The White Peril 白禍

Poor southwestern Japan, including the prefecture to which Atsushi's been transferred, may have to get back into its typhoon mentality. Well, there's no wind coming, just an early front of 梅雨 (tsuyu: lit., "plum rain," which sounds precious and refreshing but actually refers to the torturing-hot rainy season that makes up the first half of summer here):

The Japan Meteorological Agency has issued a general bulletin related to heavy rains and called for precautions against landslide damage and the swelling of rivers in Kyushu, based on fears that an incoming front of rain, expected to hit the area late tonight, may be dumping 30-50 millimeters of precipitation per hour on some areas by tomorrow.

Some localities are expected to get 80-100 millimeters in the 24 hours leading up to 6 a.m. tomorrow. After that, Kyushu will keep being drenched while Shikoku will join in the fun and be vulnerable to cliffslides and lowland flooding. Of course, my primary concern is that my Atsushi not be washed away, but his city got off rather lightly in last year's typhoon-fest. Other areas that suffered more have probably dried out by now (a big problem toward the end of the season was the cumulative waterlogging of soil to the point that it liquefied), but their enthusiasm for the first wave of tsuyu is probably minimal. Stay safe, if you're down there.

Any of my fellow Anglosphere natives who are ready to put a hammer through their monitor if they see one more headline that says, "French say 'Non!' to EU constitution," may take some comfort in knowing that it was the cliché of the weekend here, too. (And I am aware that that was the way the campaign went in French--it's still not that hard to use the word reject when you're writing in English.) This morning's main editorial in the Nikkei was printed under the line "With French 'Non,' European unity rent again." There was, however, this delicious sentence, which contains a compound I don't believe I've seen:

仏以上に国民のＥＵ不信が強い英国では、ブレア政権が国民投票を先送りにするはずだ。

In England, where distrust of the EU among the citizens is stronger than in France, the Blair administration is expected to push back its own referendum.[my emphasis--SRK]

EU不信, huh? Yes, I know, it's not really an expression per se; it's just the compressed style of newspaper writing. Still, pretty catchy. How'd I not notice that one before? To turn it into a legitimate four-character compound, of course, you'd probably have to use the kanji abbreviation of EU: 欧州連合不信-->欧連不信.

Today was a day off for me, but I didn't do much in the way of celebrating Memorial Day, beyond reflecting a bit. I was reading one of my favorite books, the printed companion to the PBS series The Story of English, which we watched when it was broadcast in the mid-80's. This particular passage moved me even more than usual:

Augustine and his monks landed in Kent, a small kingdom which, happily for them, already had a small Christian community. The story of the great missionary's arrival at the court of King Aethelbert is memorably reported by Bede:

When, at the king's command, they had sat down and preached the word of life to the king and his court, the king said: "Your words and promises are fair indeed; they are new and uncertain, and I cannot accept them and abandon the age-old beliefs that I have held together with the whole English nation. But since you have travelled far, and I can see that you are sincere in your desire to impart to us what you believe to be true and excellent, we will not harm you. We will receive you hospitably and take care to supply you with all that you need; nor will we forbid you to preach and win any people you can to your religion."

After this, perhaps the earliest recorded example of English tolerance, the liberal-minded king arranged for Augustine to have a house in Canterbury, the capital of his tiny kingdom. He kept his word: Augustine's mission went ahead unhindered.

It's hard to imagine the generosity of character that must have required. The Germanic tribes had gotten to Britain through bloody invasions themselves. They'd begun to build a civilization but were off on a remote island and constantly exposed to the elements; the system of magic and rituals through which their rudimentary understanding of nature was mediated provided their only meager feeling of control over it. It must have had immense psychological importance for them. But here we have the germ of liberty, of the ability of people with fundamentally different beliefs about the way life works to live together. Of course, "English tolerance" has had to take up arms to defend itself a lot since then. But 1400 years later, men are still sacrificing themselves for it, because it's worth it.

With gratitude, we remember.

How's that Yasukuni Shrine situation? (I really need to create a sub-category for that....) Well, let's see. The chief of the LDP's Diet committee gives us this solution:

On 29 May, the leadership of the Liberal Democratic Party issued another in a series of statements calling for the separate enshrinement of class-A war criminals at the Yasukuni Shrine, in response to the controversy over Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi's pilgrimages to the shrine.

Hidenao Nakagawa, head of the LDP's Diet committee, stated on Fuji Television that he is of the opinion that "the administrators of the shrine should meet with the families [of those enshrined], and voluntarily allow for separate enshrinements. Then, China will agree to Japan's assumption of permanent membership to the UN Security Council."

Yes, I'm sure it'll go just like that. The PRC is not, after all, worried about anything other than Japan's attitude toward its wartime conduct, such as--and I'm just kinda riffing here--the entire balance of power in East Asia.

The word I've rendered "voluntarily" there is 自発的 (jihatsuteki: "self-" + "emergence" + [adjectival/genitive ending]). It also often means something closer to "spontaneously," which would perhaps give a better feel for the complete lack of precedent for such a move as Nakagawa is recommending.

Nakagawa isn't the only one issuing unfathomables on this issue. The Yomiuri English edition corrals many of the latest soundbites from various government types, including this "huh?" moment from a Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare official:

Masahiro Morioka, parliamentary secretary of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry criticized the Chinese government for demanding Koizumi stop visiting the shrine. "Class-A war criminals are treated as bad people because of fear of China," Morioka said. "War criminals were categorized as Class-A, Class-B and Class-C at the Tokyo Tribunal of War Criminals. They were categorized by a one-sided tribunal led by the Occupation forces at which crimes against peace and humanity were created." [It's enough to make you wonder whether this guy might actually be affiliated with the shrine itself.--SRK]

"A war is part of politics, and it is in line with an international law. The Diet unanimously agreed to pay pensions to the families of Class-A war criminals who have died. They're not seen as criminals in the country," he said.

"Saying it's bad to enshrine Class-A criminals at Yasukuni Shrine is to turn a blind eye to future troubles," he added.

It's certainly true that Japan didn't regard many convicted war criminals as actual criminals. It released most (all?) of those who weren't executed; many promptly reentered public service. One, Nobusuke Kishi, became Prime Minister--though it's important to remember that he wasn't one of those tried and convicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East. BTW, you can read at that last link to get a sense of whether inventive approaches to crime began with the Tribunal and whether it's future troubles to which someone's turning a blind eye.

As you might imagine, others in the government have reacted along predictable lines--namely, "Sh*t! I would just like to distance myself from that particular comment":

Referring to Morioka's remarks, Hosoda said later in the day: "Such remarks should never be made by a member of the government. There were some errors in the judgments, but it's no use to comment on it. Japan accepted [the tribunal's decision]."

Koizumi told reporters at the Prime Minister's Office, "It's meaningless to take note of his remarks. It's got nothing to do with my visits [to Yasukuni Shrine]."

Japan paid the reparations that were demanded of it; the government is absolutely right to maintain that it no longer owes official apologies and official acts of redress. But diplomacy is about establishing, if not trust, at least fellow-feeling. It's not hard to see why China, the Koreas, and Taiwan, suspect there are key members of the Japanese government with no sense of the enormity of their forebears' conduct.

Added at 15:00: Japundit links to a tidbit about this Kyodo poll. It was a telephone poll (heh-heh), so you have to take it FWIW. A few other interesting notes:

Asked about what the Japanese government has done to work toward improvement of Japan-PRC relations, 50.8% of respondents answered, "I don't think it's sufficient," surpassing by a wide margin the 11.5% who answered, "I think it's sufficient."

...

Regarding the bill to privatize Japan Post, over which debate has begun in the Diet, 47.4% supported it, and 33.3% opposed it. However, regarding explanations from the Prime Minister of why the privatization plan was necessary, the proportion saying, "I don't think they're sufficient," reached 64.1%; by contrast, the percent responding, "I think they're sufficient," was 8.2%, so there are still many who feel that not enough explanation has been offered.

The rate of support for the cabinet has risen 1.5 points since Kyodo's April survey to 48.4%, with the percent not supporting the cabinet dropping 1.9 points to 36.4%. Among reasons given for support of the cabinet, the most frequent was "There are no other appropriate people [available]" at 48.7%. The most frequent reason given for withholding support was "Nothing can be expected of its economic policies" at 22.5%.

There was no obvious direct link to Kyodo's report of the poll, so it's hard to tell how much the push for UNSC permanent membership has affected people's attitudes toward China policy.

JR West, having done some deep thinking, is going to reevaluate its re-education camps...uh, program:

JR West, after last month's derailment disaster in Amagasaki, Hyogo Prefecture, unveiled the full contents of its new "Plan for Improved Safety" on 28 May. The plan serves as notice to the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure what JR West's fundamental policies regarding safety will be from here on. After a comprehensive review of its reeducation program for drivers "Education for Daily Service," which is regarded as "punitive," the company devised a plan the main pillars of which include the generation of consistent internal safety criteria, revision of the qualifications required of those who sit for driver certification exams, and improvements to its packed train schedules.

Alert readers who know the usual line about Japan may be wondering about that "consistent internal safety criteria" part. Japanese corporate culture is highly regimented and group-oriented--doesn't JR West (and everyone else) already have a company-wide set of standards? The answer is no: the Nikkei article goes on to state that the company plans to create its first such manual as a result of the accident. People identify very strongly with their companies, but often there's little horizontal communication within them when doing day-to-day business. Rotations for management trainees expose them to different facets of the operations, but once they start in their designated departments, for example, marketing people may nearly never communicate even with the salespeople in order to coordinate strategies and approaches.

Policy is often set from the details up. You think about all the little things you have to do and problems that might arise and make rules for dealing with them. What it all adds up to kind of becomes the company's set of basic principles by default. Of course, this avoids the Dilbert-style inanity of meaningless mission statements foisted on the rank and file by out-of-touch top managers. But it also creates massive duplication of effort and the frequent possibility that critical information may escape the notice of people who would know what to do about it. There's always the possibility that JR West's new set of standards will end up turning into nothing but an empty gesture, but if the company seriously rethinks how it trains and supports the people running the trains, it will obviously be a good thing.

It's something of a dark relief to read that JAL isn't alone in having some safety concerns recently:

Eight flight crew members and five of their bosses have been punished after most of them were boozing and partying past the time permitted before they were supposed to be on a domestic flight from Akita to Tokyo, All Nippon Airways said.

All 13 were given a reprimand of some sort, with the eight actually drinking -- the flight captain, a co-pilot, a co-pilot trainee and five flight attendants -- served with written warnings. The five others -- the bosses of the crewmembers -- were verbally reprimanded.

ANA regulations forbid flight crew members from drinking within 12 hours of their duties, but the group partied on until just 11 hours before the flight.

Okay, in practice, that's not so bad. 11 hours is more than enough time to sober back up. For those who don't know, this gives an indication of how Japanese people put it away:

The flight captain drank two large jugs of beer and two flasks of sake. Together, the eight members of the flight crew went through two bottles of wine and more than one dozen jugs of beer.

When the captain returned to his hotel, he realized they had been drinking past the time permitted by company regulations. Early on the morning of May 5, he notified ANA staff in Tokyo and the replacement crew were sent up.

So the captain adhered to the letter of the law and followed protocol, even though everyone was probably fine to fly. That's nice to hear, given the way misjudgments by transportation crews have become so prominent in the public mind lately. It'd be even nicer if it were my airline.

Michael is right: this is why-didn't-I-think-of-that? hilarious. Love the sinner and hate the sin, I say. And you have to read the FAQ.

I've been summoned to the role of gay big brother more than usual these last few weeks. I'm glad to do it--お互い様でしょう？--but it's made me more jealous of my time alone and less likely (if you haven't noticed) to feel like posting.

I've been reading enough to notice that class is one of the topics of the day, though. Virginia Postrel's advice for one of the people profiled in the final installment in the NYT series on class, who is making plans to go back to college and become a schoolteacher, is good:

Blevins sounds like a fine man, the kind of person who makes communities--and supermarkets--work. Too bad the Times won't honor him for his real accomplishments, including finding a demanding career he's good at. (Most of his buyer colleagues have college degrees.) Instead, he's portrayed as a victim and the "happy ending" is that he's going back to college so he can get a job he's totally unsuited for. A guy who hates school this much doesn't belong anywhere near a classroom, least of all in front of one.

She's right, but it's interesting how the article raised and then didn't follow through on one of the more interesting angles here. A lot of working-class people see college as a trade school with more books and more job security waiting when you finish. Merely going to college no longer makes you plummy, given how the economy has evolved; but still, feeling engaged by school is, in many ways, not encouraged.

My father read to my brother and me from the Bible every night before bed until I was, probably, 15 or so. The church to which we belonged published two monthly magazines with a lot of writing about world affairs (it was big on prophecy), and they were always lying around. Or Mom would be reading one of them while the television was on. Additionally, my Catholic mother and Anglican father married and then converted to an extremely tiny fundamentalist sect; without disrespecting the dead, I think I can say that this sequence of events was met with something less than enthusiasm by key family elders.

So I was brought up by parents who read when they didn't have to (if that makes sense) and who were sympathetic to the idea that your parents' expectations may not be what's really best for you. They made an effort to become friendly with my teachers and, without being neurotic, kept after me if I got lazy. We also happened to live in a school district in which there was a critical mass of well-off families. The people I was in classes with were talking about MIT and Bucknell and Penn State main campus and Columbia from junior high school on. So were the teachers and guidance counselors.

By the time I got to college, my experiences had made me much more like the people I was surrounded by than like the people I'd actually grown up with. I don't mean "experiences" in the sense of having summered on Mackinac or watching Dad casually write a check for $15,000 for that semester's tuition--those I obviously didn't have. I mean feeling like part of the progression from high school to competitive college to choice of major to a good job in a major city; I was in on the dance and knew the steps. Barring a financial emergency, it would never have occurred to me to drop out temporarily. You might have a semester when you were bored by most of your classes and feeling hiply disaffected, but you kept going and maybe drank a little more.

What we're talking about is an entire vision of the world and where you fit into it. It's not surprising at all that well-meant preschool initiatives (as the Kay Hymowitz article linked above discusses) and increased attempts by big-guns institutions such as UVA to recruit in poor districts don't succeed in getting more low-income students to leave college with a degree. If you're focused solely on the prospect of getting a job and think of learning as nothing but the means to the end, it's easy to be tempted away by an offer of solid, full-time work that makes you feel you're doing something. And because Mom and Dad's constant worrying about money is almost certain to have colored your upbringing a lot, the impulse to start saving now and figure you can come back to college after you have a safe amount stored away is also probably strong.

Virginia Postrel's comments reminded me of an article I read last week-ish that made me so angry I nearly started hurling my saucily-patterned throw pillows around. It was by one Cameron Scott, whose unfathomable non-argument in this opinion piece was apparently sufficient to get it into the SF Gate (via Gay News), but who exhibits all the sociological insight of a two-slice toaster and the coherence of my utility drawer.

The main topic is, actually, an interesting one: why is it that the public presence of gay culture is so weighted toward us boys? Scott points out that lesbians in general earn less than gay men and are, therefore, a less attractive market for investors who want the bars and events they fund to turn a profit. Fair enough.

Next she asks whether this is the result (1) of choices made by lesbians or (2) of forces beyond their control. The answer is, uh, yes:

Charity work, bohemianism, working-class culture: These enduring affinities reveal that out lesbianism has long been at odds with middle-class values and income.

The mutual exclusivity of lesbians and the middle class does not mean that there are no lesbians who get by in the middle-class world. It means that lesbians can become part of public culture only to the extent that they turn away from their own culture. Lesbians as lesbians have virtually no role in public culture.

Dyke culture's long-standing opposition to middle-class values is one of its most vital and empowering aspects. But the impossibility of middle-class existence for dykes means that we still have to deal with some aspects of homophobia that have been ameliorated for gay men.

Economic disempowerment leaves people more open to the blows of discrimination. Middle-class jobs do not tolerate lesbian attitudes or attire because they suggest that the prospective employee is not already a member of the middle class — a sin greater even than private perversion.

Yes, it's a good thing the working class exists--otherwise, where would slumming lesbians go for empowerment? (Or maybe I mean disempowerment--am I imagining things, or did she not describe it as both, almost in the same breath?)

I've known plenty of lesbians with formidable management skills who flourish in corporate environments like fish in water, but everyone has her own set of strengths. If someone who was brought up in middle-class surroundings decides she'd rather work with her hands than play the often soul-destroying career game of office politics, great, I say.

But if you opt for working-class life, you're going to get the whole thing: money is tight and you worry about it a lot, you come home from work physically worn out, and you have little direct input into the shaping of images in popular culture. You don't get a pass just because you fancy that your little épater le bourgeois dress-up game of Hard Hat Barbie is a noble gesture of non-conformism. Bitching along the lines of "Can't I wear the comfy clothes to work and have a job with no staff meetings and make enough money to vacation at a dedicated hotel in South Beach and be a creative consultant on a soon-to-be hit show?" is asinine.

If you want access to the money and connections that allow your group to raise its issues and work its agenda, you have to demonstrate a basic willingness to do business. That does, indeed, mean dressing up and being nice and putting the project at hand ahead of sexual frankness sometimes when you don't feel like it.

Everyone born into this world is limited to a degree by the circumstances of his genes and upbringing. In America, unlike almost everywhere else, decisions about how to build on that foundation are left up to the individual rather than the group. That's a great and wonderful thing, but it doesn't mean that trade-offs are unnecessary. Andy Blevins's views of education may be misguided, but at least he's taking the right approach: asking how he can improve himself and considering the possibility that he may need to do things he doesn't like. He's a far more sympathetic character than Scott, who seems to believe that her coterie's problems stem from the fact that neither the middle nor the working class sees how cool they are.

There's been basically no news of late about the Japanese man taken captive in Iraq a few weeks back. This morning, the Nikkei passes on a report:

The Iraqi militant group Ansar Sunna, which is believed to have captured Akihiko Saito (44), an employee of a UK-based security company, published sound and video files on its website early this morning that indicate that Saito has been killed. The video includes the corpse of a man who appears Asian and a passport; the Japanese government is hurrying to gather and analyze available information to determine whether the man is Saito.

The video, just under 4 minutes long, shows a short-haired Asian-looking man lying face up and bleeding from the head. He is wearing a black T-shirt and beige trousers. Explanatory subtitles state in Arabic, "This is a tape of a Japanese who was working as a security manager for the US base at Assad. He was captured in a fierce battle with soldiers of the Jihad. He died of multiple bullet wounds."

I assume NHK will have more by evening. Incidentally, the word used to translate jihad here is 聖戦 (seisen: "sacred" + "war"). It's generic enough to refer to the Crusades as well, but the specific word used for them is usually 十字軍 (juujigun: "cross" + "army"). Because the character for 10 (十) is cruciform, they say "shaped like 10." 聖 is one of those characters that are applied to native Japanese words in a way that seems to reveal meaning associations from way, way back. The Japanese reading, kiyo, is frequenty found in names and can also be designated by characters such as 清 ("clear [water]"), 淳 ("ingenuous"), 浄 ("pure"), 潔 ("clean"). Ritual purity is the most important element of sacredness in Japan.

Added on 29 May: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says, "There's little choice but to say that this is Mr. Saito."

So was there some kind of singing contest on television this week, or something?

Underwood's version managed back-handed praise from Paula Abdul. "You sang the song beautifully," Abdul said. "You hit a couple of not-so-great notes, but who cares?"

Take it from someone who knows, honeychile.

If you're wondering what Prime Minister Koizumi meant by that comment about Japan's opposition parties yesterday, here's an example:

Debate remained stalled in the Diet on 24 May, as the Democratic (DPJ) and Social Democratic (SDP) Parties, both of which opposed the establishment of a special lower house committee on Japan Post reform, failed to consent to the discussion of any bills. The ruling parties plan to begin debate on the Japan Post privatization bill in the lower house plenary session on 26 May whether the opposition parties agree or not. Ruling and opposition parties will open talks between the chairmen of their Diet committees, but there is little hope that they will find a way out of the impasse.

Koizumi and other higher-ups in the LDP are, of course, taking the opportunity to warn the opposition that the citizenry will not look kindly on this kind of stonewalling. Katsuya Okada of the DPJ has shot back that voters will understand the party's motivations because the bill does not provide a premise for adequate debate. I would say "here we go again," but that would imply that we'd had a respite from this at some point.

The spread of virulent theocracy appears to be well-nigh unstoppable in my home state:

A Pennsylvania school district violated the free-speech rights of a parent who was prevented from reading the Bible to her son's kindergarten class, an attorney for the woman said on Monday.

The parent, Donna Busch, has filed a lawsuit against the Marple Newtown School District near Philadelphia, claiming her constitutional rights were breached when a school principal stopped her reading from the Bible in a class last October.

Busch, of Newtown Square, Pennsylvania, attended her son Wesley's class as part of "Me Week," which gave parents an opportunity to read aloud from their child's favorite book.

Busch planned to read Psalm No. 118 but was told by the principal the reading would violate the separation of church and state, according to the suit filed earlier this month.

Yes, letting mothers read Bible chapters alongside Make Way for Ducklings and Where the Wild Things Are is clearly comparable to the institution of a state religion. Dorkwads. Children are left in the care of people with this kind of judgment?

The school district has defended the principal, saying his actions upheld the law, and its policies forbid the teaching or advocacy of any religion.

Ed Partridge, president of the school's board of directors, said Busch would have broken the law if she read the Bible because it would have amounted to a promotion of religion.

So this mother is the state? I suppose there's a dark Freudian appeal there, if you go in for that sort of thing. BTW, for those who, like me, are a bit rusty on which Psalm is which number, Psalm 118 is here. It talks a great deal about God's role as a protector, but there doesn't seem to be much about it that endorses an identifiable brand of theology over any other. Any little atheist children traumatized by it aren't likely to fare any better when it's time to talk about the spirits in Native American religions, or about how wonderful and peaceable Buddhism is.

That Jun'ichiro can be a real card:

Speculation is spreading within the Japanese government about why PRC Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi actually canceled her meeting with Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi at the last minute and abruptly returned to China.

...

"I don't know why," said the Prime Minister yesterday evening [the day the meeting was to have taken place], addressing the press about Wu's conduct. "I don't know," he repeated seven times, oozing discomfort. "You know, maybe she's been infected by our opposition parties' habit of refusing discussion," he cracked.

The Chinese government has now indicated that the reason for Wu's sudden departure was, indeed, the Yasukuni Shrine issue:

"During Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi's visit to Japan, Japanese leaders made remarks on the Yasukuni Shrine issue that are damaging to China-Japan relations. China is extremely dissatisfied with this," spokesman Kong Quan said in Beijing late Monday.

Kong made the remarks hours after Wu canceled her talks with Koizumi and returned to China for "sudden official duty."

"The Chinese government attaches much importance on China-Japan relations and is continuing efforts to improve and develop ties. Deputy Prime Minister Wu's visit to Japan is part of these efforts," [Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman] Kong said, suggesting that Japan is responsible for her canceled meeting with Koizumi.

The scheduled visit by the PRC's Deputy Prime Minister Wu Yi to Prime Minister Koizumi today has been canceled by the Chinese side. LDP leader Shinzo Abe says that Tokyo is not considering it a diplomatic affront:

"If sudden business came up, that can't be helped; however, most Japanese citizens may be left harboring the feeling that they have been treated discourteously," he indicated. At the same time, he expressed an understanding that "the purpose of her visit was to pay her respects; she it not the Prime Minister's counterpart [in rank]. This is not a major problem."

The official reason given was, as Abe referred to, that Wu had business at home that she could not delay attending to. There's been some speculation that the real reason for the cancellation was Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. The Mainichi reports that a government official (not named) said ofthe cancellation:

"Is it not possible that Ms. Wu canceled her visit because it was conveyed to the Chinese side that, if she raised the issue of the Yasukuni Shrine during their meeting, Prime Minister Koizumi would have no choice but to reply very forcefully that her conduct constituted interference in [Japanese] internal political affairs?" The official was of the view that the Yasukuni Shrine pilgrimage issue was the cause of the cancellation.

Unfortunately, you can't translate 内政干渉 (naisei-kanshou: "inside" + "affairs of state" + "interference") in a way that gets its irritable four-character hissiness across. In any case, China has not been particularly skittish about addressing the issue before. It's one of the reasons visits between the two heads of state have been suspended. There's the possibility that Wu suddenly realized, for whatever reason, that bringing it up on Japan's home turf wasn't a good idea; and "sudden business" certainly sounds like an expedient excuse. President Hu Jintao had no trouble registering his displeasure about the pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine with the chairmen of the LDP and Shin-Komeito.

Almost alone among my American friends, I'm not Jewish. It's probably just as well, because if I were, I'd be spelling doom for the race (via Gay News):

In addition to AIDS, Weiss [who owns a Jewish community newspaper that rejected an ad about the Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus] said, she is also concerned about "the perpetuation of the Jewish people" in the face of demographic trends, including young Jews who stay in the gay lifestyle.

"They can't produce children," she said. "And you can't build a people with adoption."

Weiss said Jews everywhere are concerned about assimilation and the demographic numbers that show a decline in the growth of the Jewish community outside Israel.

"All of the Jewish organizations are concerned," she said, "because we're going to need support in the future for all of the needs of our aging population. There are so many ramifications - there won't be support for old people or for our institutions or for the State of Israel.

I always find these sorts of arguments interesting. There have been plenty of childless people since time immemorial. In affluent societies, I daresay a greater proportion of adults have children than probably did at many other points in history, since medical advances cut down on the incidence of barrenness and childhood diseases, and a more complex set of status accoutrements can be used to attract a mate. As wealth rises, though, birthrates fall because the average couple has fewer children. Part of it is that people are busy with other things, part of it is that they marry later, and part of it is that it's easier to pass on the psychological equipment needed for adulthood in a free society to three children than to 20.

I'm not at all in favor of coercing the majority of straight people to have more children, but if we were really worried about keeping the birth rate at replacement levels, that's what we would have to think about. The idea that the 3 or so percent of the population that's gay is playing some major role in declining birth rates that must be contained immediately is just bizarre.

Speaking of tin-eared PR, what's the best way to smooth over tensions between gays and straights or Arabs and Israelis? Why, have an interracial homo threesome. On display in an art gallery. With a bed as the focal point. No, I'm not kidding:

But, don't expect a sex show if you visit the Jack the Pelican Gallery. Quite the contrary.

The gallery literature says the performance art is rather more innocent than that.

"A spectacle of casual sex this is not - Gil & Moti want to fall in love," it says.

...

In 2003, Gil & Moti decided to fall in love with an Arab. They staged their life-performance "Dating Gil & Moti" at the Haifa Museum. - to consternation and applause.

Decided to fall in love with an Arab? Like, as a New Year's resolution? That's a great way to get out the people-are-people message. Sheesh.

Q and O has a great post on the whole commotion over the Newsweek Koran-not-down-the-toilet incident. Dale Franks and Jon Henke get some help from a column by Anne Applebaum:

Now, it is possible that no interrogator at Guantanamo Bay ever flushed pages of the Koran down the toilet, as the now-retracted Newsweek story reported — although several former Guantanamo detainees have alleged just that. It is also possible that Newsweek reporters relied too much on an uncertain source, or that the magazine confused the story with (confirmed) reports that prisoners themselves used Korans to block toilets as a form of protest.

But surely the larger point is not the story itself but that it was so eminently plausible, in Pakistan, Afghanistan and everywhere else. And it was plausible precisely because interrogation techniques designed to be offensive to Muslims were used in Iraq and Guantanamo, as administration and military officials have also confirmed.

I disagree with this somewhat, in the sense that I don't see the believability of the story as the larger point. I think we're looking at piss-poor judgment from both sides.

PR matters. There are hundreds of millions of people whom we want to bring around to our vision of civic life: a free market of competing but coexisting ideas. We have an advantage in that people seek to be free of the tyranny over them. We have a disadvantage, however, in that many perceive America as a place that's unmoored from tradition and basic considerations of civility.

There are few more resonant ways we could convince large swaths of the world population that such fears are justified than to have descriptions get around of armed forces personnel gleefully polluting people before prayer time or otherwise treading on their religious taboos to get a rise out of them. Soldiers are the most disciplined group of people in any society; if they comport themselves that way, it's not a stretch for people to imagine that liberalizing will turn daily life into a Britney Spears video.

Note that I am not against ruthlessly breaking down the will of a known terrorist to get specific knowledge out of him in an emergency. Nor do I fail to sympathize with soldiers whose duty it is to run prisons that house suspected terrorists. You can hardly blame them for being rough and gruff and showing temper.

I am also not suggesting that we try to be as nicey-nicey as possible to see whether we can win over those who have already committed to thuggery and terrorism. The problem is that they are not the only people watching. There are a lot of ordinary people who have not traveled to the West and can only judge our character through images and reports. That many of those issuing the reports will labor to make the US look evil does not mean that we should be making it easy for them.*

But, for heaven's sake, neither should Newsweek. Eric and Rosemary, among many others, have given it the drubbing it deserves. A few months ago, a reader wrote to me, angrily but very civilly, to take me to task for having approvingly linked to a jokey post making fun of liberals who bitch about every aspect of our holding facilities that doesn't compare favorably with the Royalton. I stand by that post, but his point was good, too: we know there's been real malfeasance. How systemic it is, how the perpetrators are being dealt with, how further incidents are being prevented--these are all legitimate questions for citizens and the press.

Does a report of what may have been a few isolated incidents of low-level personnel getting out of hand really warrant reporting, given the (now non-hypothetical) damage it can do? Of course, in order to recognize what's unduly inflammatory, reporters would have to have a sense of the tremendous moral and emotional heft that religious symbolism has for many people. They can't even do that for their own countrymen.



* And specifically regarding the sexual-harassment angle...the reasons conservative Muslim governments keep women off the judicial bench and (sometimes out of the workplace entirely) are that women are seen as emotional and their presence seen as sexually destabilizing. Smearing prisoners with supposed menstrual blood or using other sexually-charged methods of interrogation reinforces that belief. It seems to me that women simply going about their duties with the same soldierly self-command as their male comrades would be much more likely to throw fanatical Muslim men off-balance.

Earthquake...not a big jolt, but swaying that lasted for a while. As always, I hope it wasn't bigger elsewhere.

The government is putting more diplomatic energy into its push for permanent membership on the UN Security Council. On Monday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura held a gathering of over 100 sitting Japanese ambassadors--as in, they all met in the same room in Tokyo (Japanese, English):

"In the 60 years since the end of World War II, Japan has played a role as a peaceful nation. With confidence and pride, I want you to persuade key government officials of each country [of the merits of Japan's bid]," Machimura reportedly told the ambassadors, who had been recalled to the ministry in Tokyo.

Machimura also told them that reform of the United Nations, including expansion of the Security Council, was currently "the most important issue for the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi."

"Some countries have expressed support for Japan," Machimura said. "But some others are opposing it. And the position of a vast majority of countries remains unknown."

Japan, Brazil, India, and Germany have been preparing a joint proposal for expansion of permanent membership. The NYT reports a bit more on the efforts of the countries other than Japan and has this droll observation:

One reason these leaders may be campaigning on the other side of the world is that, in this effort, no nation can count on its neighbors. Argentina and Mexico oppose Brazil. Japan is facing serious opposition from North and South Korea as well as China, where tens of thousands of protesters took part in angry anti-Japan demonstrations last month.

Italy opposes Germany, while Pakistan is trying to block India. And those two countries in opposition, along with South Korea, are leading a counterlobby pushing a proposal that would not award new permanent seats to anyone.

A North Korean ship that runs between Niigata and the DPRK--I think as a combination of ferry and cargo ship--has put in at Niigata for the first time in a while (Japanese, English):

The protesters included members of a group supporting families of Japanese abducted by North Korea, who shouted, "Give us our families back."

It was the first time that the vessel entered a port in Japan since Dec. 1 last year. The entry followed the March enactment of the revised oil spillage compensation security law, which bans entry of ships without expensive shipowners liability insurance.

Initially the Man Gyong Bong had intended to enter the port in April, but the trip was delayed because of the revision to the law.

Later, however, insurance was taken out and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport issued the certificate the ship needed to enter the port.

Not everyone was sad to see the ship:

Officials from the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, however, welcomed the arrival of the vessel.

"We have been looking forward to reuniting with compatriots from our homeland," a member of the association said.

For those who haven't had the pleasure, the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (在日朝鮮総連合会: Zainichi-Chousen-Sourengou-kai) does the DPRK's gladhanding here. Technically, Japan doesn't have diplomatic relations with North Korea, but there's still trade. There's also the remittance of funds back home by DPRK nationals, though the nationalizing of Ashikaga Bank a few years ago meant, if I recall correctly, the discontinuation of the only direct banking relationship between the two countries.

Dean has a link to a post that R.J. Rummel just put up about North Korea, which ends this way:

So far, what are the solutions offered: Cozy up to Kim, provide food and material aid, meet with his henchmen one-to-one, then maybe he'll compromise on his development of nukes. Yes, but tell me, how does this help the poor North Koreans suffering this enslavement, and that is what it is, pure and simple slavery under the worst of masters.

I think one of the reasons that the DPRK's internal horrors get so little play (considering their extent) is that they're nearly incomprehensible. In Japan, we fairly often see video from North Korean news--usually, of course, when some Japan-DPRK diplomatic tangle is mentioned. Given the revelations about the abductions of Japanese citizens, the fact that the DPRK tends to fire its test missiles in our direction, and the occasional encounter between ships in the Sea of Japan (the East Sea to Koreans), there are frequent tangles. The first-person stories of Japanese women, often widows of North Korean men, who have escaped and return here, have immediacy and are reported in human-interest features. But those stories come one-by-one; they don't really bring home the scale of the DPRK's malefaction and economic incompetence.

How incompetent? I don't know who wrote this Wikipedia entry, but it appears to be accurate for the most part. One section that I wonder about:

During the early 1970s, North Korea attempted a large-scale modernization program through the importation of Western technology, principally in the heavy industrial sectors of the economy. North Korea found itself unable to finance its debt, because demand for its exports shrank steadily after the oil crisis of the 1970s, until it became the first communist country to default on its loans from free market countries.

That ain't exactly the way I heard it. My understanding has always been that the DPRK waited until Western governments and corporations had coughed up the technology they were to provide to help the country develop--then simply nationalized it and refused to go forward with the planned joint ventures. Or, naturally, to pay off the loans involved. By now, if I recall correctly, the DPRK's yearly volume of foreign trade is considerably lower than the ROK's weekly volume. In fact, that's the stat I learned some time soon after I arrived in Japan. The economy shrank so quickly during the 90's famines that it more or less isn't possible for it to contract further, so who knows what the figure is now?

Tokyo and Pyongyang are only 800 miles apart. That's about the distance between Philadelphia and St. Louis. It's also closer than Sapporo and Fukuoka, the two most far-flung super-sized cities on the Japanese mainland, are from each other. I've often wondered just what the psychological impact will be when the country finally cracks and Western aid workers, investors, and journalists get in and start documenting what they find. A Treblinka with the land area of Mississippi. I doubt we'll be able to wrap our heads around it even then.

That was the headline on a message I got yesterday. It means, loosely, "Word is our Kylie has breast cancer!" And, indeed, it appears she does (the first report I saw was at Michael's). Luckily, it was diagnosed early, and Kylie takes care of herself and can obviously get the best available treatments.

As a British friend and I were discussing last night, Kylie is one of those stars who get such deep affection because she hasn't forgotten how to work first and foremost to entertain her fans. She doesn't write "confessional" lyrics in which she works out her spoiled-celeb neuroses, or use every interview to complain that she has deep, dark psychological recesses that people don't understand. Given the way pop and dance fans have been beaten with the diva-complex sledgehammer for the last quarter-century, it's touching to have at least one superstar who still seems to enjoy--in a forthright, good-natured way--the sheer fun of dressing up in spangly costumes, dancing around with a bunch of buffed-up guys, and singing a catchy tune. To the good wishes already expressed by millions of her other fans, let me add my own.

*******

Naturally, Ghost of a Flea has already posted about this. His entry is brief, but I'd be remiss if I mentioned Kylie without linking to Flea.

Christopher Hitchens's Slate column about North Korea is a good reminder of just how bad things are there (via Downtown Lad). Something struck me as odd, though. He links to a satellite photo showing the differences in nighttime lighting between north and south. The DPRK is way darker, as you'd expect...but it's so completely, unrelievedly dark that I have to wonder. Every single hospital blacked out, for instance? And you can see how blacking out military installations would help keep them from detection, but it also means that soldiers on lookout can't see what they're monitoring.

But even if we assume that the DPRK has managed to effect, through force and the unreliability of its power grid, a blackout of the whole country. the photo should still show at least some lights in Russia and China, right? Northeast Manchuria and Siberia aren't the most population-dense places on Earth...but look at the peninsula right under where it says 40N on the left. That's cut off right at the edge of Dalian, a Chinese city of 3 million people, which is at its tip. The outcropping below it is the Shandong Peninsula, which is also populous. While China may not have become a first-world country yet, I don't think its large northeastern cities are invisible at night. There was a similar photo that made the blog rounds a few years ago that looks more like what you'd expect.

Maybe I just know too little about what things are like in Chinese cities. The Federation of American Scientists, which houses the photo, doesn't seem likely to have doctored it. But the imaging seems to stop northwest of South Korea and Japan. There must be something here I'm missing.

Prime Minister Koizumi delivered a few soundbites at a special meeting of the Lower House budgetary committee this morning. (I think he said these things this morning; the meeting is on NHK now, and I think it's a simulcast.)

About Chinese and Korean criticism of visits by Japanese officials to the Yasukuni Shrine, he said, "Any nation will feel the desire to pay respects to its war dead. Other nations should not be interfering based on whether they believe our ways of doing so are desirable."

...

Also, regarding the enshrinement of Class A war criminals at the shrine, Koizumi indicated that his view is that there is no problem because "'one abhores the offense; one does not abhore the person' are the words of China's own Confucius."

I don't think I've ever heard him trot out that one before. It'll be interesting to hear the PRC's reaction.

Other remarks revolved around the proposal to privatize Japan Post. Koizumi stressed that "if the bill is rejected, it is impossible to know what will happen." Regarding who would be held politically responsible if the bill were shot down, he remarked, "Is there any reason that (the cabinet) should resign en bloc? We will fulfill our responsibilities by seeing the bill through to approval; we have no expectation of its rejection."

So that's that, for now. One reason questions about the privatization bill may carry something of a sting right now is that Koizumi has been criticized for giving the heave to two high-ranking bureaucrats who oppose it:

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's decision to remove two top bureaucrats who are vocal opponents of his postal services privatization plan has met with criticism from within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Friday, with party members accusing Koizumi of acting like a tyrant.

...

Koizumi, according to the sources, instructed Internal Affairs and Communications Minister Taro Aso to remove Hiroshi Matsui, the ministry's vice minister for policy coordination, and Hideo Shimizu, director of the postal services policy planning bureau.

...

Another source revealed an incident in winter that foreshadowed the two officials' removal.

"Mr. Matsui, Mr. Shimizu, I'm counting on you both," Koizumi told the two men, who were summoned to the Prime Minister's Office on Feb. 18. The prime minister's exhortation, while sounding like a request for cooperation, was actually a warning that meant "Don't dare stand in my way, you guys," according to an interpretation by a government source.

One LDP member, a former official in the erstwhile Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, which is now part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, reacted strongly: "This is a reign of terror. Does anybody have the right to throw people out because they weren't 100 percent behind their master?"

Well, it's true that one doesn't want heads of state in democratic countries ramming through their pet little proposals against the will of the people. But let's not forget that these two are bureaucrats--that is, appointees, and not elected officials. Enforcing accountability on bureaucrats in the various federal ministries and their entourage of semi-public corporations has been one of the biggest problems for reform-minded politicians, let alone their long-suffering constituents.

Whether and how to privatize Japan Post have been debated up, down, around, and through by this point. It doesn't seem unreasonable that, now that a proposal has gelled, two administrators who are staunchly against it should be told that there's no role for them in implementing it. I understand the questions about morale, but I don't think it's possible to take control of a set of wide-ranging and lucrative services away from an organization without making it feel somewhat unloved.

By the way, don't feel too sorry for the two demoted men:

Matsui is expected to remain a vice ministerial-level official, with his former post allocated to Kozo Takahara, vice minister for policy coordination and director of the international affairs department.

Meanwhile, Shimizu will be demoted to director general for policy planning in charge of communications. Yasuo Suzuki, director general for policy planning, will take over the post.

This will not help either's career, of course, but given the power of bureaucrats in Japan--still, for all the noises about reform--both of them have decades of connections and influence to capitalize on.

Speaking of olfaction, a reader kindly sent me the link to this study, and I thanked him by...uh, waiting until everyone else posted about it and then figuring there was no point in my mentioning it.

There's no better way to get long blog discussions going than to mention homosexuality, though. Regarding the study, Eric doesn't entirely agree with Rosemary's take on it. I agree, though I think there's at least a partial answer to his comments about the choice element. (Virginia Postrel wrote an article several years ago that was along the same lines, by the way.) Eric writes:

No "rule" is right all the time. I've known gay men who I'm sure were born that way, but I've known others who've simply enjoyed homosexual acts because they've wanted to. The element of choice and the word "choice" are so over-invoked that I almost hesitate to use the word, but I'd like to ask a rather cynical question along the "what if" line.

There are several reasons that a lot of us bristle at the pat "homosexuality is a choice" formulation, even if we don't adhere to the opposite extreme of "homosexuality is genetic." For one thing, many of us spent years working overtime to avoid even considering the possibility that we might be gay. I had my problems with the super-conservative Christian sect in which I was brought up in terms of administration, but I really believed the doctrines (up until I became an atheist, that is) and tried hard to make any seeming interest in a girl germinate. It didn't work.

I realize that at this point, I'm setting myself up for responses on the order of, "Well, okay, but you could have talked to your pastor and asked for more prayers, or you could have sought reparative therapy on the off chance that you're one of the low percentage of subjects it appears to work for, or you could have chosen a life of noble celibacy."

Fine, fine, fine. My point is not that my homosexuality is some kind of mind-control beam. I know I'm responsible for the actions I take based on it. My point is that people who say that homosexuality is a choice present it as if, you know, you figured out you're gay by waking up one morning in college and thinking, Uh, let's see: breakfast. Cold pizza, or vodka and Apple Jacks? The blue shirt or the red shirt? Oh, and, I guess today I could start dealing with my lack of interest in women by trying to figure out whether it represents some kind of deeper issue or something. But women are kind of scary. And anyway, guys are interested in getting off all the time, just like me! Okay, so that takes care of that. Where's my econ book?... For most gays, coming out is the product of brutal self-knowledge and hard decisions. It's the way the world and our place in it makes sense to us.

In Rosemary's comments, the Artist Formerly Known as Wince takes down the idea that no one would choose to be an outcast. He's right, but what I think most gay people are trying to get at when they use such formulations is that we're not gay for the purposes of getting a rise out of our families or pissing off the larger society. (Of course, there are cases of people with identity issues doing so. There are people who convert to Buddhism out of a desire to be funky, too.) Striking out on your own as an adult, living the best life you can based on your knowledge of your own talents and bents and the needs of others, involves the possibility that you're going to alienate some people. You can acknowledge that without relishing the prospect.

Yesterday, I went to get my hair cut, and the nice assistant girl told me she was going to massage my scalp with oil. My eyebrows rose slightly, and I said, "Uh, I just wanted the usual cut--have I mistakenly ordered the King Xerxes Package?" I had not. My hair place has converted to Avedaism, which also helped to explain the glass of rose-hip tea and lavender-scented hot towel I'd been offered on entering. I'd just figured they were placating me because my hair guy was running late. But it's apparently part of their routine now.

I don't know about you, but nothing makes me edgier than the promiscuous sloshing about of soothing essences. I'm not one of those guys whose hygiene consists of a rough white washcloth and a bar of Ivory soap, but I don't do anything that requires more than fifteen minutes from turning on the shower to being ready to get dressed. I don't even wear cologne.

By the time I was halfway through my haircut, I nearly leapt from the chair and was like, "Okay, this is way too gay even for me." In addition to rose-hips and lavender, there were bergamot and some other stuff in the massage oil, mint-type-things in the shampoo, and something that smelled like cut grass in the styling wax. (No, I don't use styling wax, but my hair guy seems to think I'm not getting my money's worth if he doesn't gunk up my head before sending me off into the great, wide world.) I had so many plant extracts on me, I was afraid someone would tie me up in a tulle bag and toss me into the sweater drawer.

The Pentagon made some of its recommendations for the restructuring of military installations yesterday:

The Pentagon on Friday recommended closing 33 major domestic U.S. military bases and restructuring 29 others, dealing a hard economic blow to many communities across the country.

New England was the hardest hit region and the South was the biggest gainer. States among the biggest losers were Maine, Connecticut, New Jersey and South Dakota. Winners included Texas, Maryland and Georgia, although the Atlanta area was hit hard.

...

The bases are vital economic engines in many communities, which mounted frantic lobbying efforts to save their local bases, and will now try to convince the commission that the Pentagon erred and to spare ones scheduled to close.

This was the expected reaction, of course; and understandable it is, too. Unfortunately, it's not possible to restructure without reallocating resources (though Japanese companies and government bodies give it the old college try).

Speaking of Japan--do I ever not?--its part in the restructuring is taking shape, also:

Japan and the United States have agreed to step up efforts on joint operations and cooperation in the event of a military emergency in Japan. This would include allowing some Japanese facilities, such as harbors and airports, to be used by the U.S. military.

...

In doing so, Tokyo hopes to strike a deal with Washington to reduce U.S. bases here, sources said.

The plan is part of continuing discussions on the global transformation of the U.S. military.

Japanese and U.S. officials are discussing how to divide the roles and duties of the U.S. military and the Self-Defense Forces.

Military emergencies would include a flare-up between China and Taiwan.

In the event of such a crisis, the government believes that allowing U.S. forces to use civilian facilities would ensure closer mutual cooperation, the sources said.

Under this scenario, Tokyo would offer the use of certain airports and harbors to U.S. forces.

With this offer, Tokyo hopes the Pentagon will become more receptive to eliminating certain U.S. facilities in Japan.

In discussions on cutting the U.S. base presence, Japanese officials have asked that those not in active use be returned to Japan. However, U.S. officials insist the facilities are needed in a military emergency.

Notice, toward the bottom of the article, an indication that one of the problems with this agreement has been the failure of the federal government to coordinate effectively with local governments here in Japan. That sort of thing happens very frequently--it's also been a hilarious coda to the fanfare surrounding the Kyoto Protocols. I point this out not to rag on Japan--every social system of 125 million people is going to have its weak points. It's just that people frequently seem to have the impression that Japanese conformism and the post-War success of Japan, Inc., mean that the government functions like one gigantic well-oiled machine. But you get dissent in the ranks and stonewalling by locals here, too.

On a related note, the joint missile defense system is progressing, but, then, I think it only requires the cooperation of the Defense Agency.

Not many updates on Akihiko Saito, the presumed Japanese abductee in Iraq. The latest Nikkei report I've seen was posted this morning; it contributes no new information other than that his company believes, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, he may actually have been fatally wounded in the original attack on his convoy. The Mainichi's English version is here.

This whole thing about the Mayor of Spokane just keeps getting weirder. The Washington Blade points to this article that says West has now stated that he is, in fact, gay. West's emotionalism makes him, on the surface, more sympathetic than that smarmy smoothie James McGreevey. But then you get to parts like this:

The mayor also referred to a story in Saturday's paper in which a man named "Scott" said he was sexually molested by [West crony] Hahn and reported the conduct to West during a 50-mile Boy Scout hike around Mount Rainier in 1980.

Smith said West "couldn't remember the kid. He doesn't recall the incident."

West said another adult on the trip, whom he didn't identify, "told him not to worry about it, that we didn't know about sexual abuse in 1980," Smith said in relating the mayor's comments.

But West also said, "It may be possible that the kid said something, maybe about being fondled, and maybe I just didn't recognize how important that might have been."

We didn't know about sexual abuse in 1980? WTF? It's certainly true that people weren't parading allegations on Oprah in 1980. I was only eight then, but I'm pretty sure that it was generally recognized that it was a bad thing for a Boy Scout leader to be fondling his troop members. Of course, it's always possible that Hahn was just showing the kid how to hold the bow properly during archery practice. There's no way of knowing. But West's dismissive, hand-washing obtuseness doesn't sit well.

The allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment* against West himself are graver, though it's possible that he is, in fact, innocent of all of them. What's clear is that he was trying to play both ends against the middle:

It was that young man's story about allegedly meeting the mayor in the online chat room that led the newspaper to hire a forensic computer expert to verify the teenager's claims that the man he met online was West - a process that took six months to complete and involved creating a fictional teenager known as "Moto-Brock."

On April 9, West sent his photo and City Hall Web site biography to Moto-Brock, asking him to keep the secret. "Please don't tell anyone at all," the 54-year-old mayor told Moto-Brock, who he thought was a gay teenager. "It's a part of my life I don't share at all," he said.

"Someday I may run for governor and this would be bad, if you know what I mean," West told the teenager.

We do now, honey. More even than the ethical concerns here, which are bad enough, the idiocy is breathtaking. I don't think West comes off as necessarily anti-gay in terms of his policy positions--it would be fine for him to say that his conservatism makes him come down against special protections. But come on. If you're going to play close to the edge--keeping your sexuality a secret to get ahead in politics and pursuing barely-legal hotties on the Internet and using the alpha-male impressiveness of your real-life job and identity to reel 'em in--what kind of numbskull do you have to be, in 2005, not to think it's going to blow up in your face eventually?

I got an interesting question from a reader and occasional commenter the other day, asking me to give him the low-down on the political slants of the major Japanese newspapers. What follows is a longer version of the answer I sent him.

Bear in mind that this is my answer based on day-to-day experience, as a non-specialist who's interested in being informed and who talks politics with Japanese friends and hears how they read the same stories I do. I realize that there is more specialized and systematic commentary available on how the Japanese news media function. (The Japan Media Review is typical.) The problem, if you're a general reader, is that they rarely indicate how you can work around the problems.

So this is my workaround. If anyone else with Japan experience thinks I'm full of baloney, I'd be interested to hear.

*******

The straightforward, by-the-book answer to my reader's question is relatively easy. The Nikkei, being concerned with economics/business practicalities, is most politically neutral. The Asahi is leftist (which is handily made easy to remember by the color scheme of its on-line edition). The Sankei is controlled by LDP supporters and tends to parrot the government--one of the interesting backstories behind the controversy over Livedoor's attempt to get a foothold in Fuji Television, which is part of the same conglomerate. The Yomiuri and Mainichi are populist.

I don't think that Japanese journalists are any less able, inquisitive, and intelligent than Western journalists. Most of them probably get into their jobs because they want to tell the public important things and help keep large organizations honest. There are plenty of jobs available in this country for born yes-men; choosing a job that means hiking all over the place and tracking interview subjects down genuinely indicates, I think, a desire to serve the public.

But, of course, politicians and businessmen recognize that the media filter their public image, and they are naturally going to exert all the pressure they can to make sure that image is as sympathetic as it can be. Also, one of the highest values in Japanese culture generally is the avoidance of open conflict; it would be unrealistic to expect journalism to find a magical way of operating outside that.

Put those factors together, and you get cartel-like press clubs and chummy glad-handing with the people whose actions reporters are supposed to be portraying objectively. Young reporters quickly discover that the only thing you make for yourself by being openly skeptical and exposing scandals is trouble. Does this mean that reporters for prestige publications never, ever, ever report the real dirt? Not exactly. What it does mean is this:

The articles in all the major dailies will say almost exactly the same things in their coverage of a political or business controversy. Often, the articles will be so similar as to seem practically interchangeable, because they consist largely of talking points the reporters have been spoon-fed.

You still need to read articles in more than one of the dailies to get a sense of what's going on. Why would that be, if they say the same things? Because they only say almost the same things, and the tiny differences are often the most instructive parts of the articles.

Here's where you need a good eye. They'll agree on the 5 w's + 1 h, and they'll present the same approved line about motivations and goals.

But now look closely. Is there an item that's mentioned, in passing but without development, in only one or two of the articles? That could imply that one particular reporter has managed to ferret out something interesting that's not part of the PR spin. Alternatively, is there an item mentioned in all the articles but, again, in passing and without development? If so, pay attention.

An item that's mentioned glancingly without elaboration may be important later. Japanese news departments don't waste column inches any more than American news departments do. If an item is included without being fleshed out, that usually means that (1) it was important enough to include and (2) the reporter didn't feel free to flesh it out. It will generally be something suggestive--a hint that the MP supporting the new bill has past ties to business interests that would benefit from it, or the barest intimation that someone somewhere is looking into the safety record of the company whose product just caused an accident. Sometimes, it's hardly more than a modifying phrase, but it will be something that makes the skeptical newshound in you say, "Ooh, I wish they'd told me more about that."

You will, in fact, hear more about it. The reporter knows his audience; they read like Japanese people, in full knowledge that surface content is often not to be trusted to express deep truth. For that matter, there may be a veiled message to the figure who's about to be exposed, too: "Be warned that more unsavory types than I are looking into these connections, pal--have the face-saving story ready for your inevitable press conference."

But the major dailies have to retain their prestige, so they almost never feel free to actually break scandals. They have to wait until one of the tabloid weeklies does it, after which talking about the story is no longer taboo, though lots of bet-hedging phrases such as "allegedly" and "it has been speculated" will still be tossed around.

I wish I had a good example of what I'm talking about here--all this is very abstract, and once you get used to it, you don't even realize you're doing it: filing away little clauses that don't fit the tenor of the rest of an article because, in the back of your mind, you know that they could be the stuff of next month's headlines. But the thing is, unless you know more reporters more intimately than most of us do, your only choice is to get what you can from the available, on-the-record media. And, in my experience, this is the way it works.

A Japanese national has been abducted in Iraq, as the Yomiuri's Cairo bureau appears to have found out from Reuters (whose current story on the subject is here). The Asahi gives his name as Akihito Saito.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs received word at 5:30 a.m. today from the British security firm Hart Security, Ltd., that Akihiko Saito (44), who was working as a consultant at its Iraq office, has been attacked and that his whereabouts are unknown.

The article says that the report was specifically received by the 対策本部 (taisaku-honbu: "measures [taken in response to a situation]" + "head office"), which is the division of Foreign Ministry headquarters that deals with reports of attacks on Japanese citizens abroad. It's chaired directly by Nobutaka Machimura, the Foreign Minister. Machimura and the Ministry of Defense have stated that they have received no demands from the abductors and that there are no plans to change Japan's Iraq policy in response.

The Asahi reports that the terrorist ("militant" if you're just coming back from the Reuters link and need a minute to adjust) group Ansar al-Sunna has posted an image of Saito's passport on its website and stated that he was seriously injured in an ambush on a vehicle that had just left the Assad US Army Base. Of the 17 people captured, including 12 Iraqis, all but Saito have been killed. (The way it's phrase, it looks as if they were executed after capture, not killed in the attack on the vehicles itself.)