the whole business. Those women were either lying, got too old to remember what really happened, misunderstood what was really going on, or were just professional whores anyway who were well-paid to happily provide their services. Maybe it's the same thing with Prime Minister Sikua except for the latter since he said that he refused payment.

I am glad to see the Japan "with a spine" and Aso is not even PM yet. Japan as professional victim may be ending, although you have to admit that Japan is a victim of an untruth here.

Chalmers Johnson has it right again

One of the so-called revisionists of the standard Reischauer myth of Japan during the 1980s and early nighties, has written a short article on Japan Focus:

.....the Japanese government speaks with a forked tongue. For the sake of the Okinawans forced to live cheek-by-jowl with 37 US military bases on their small island, Tokyo condemns the behavior of the Americans. Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo called the recent assault "unforgivable" and demanded tighter military discipline. But that is as far as it goes.

The Japanese government has never even discussed why a large standing army of Americans is garrisoned on Japanese territory, some 63 years after the end of World War II. There is never any analysis in the Japanese press or by the government of whether the Japanese-American Security Treaty actually requires such American troops.

See Japan Focus 2886.

The article lightly addresses the questionable need for the U.S. military in Japan. It seems to be just a standard throw-away line used by politicians in both countries as well as policy wonks. The reason for the need for us to be here changes with the wind, but it never changes in importance for the continued existence of the planet. Should the U.S. pull out, Japan will build its military and probably go nuclear. Then of course China will respond. As will both Koreas. Within seconds of the departure of the last U.S. troop, World War 3 will begin as the nukes start flying all over East Asia, ultimately bring the U.S. into the conflict followed by Europe, all of South America, Quebec, and numerous bands of nomadic goat herders. The world will end shortly thereafter.

One nitpic I have with the article is that he refers to military personnel as "heavily armed young Americans." Off duty personnel are not heavily armed. In fact, unless they are training or on alert, very few on duty personnel are armed, let alone heavily armed. One might also get the impression from this short article that rapes and crimes by the military are widespread. They are not.

But once again, that is not the point. The point is that many people, at least in the media, think that military crime is widespread. Plus, SOFA is not viewed as fair. As long as there is any crime by a U.S. military member in Okinawa, it will be too much crime for the media and much of the public. The answer is a quick goodbye and good luck from Uncle Sam to Japan. Never happen though.