The White Peril 白禍

It came out yesterday that the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries had not held to a cabinet-level resolution to do site inspections of US meat-processing facilities before reopening Japan to beef imports. Naturally, the revelation constituted a signal for everyone who's ever walked past a government facility to deliver an opinion on the safety concerns thus raised. The one of most interest came, of course, from the opposition leader:

Around noon on 30 January, Democratic Party of Japan leader Seiji Maehara responded to questions from the press corp in the Diet Building about Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa's failure to conduct site inspections before deciding whether to reopen Japan to imports of US-produced beef. About Nakagawa's statement that "I did not act in accordance with the diet resolution, so I take responsibility," Maehara stated, "It's only fitting for him to resign. And it shouldn't stop there--responsibility must be extended to the entire cabinet."

Shinzo Abe weighed in also:

Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe spoke at a lower house budget committee meeting on 30 January, delivering the government's official (unified) position revolving around the issue of the failure to conduct site inspections that were to have been carried out before the reopening of Japan to imports of US-produced beef: "The decision to resume imports has not conflicted with the government's original response."

...

In the afternoon, he emended his statement to "(After the issuing of the government's response paper), we judged that the efficacy of [procedures to] preserve safety had been secured through cooperation between Japan and the US. There has been no deviation from the response paper's main point that we need to secure the safety of the food supply." That evening, he retreated from his statement that morning, stating, "I have not said that [Nakagawa's actions] violated the cabinet resolution." He did not respond to calls for Nakagawa's resignation from the opposition parties.

Leaving aside whether the original cabinet resolution was excessively finicking and paranoid, it's pretty clear that Nakagawa and his team failed to follow it by not performing site inspections. It's not clear yet whether enough people will get worked up to force him to resign.

I'd been thinking that I'm about due for a weird-search-term post, but when I looked back, I realized that there hasn't been all that much variety after all. There's just a lot of variation on a few themes, some of which are kind of disturbing:

"japanese forget the year party grope"
"groping chik@n videos"

That first one is actually from almost a month ago; I started a post and saved it and then didn't get around to finishing it. Despite the fact that the New Year is long gone, the topic is a perennial.

You would not believe the number of searches I get looking for things about chik@n: "videos" and "instructions" especially. I can only assume it's the same for any other Japan-focused blogger who's been unwise enough to mention the phenomenon. I'm trying to believe that the overwhelming majority of Googles are from social scientists doing research. (Please don't show up to disillusion me.) But whatever the motivation--and I don't want to be encouraging any sickos here--I have to say: instructions??!! Who needs instructions to figure out how to grope?

"JAL close shave"

Which one, pray tell? There's been a new report issued about the turbulence-induced shake-up of a Tokyo-Fukuoka flight a few years ago that caused a bunch of injuries. But perhaps you mean the near collision a few years ago that would have been one of the highest-fatality disasters in civil aviation history if it hadn't been averted.

"gay culture kyushu"

HANDS OFF MY MAN, BITCH!

Oh, uh, sorry.

What I mean to say is, I think it's most active in Fukuoka, which would make sense since that's the largest city and a major transportation hub. Japanese friends are always going on and on about how hot Kyushu guys are; I've never really seen it. Now, Okinawan guys....

"do all white men have defined chests"

If only! Actually, there was another, almost identical search a few days ago, so either someone is investigating this with the assiduousness it deserves or there are two people out there who might do better in their quest if they pooled their resources.

BTW, do I really use the word chest that often? I don't rightly remember doing so, but I can't think of any other reason I'd be showing up in so many "chest" searches.

"smooth chest guys"

[smirk] Wrong blog, honey.

"Japanese ripening woman mature sex picture"

Also wrong blog, honey. Or buddy, or whoever you are. Though take my word for it: if that's your thing, I think it's great.

You know, over there somewhere.

Interesting, if not entirely unexpected:

Oscar favourite Brokeback Mountain has been effectively banned from cinemas in China, it has been reported.

Censors ruled the gay cowboy romance too controversial to be shown in the country where homosexuality is a taboo, industry paper Daily Variety said.

Brokeback Mountain - by Taiwanese director Ang Lee - is a firm favourite to be among the Oscar nominations when they are revealed in the US on Tuesday.

One wonders what Lee would have to say about that (via Gay Orbit):

Director Ang Lee says Asian audiences are more accepting of gay subject matter than Americans.

A Utah movie theatre, owned by a Mormon, pulled his new film, the gay cowboy romance Brokeback Mountain.

"I think Asian society is more open," said Ang. "I think there's pressure to condemn [homosexuality] in their [Americans'] religion which causes their homophobia."

In a way, of course, it's not fair to make such a comparison--theoretically, Lee could be right about Asia, and the PRC's censors could be abnormally uptight and lack understanding of what people are willing to see.

I wouldn't buy it, though. One doesn't hear a lot of open condemnation of homosexuality in Asia because people pretend it doesn't exist. You still get people telling you, "Homosexuality is a Western thing--we don't have it in Korea." That doesn't mean people are accepting, though (at least in Japan) I do think it means that as long as you're willing to be ultra-discreet, your likely to be able to live without really encountering open hostility.

It's important to note, though, that that tradeoff is forced here in ways it isn't in the States. In America, your choices are limited if you want to live somewhere where you can be a complete, 24/7 flamer and have lots of gay people and institutions at your disposal; but such places do exist, and finding out where they are is very easy. Everyone in America has heard of New York. You can choose to stay in a more socially conservative environment and be closeted to a greater or lesser degree if you like, but you don't have to.

In Japan, by contrast, my area of Tokyo is as good as it gets. There are no gay neighborhoods to speak of. There are quite a few areas with bars, of which Shinjuku 2-chome is the largest. Gay guys live in concentrations there and in certain parts of Nakano and perhaps elsewhere. But the social stigma attached to not marrying and having children is very pronounced, and it comes at you from all sides if you're Japanese. I've never lived in Taiwan or Korea, but friends from there tell me it's basically the same. People we know in Malaysia and Indonesia do have their bars raided; and for the Muslims, their religion is no more hot on homosexuality than Christianity is. (Ang Lee does remember that Asia doesn't stop at Tokyo, Taipei, and Hong Kong, doesn't he?)

So while Lee is Asian and I am not, I don't think he has any idea what he's talking about. One final note: Asian viewers, like foreign viewers in many other places, are often entertained by sexual and other behavior in pop-culture artifacts that they think shows what a crazy, disorderly, hedonistic place the West (especially the US) is. That says nothing about how they would react to similar behavior by their children, neighbors, or coworkers.

There's been more news about the Yamaha Motor flap:

Yamaha Motor Co. sold a top-of-the-line unmanned helicopter to a Chinese company that was established in 1993 by high-ranking officers of the People's Liberation Army, sources said over the weekend.

Yamaha is also suspected of having received several tens of millions of yen in rebates from another Chinese company that bought the helicopters, said the sources close to the police investigation into the alleged illegal exports.

Investigators now expect Yamaha will face charges of violating the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Control Law for the unapproved exports.

The PLA-linked company to which Yamaha sold the unmanned helicopter is Poly Technologies Inc., based in Beijing.

...

The vice chairman and president of China Poly Group is He Ping, the husband of Deng Rong, the youngest daughter of the late paramount Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping.

It's not what you know....

*******

Though the new Japan Post holding company has just started operations, Nippon Express (Nittsu) is already planning its strategic response to the privatization (or "privatization"):

As a defensive move against the operations of the new Japan Post public corporation, Nippon Express will become the first private provider to deliver personal correspondence on a nationwide scale. The new service will target documents with a delivery cost of ¥1000 or higher; parcels will be picked up from the user's address and delivered by the next day. Nationwide delivery of personal correspondence is now monopolized by the Japan Post registered mail service, but Nittsu will provide delivery at lower cost in certain regions.

*******

Japan is modifying its approach to angling for a permanent UN Security Council membership:

Japan's new proposal has taken into account the United States' position that Security Council membership should not be expanded by more than six seats, to a maximum 21 from the current 15, including the five permanent members--Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.

The proposal calls for a country seeking permanent membership on the council to receive a seat if it can win the backing of two-thirds of the U.N. General Assembly in a vote, the officials said.

Under the plan, such permanent members, however, would not be given veto power, the ministry said.

The government is considering presenting the proposal at the United Nations this spring. Whether other countries concerned will support the plan is not known, they said.

The new draft seeks to have the present Security Council framework comprising the five permanent members and 10 nonpermanent ones increased by six to make the council a 21-member body.

According to the plan, a maximum of six countries--two each from Asia and Africa, and one each from Latin America and Europe--should be allowed to join the existing five permanent members.

Japan contributes almost a fifth of the UN's general budget.

Atsushi flew home this afternoon. This month was not only our fifth anniversary but also the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. Because I don't believe in asking questions I don't want to know the answer to, I didn't ask Atsushi which milestone was more significant to him.

Have I mentioned that my man is really into Mozart? And the Strausses. And pretty much every other Austrian who ever wrote music. They were running a series of Mozart performances on NHK this week; he brought a tape of The Magic Flute (2003 in Covent Garden) along. We didn't go to the orchestra when I was growing up, but we listened to classical music at home quite a bit. Mozart's 40th is probably about my favorite piece--yes, before you say it, it goes with my high-strung personality.

Opera? Not really my thing, but sometimes entertaining. Atsushi and I watched The Magic Flute while eating our brunch (contrived using the cast-iron frying pan and potato ricer my parents sent me for Christmas). Ichs and Neins were sung. Daggers were handed to psychologically vulnerable maidens with creamy bosoms. Heroes were aided by trios of altar boys sent by (I think) the Sun King. Magic flutes were played. Well, I guess one magic flute and one organ-grinder kind of thing with chimy bells inside. I kind of liked it. Atsushi, however, beamed the whole way through like a four-year-old boy whose dad had just given him his first toy train.

Since it's not a bank holiday tomorrow, he's back in Kyushu already, and I'm doing the laundry and clean-up thing. Great weekend, though, even if I am ending it sitting alone in the apartment eating smushed-together leftovers: mashed potatoes and a grilled peach (yes, obviously in heavy syrup--if God hadn't meant peaches to come in heavy syrup, he wouldn't have made cans) and some steamed vegetables. Hope everyone else enjoys the remaining time...about a half-day at home in the States, right?

John has posted again on one of my favorite (if that's the word) subjects, spurred by this at It Comes in Pints? (strong language alert, though it's in no wise gratuitous) and this at Ilyka Damen's. This is from a comment he also left at It Comes in Pints? about three-fifths of the way down the page:

[T]he expats who think they are something special because of the experience are even worse in Asia [than in Europe]. A lot of them have the "spiritual quest" thing going on, too, which makes them even more annoying (if you can imagine that).

Yes. If I ever start prancing around and getting lecture-y about how living in Asia has made me more Harmonious with Nature (because the post-War steel/glass/concrete/blacktop blanket over Japan is punctuated by the occasional decorative carp pond, don't you know), you are to punch me. Hard. The idea that Westeners are spiritually empty consumerist vessels, into which mystical Oriental wisdom must be poured to help them achieve cosmic wholeness, is a real menace. (However, it should be pointed out that most expats and travelers don't think that way; it's just that those who do are pushy about it.)

For once, a domestic JAL flight took off on time, so I'd just barely gotten out of the shower when Atsushi arrived; I ended up answering the door in a towel instead of my new Happy Anniversary sweater. "Just in time," he smirked as he stepped into the entryway in his overcoat and scarf.

I feel so objectified.

JAL itself, of course, has also been under scrutiny lately; it's decided--about time, too--to establish a Safety Awareness Center. One would like to think that safety awareness is so well integrated into the operations of any First World airline that having such a special division would be redundant, but JAL has been pretty mishap-prone lately, so

Japan Airlines revealed on 27 January that it will set up a Safety Awareness Center at Haneda Airport near the end of April; among other things, the remains of the fuselage of the jumbo jet that crashed in 1985 will be exhibited. The aim is to use the center for the safety training of employees in the JAL group, but JAL says that it will make it possible for others to come in and observe.

Of course, reprimands from the transport authority have as much to do with this move as the desire to serve customers better out of good business sense or saintliness. It's probably a wise one, though, given the multiple little incidents it's had over the last few years.

Mentee is the sort of coinage that sours my stomach, but the program described here at Penn is doing a good thing (via Gay News). I especially like that the interviewees (shut it) forgo the opportunity to make the campus out to be some sort of anti-gay minefield:

"I think it's great that [the program] is helping people figure out things for themselves," Thalmann said. "They are much more involved in activities and feel more comfortable at Penn."

Generally, gay or questioning students seem to find an accepting climate at Penn, Thalmann said.

"I had no qualms or concerns about the Penn community," Mangam said. For him, how to come out to his close friends and family presented a larger issue.

That squares with my experience a little over a decade ago, though it wasn't until after graduation that I came out conclusively. My college friends were the least of my worries--it often seemed that they were positively champing at the bit for me to be gay, though I know they really just wanted me to accept myself. In academic terms, well, I was in the comparative literature program--not exactly a hotbed of in-your-face anti-gay activity--but I doubt there were many places where being gay presented a problem besides (maybe) some of the sports teams or Greek organizations and, like, Campus Crusade for Christ.

And I'm not even sure about there. Nevertheless, some time around my junior or senior year, a bunch of people with too little to do decided that the LGBA wasn't militant enough or something and decided to form a loud(er)-mouthed group called QuIP: Queers Invading Penn. Like most postures of unregenerate in-your-face rebelliousness attempted by the milk-fed children of Bergen County, NJ, and Greenwich, CT, I went to school with, it was pretty damned pathetic. Wholly unnecessary, too, since by 1995 Penn was already deep into its current PC-sensitivo phase.

However, knowing that other people on campus are going to accept you only helps so much when you're wondering whether your parents are going to disown you. Level-headed, practical mentoring is a useful thing, and it's good to see that the program the gay center's program is being taken advantage of.

Today's sheesh-not-this-again story in Japan revolves around a business hotel chain and its enterprising approach to building codes:

It was revealed on 27 January that major business hotel chain Toyoko Inn (headquartered in Tokyo) had committed legal infractions involving renovations. After its Idzumo City, Shimane Prefecture, facility opened, the company converted a guest room designed for disabled guests into a meeting room; at four Osaka hotels, the company converted parking spaces for disabled users into storage and lobby space, in violation of the Building Standards Law.

There are now at least eight prefectures in which such cases of legal infractions by Toyoko Inn are suspected, and company president Norimasa Nishida [whose given name, 憲正, hilariously uses the characters for "codified law" (now referring to "constitution") and "rectitude"--SRK] revealed tonight that he intends to have inspections carried out on all 120 hotels owned by the conglomerate throughout Japan and to make the results public next week. The renovations at the Idzumo City hotel are said to have been conducted at the instruction of the company.

The Asahi English edition has a much lengthier article detailing the various conversions of facilities for the handicapped for other uses.

Violations of the Building Standards Law aren't exactly a novelty, now that the Aneha scandal has been going for several months; and in this case, of course, the stakes aren't as high as they are when buildings don't meet earthquake resistance codes. I'm not dismissing the need for handicapped people to have facilities that they can use, but the fraud involved in not providing them in order to have more space for smokers is not the same as the fraud involved in lying to people about how likely their house is to collapse on their heads in an earthquake.

Speaking of earthquake resistance, the Asahi also had an interesting report about retrofitting:

Many say that fixing up these old wooden homes remains the single most effective way to reduce the number of people dying in the next big earthquake.

They point to the so-called Imiya memo, a kind of "survey of the dead" compiled by practicing doctor Masahiro Imiya after the Kobe quake.

...

The document clearly reveals that most of the people who died in the quake were not killed by the temblor, or by fire.

They were killed by their houses.

And yet, comments Imiya, "If some minor measures had been taken, they wouldn't have died."

Enacting those "minor measures," however, is proving to be more difficult than it sounds.

...

In fact, in the 10 years since the government passed legislation in December 1995 to promote quakeproofing upgrades, as few as 10,000 houses across the country have actually had those upgrades.

...

Kimiro Meguro, a professor of urban safety engineering at the University of Tokyo, points to what he calls a "lack of disaster imagination"--the idea that people simply can't conceive of what could happen when disaster strikes.

Social psychologists also refer to the "normality bias," the habit of people to assume that they alone will survive. This kind of mentality impedes disaster preparation.

Both of those are probably part of it. Another part of it, for the old people who live in traditional wooden houses, is probably that they're just used to the idea that they could be toast when the big one comes. There's also--you hear this from a really shocking number of people--the conventional wisdom that says that the flexibility of old-fashioned wooden buildings makes them more likely to survive in an earthquake. That not only flies in the face of empirical evidence from Kobe and elsewhere, it flies in the face of common sense. Old houses have heavy clay roof tiles, flimsy walls, and inflammable materials all over the place. While there's a nice life-lesson sort of feeling to imagining that the lack of rigidity in their framing makes them more likely to survive--you know, you gotta roll with the punches and be adaptable and stuff--in real life, shear is not a good learning opportunity.

But I think another part of it is that unless you plan to barricade yourself into your house, you're going to be spending a lot of time on subway platforms, driving on overpasses, working in office buildings with lots of shelves above eye-level, and drinking in little basement bars. An earthquake can strike at any time. While we all want to be prepared, a comprehensive earthquake kit in a properly braced bedroom is of no use if the ground decides to convulse while you're in line at the video store. I still think it's irresponsible not to be prepared--you don't want to add post-disaster stress to fire and rescue services or to leave your family and coworkers in the lurch--but I can see how a lot of people figure a lot of fussing isn't worth it.

I hadn't noticed this a few days ago, assuming it was in the Japanese print media, but NHK News has just run a segment on it. From Stars & Stripes:

All Yokosuka-based Navy personnel, civilians and dependents were cut off from late-night drinking in Yokosuka on Thursday by a general order signed by Rear Adm. James Kelly, Commander Naval Forces Japan.

And all active-duty servicemembers in the Kitty Hawk Strike Group — the Navy's largest — are under a 1 a.m. curfew ordered by Rear Adm. Doug McClain, the strike group commander.

...

All personnel subject to the curfew must be back on base or in their off-base residences by 1 a.m.

In ordering the drinking restrictions, Kelly cited the recent spate of alcohol-related crime as the reason for his action.

William Reese, a Navy airman from the USS Kitty Hawk is in Japanese police custody in connection with the Jan. 3 beating death of a 56-year-old Yokosuka woman. Early Wednesday morning, USS McCain sailor Arlon Baker was arrested and accused of breaking into a Yokosuka junior high school. Both men were intoxicated, according to Japanese police reports.

...

The restriction applies only to alcohol consumption, said CNFJ spokesman John Wallach. If those covered by the drinking restrictions but not covered by the curfew "want to sit on a bar stool in the Honch till 5 a.m. drinking Coke, that's fine," he said.

The reaction is pretty predictable:

The alcohol ban is a "smart idea" during the week but extending it through the weekend is "pushing it," said Petty Officer 3rd Class Anthony Merlotte.

"Sunday through Thursday makes sense — that will keep us on our toes for work," he said. "But Fridays and Saturdays — that means more people will start drinking earlier."

Honch bartender Anastasiya Bandarenka predicted people likely will just move their drinking to barracks rooms and private houses. That will be bad for bars' business, she said, adding, "I think it's rather foolish to believe that people will stop drinking just because of an order."

Maybe. I'm not so sure about private houses--perhaps crashing for the night after having a few too many isn't feasible for visitors, in which case they'll be walking home pickled anyway. But if street crime, as opposed to mere drunkenness, is what the policy is designed to prevent, forcing people to get blotto in their own quarters (where they won't cause a diplomatic incident if they smash windows) doesn't sound like a bad idea.

So Hamas won big against Fatah in the Palestinian elections. Great:

International peace broking in the Middle East was plunged into turmoil on Friday by Hamas's shock Palestinian election win and a U.S. vow not to deal with the Islamic group until it renounced violence against Israel.

Many world leaders turned up the heat on Hamas to moderate policies and Israel itself ruled out talks with any Palestinian government that involved Hamas, which is sworn to its destruction and has been behind dozens of suicide bombings.

Fears of internal Palestinian unrest grew when hundreds of gunmen from President Mahmoud Abbas's long-dominant Fatah movement marched in Gaza City, firing in the air to protest against the Hamas victory and demanding that Abbas resign.

Hamas's triumph on Thursday in winning 76 seats in the 132-member Palestinian parliament against 43 for Fatah was widely seen as a political earthquake in the Middle East, triggered by voter disenchantment with corruption.

"I have made it very clear...that a political party that articulates the destruction of Israel as part of a platform is a party with which we will not deal," U.S. President George W. Bush told a news conference in Washington.

The US, Russia, the UN, and the EU (the Palestinian Authority's biggest financial backer) are pressing Hamas to soften its position against Israel. Since it's still calling for Israel to be wiped off the map, that's going to be some softening.

There's no cause-effect relationship here, but the Japanese cabinet resolved today to extend the deployment of SDF personnel in the Golan Heights:

In a 27 January cabinet meeting, the government decided to extend by six months the deployment of the SDF in the Golan Heights, which was to expire in March but will now last until September. The measure follows a half-year extension of peace-keeping activities by the UN Security Council's United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). The SDF has participated in UNDOF, which conducts peace-keeping operations, since 1996; it conducts operations that include the transporting of basic supplies for living, the dissemination of information from headquarters, and project implementation.

Chris Crain at the Washington Blade has a lengthy post about Virginia Governor Tim Kaine's statement that he will not veto a near-comprehensive ban on legal recognition of gay partnerships if it passes the legislature:

Not to worry, gay Virginians. You still have plenty of leverage here because Kaine is a Democrat and has aspirations to higher public office. Given the influence gay Democratic groups have within the party, pressure will surely be brought to bear on such an abject betrayal of an important constituency, not to mention the party's historical commitment to civil rights.

Enter Josh Israel, president of the Virginia Partisans Gay & Lesbian Democratic Club, which endorsed Kaine's election. Contacted by the Blade, Israel...well...he didn't exactly call on Kaine to veto the amendment. In fact, he didn't even ask Kaine to pressure the Senate to limit its scope. Instead, Israel begged (apparently from within Uncle Tom's quarters at the plantation, since that term is being bandied about so much these days) the governor to at least make sure the ballot wording is fair.

How's that? The ballot wording? Why not call on him to oppose the measure? Because, according to Israel in a remarkable bit of Orwellian spin, "it's not the governor endorsing this effort when he says he will send it to the ballot. It's just the governor doing his job."

With gay rights activists like that, who needs party hacks?

Still, even if gay Virginias [sic] are left unprotected by weak-kneed local leaders, they can be thankful there's a nationwide organization of gay Democrats to put the screws to Kaine. Only...the National Stonewall Democrats were a bit too busy this week to notice what was happening across the Potomac from their Washington headquarters.

Instead, they were pleasantly distracted by the goings on north of the nation's capital, in Maryland, where Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich was introducing legislation that would allow gay and unmarried straight couples to sign an official government registry ensuring they can make medical decisions for each other in time of emergency.

Just how did the National Stonewall Democrats react to a Republican governor in Maryland introducing legislation offering a modicum of legal recognition to gay couples, on the same week that the Democratic governor in Virginia said he would sign the broadest constitutional ban ever on legal recognition for gay couples? By attacking the Republican and not even mentioning the Democrat, of course.

"A bridal registry at Target would offer same-sex couples more benefits than this watered-down, election-year ploy by Governor Ehrlich," said Eric Stern, the Stonewall Dems' E.D., in a press release issued Friday.

Maybe so, but the Democrat in Richmond is poised to sign a ballot measure that would amend the state's constitution to forever ban even a "watered-down" registry like the one proposed by Ehrlich, and it would probably take the bridal book at Target down with it.

People are always asking me why, since I think about politics all the time, I'm not more active in any PACs or in my party. (I bet even my dear friends reading this forgot that I switched my registration to the GOP a few months ago, right? Of course, you did.) The main reason is, the moment discussions of politics veer off policy and into which senator's aide's back needs to be scratched to get X done, or why Congressman Y had to use this word instead of that word when responding to a question about a certain issue at this or that rubber-chicken banZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

I know glad-handing is necessary. I know maneuvering is necessary. I'm also aware that a lot of people make ringing declarations of "principledness" that, in effect, mean they want to hold themselves aloof from the job of getting in there and figuring out how we can all live together in the real world without killing each other.

But the major gay political organizations provide illustration after illustration of what happens when politicking becomes the end rather than the means. Jonathan Rauch's National Journal article from last week discussed a similar problem with the Republicans:

From 1981 through 1998, Republican reformers' thinking was dominated by Dave Stockman (President Reagan's first budget director) and Newt Gingrich (the reform-minded House speaker of 1995 to '98). Both were movement politicians who believed that, by cutting spending, Republicans could build prosperity, tame Big Government, and win majority status.

The trouble was that budget cuts brought short-term political backlashes that kept interrupting the program. Burned by President Clinton in 1995-96 and then spanked by voters in 1998, Republicans decided to reverse the sequence. First they would build a political machine; then, once safely entrenched, they would reform Social Security and Medicare, shrink government, and so on. The new course was set by DeLay and Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist—both machine-builders par excellence.

And so, under DeLay and Bush, the Republicans spent generously, even profusely, to build their base. The number of budgetary earmarks increased from 2,100 in 1998 to 14,000 in 2005, according to Citizens Against Government Waste. To disarm the Democrats, the Republicans gave up on reducing entitlement spending and instead dramatically increased it, notably with an expensive new prescription drug program. (According to Richard Kogan, a senior fellow with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Republicans have added $540 billion to entitlement costs over the 2001-to-2011 period.) They cut taxes and spent heavily on the Iraq war and defense. (Real spending on defense and security has risen by more than 7 percent a year since 2001, Kogan says.)

When, last year, DeLay blurted out that the budget had no fat left, he meant that it had no political fat, and he was right. Every dollar now served a constituent group in DeLay's carefully built machine.

Naturally, there are a lot of ways in which the cases aren't analogous. The link I see is in the expediency-prioritizing operating procedure that involves playing the game to get ahead now and figuring you can revert to principle later. Maybe I'm just too trusting, but I find it hard to believe that most of the best-connected gay activists are just being cynical--that is, that they're consciously using their positions to curry favor with the DNC and its more powerful local pols even if it means selling out gays in general. Their reasoning is probably that you can't exert leverage you don't have, and that building leverage means demonstrating a willingness to compromise.

That's true enough, but if you haven't nailed down what it is you're not going to compromise on, you end up without any leverage anyway, even if you're invited to some pretty choice receptions. The organizations mentioned in the Blade entry are both Democratic, so you can't fault them for being partisan. That's their job. You can fault them for being both disingenuous and pathetic about it.

I fear that to some American readers, the Asahi's "NHK's aim to become BBC of Japan, duck Takenaka's control" headline will give the wrong impression. Here's how the accompanying article starts:

Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK), choked by scandals, a sharp drop in viewer fees and wariness of tighter government control, has unveiled a new management plan that tears pages from the BBC's book of operating.

The new three-year plan not only de-emphasizes NHK's old policy of expansion, but also stresses independence and stronger corporate self-governance.

That is apparently aimed at deflecting recent government moves to wield more control over the public broadcaster.

In December last year, Heizo Takenaka, minister of internal affairs and communications, set up an advisory panel to review NHK's operations.

Before you snigger, "More like the BBC?!" let's remember a few things. Like the BBC, NHK began as a government entity; unlike the BBC, it's still a government entity. [Whoops--thanks, Toby. I was sure the BBC had undergone that neither-here-nor-there semi-public-corporation thing--a la Japan Post, whose new corporation just started operations, BTW--but no.] No, it still hasn't been privatized; instead it's stuck in Japan's public-corporation limbo. That means there's been nothing over the line about the Koizumi administration's talk of reforming it. At the same time, it's perfectly reasonable for the board of governors to want to be able to operate as it sees fit. From the above link to the NHK's English website (corresponding Japanese here), this is its own wishful line about the way it functions:

NHK is financed by the receiving fee paid by each household that owns a television set. This system enables the Corporation to maintain independence from any governmental and private organization, and ensures that the opinions of viewers and listeners are assigned top priority.

Everyone in Japan knows that that's a crock. Plenty of households manage not to pay NHK fees (mostly by simply bringing a television into the house without letting NHK know, rather than in the process of righteously opposing its misconduct), its news service plays along with the chummy press club game as much as that of any other major broadcaster or publication in Japan, and viewers and listeners have been making a beeline for other broadcasters that give them what they actually want to watch and hear.

So in theory, it sounds like a great idea for NHK to undertake reform from within. Vice President Taeko Nagai, in an interview with the Asahi, "said NHK can learn a lot from the BBC, which puts priority on high-quality programs ranging from news to drama to comedy." Fair enough. NHK's historical dramas and documentary shows are frequently first-rate, but it certainly broadcasts plenty of junk. (Whether excising that junk would be in line with better serving consumer demand is an impolitic question that I will humbly receive the favor of not answering here.)

Additionally, the resignation of its last board president exactly a year ago, mostly over embezzlement but also over the possibility that LDP higher-ups (including current star Shinzo Abe) pressed the producer of a mock trial program about Japan's use of comfort women during the occupation of Asia to soften its contents. To be fair, that wasn't the first time NHK reports and "documentaries" were shown to have been cagily edited or even outright staged, and in other cases, NHK acted on its own volition.

In any case, the government views NHK as a public body with responsibility to Kasumigaseki, and NHK views itself as a government-funded semi-independent body striving toward (dare we say it?) BBC levels of objectivity and independence. Unfortunately, NHK wants to have its freedom of the press and eat citizens' money, too:

[Nagai] also indicated NHK's system of mandatory viewer fees should be maintained, because there are many high-quality programs that can only be provided by public broadcasters like NHK or the BBC.

Conveniently--and in this sense readers won't be getting the wrong impression at all--the arguments that have been made about the BBC apply pretty much equally to NHK: if it plans to wow us with all that high-quality programming and is serious about serving the public's needs, won't it be able to survive even if it's competing with other broadcasters? At least, wouldn't that be the case for its news service (which is the division in most obvious danger of being corrupted by too-close ties with the government)? NHK doesn't think so. I mean, it really doesn't think so.

Other elements of the new plan include offering services that play to NHK's strengths as a public broadcaster: strengthening news reports and disaster bulletins, and creating broadcasts catering to specific regions.

As for scrambling NHK programs for households that do not pay, a move recommended in some quarters, the plan insists it should be avoided.

It said steps will be taken to urge people to pay, and, as a last resort, preparations would be made to sue anyone who does not sign a contract.

I think that's pretty much what they are, indeed, going to have to be prepared to do.

Dear Mariah:

Because of you, I almost had the perfect weekend.

I mean, it's because of you that I had to add the "almost." Of course, Atsushi would have had to be here for it to be really perfect, but we had an appropriately tender anniversary call, and he seems less stressed by work lately, which is as perfect as things get while he's away. Yesterday, I got the most delicious little spring sweater at Zegna to wear when we have dinner this Saturday. My best friend appears to be cementing a new relationship with a man I approve of. On Saturday night, everyone was in a great mood--ran into guys I hadn't seen for ages but always enjoy talking too--and there was none of that slightly-strained merrymaking you sometimes get into over the New Year.

And then while I was talking to a cute, flirtatious Australian guy, I glanced up, and there was your hideous "Get Your Number" video. TOTALLY DESTROYED the combination of conviviality and aesthetic pleasure (did I mention that the boys at GB had managed to mix me a particularly yummy vodka tonic that go-round?).

Seriously, Mariah, or Mimi, or whoever you are now, I'm glad for your comeback. It's horrible to see people suffer in public, and with that suicidal website post and your career tanking and the nervous breakdown...well, I'm no more a fan of your music than I was before, but I'm glad you were able to come up with another album that sold in the gajillions because you clearly needed it to make you feel better.

Now that you do feel better, can we make the next project not looking like a whore? As another cute, flirtatious guy (this one from New York) remarked when that horrid video played yet again, you're working the "busted tramp" thing, and it's so...bad...so very, very bad. It's a lie that all (or most) gay men are misogynists, but it's not a lie that some are, and I fear you've managed to fall in with a stylist or two who really don't have your best interests at heart.

Same with your video director. Next time he says, "Okay, now that you've gotten into the shiny dress with the micro-miniskirt and the plunging neckline that exposes your appallingly obvious new rack-inflation job, I want you to perch on the edge of this here sofa with your knees three feet apart," here's your response--and I want you to practice this, dear: "LIKE HELL I WILL, BUSTER."

You'll be doing all of us a favor.

Still kinda feeling icky,

Sean K.

Considering what happens when communists take it into their heads to get bellicose, this is kind of nice to hear in a way. Unrealistic given the way the world has shaped up of late, but, you know, nice:

Kazuo Shii, chief of the Japan Communist Party secretariat, submitted an invitation to Social Democratic Party head Mizuho Fukushima to join the JCP in a struggle to oppose the revision of Article 9 of the constitution. The party leaders will conduct a meeting in the near future and discuss what kind of joint struggle is feasible. Shii addressed a press conference, saying "If we can come to an agreement between our parties, which hold Diet seats, we can wield a great deal of power to block the revision of the constitution." SDP chief party secretary Seiji Mataichi confined himself to telling the Diet press corps, "The Social Democratic and Communist parties are not in a position to make very great headway by ourselves. We're just part of a more broad-ranging citizens' battlefront for preventing constitutional revision."

How much citizen support the SDP and JCP can actually rally is very debatable. The public is ambivalent on the Koizumi administration's unqualified support for Bush's approach to the WOT; at the same time, China and North Korea have been emitting hostile noises with disturbing frequency, and Japan knows that it's small and potentially vulnerable next to them. Its alliance with the US allows it to be part of a proven winning team, the US has made it clear that it wants the revision of Article 9 to go through, and while the Japanese are proud of the reputation for peaceableness the non-aggression clause has helped them maintain since the war, hard-core anti-war types haven't succeeded in getting voters fired up against the LDP's revision proposals.

Well, it's finally happened: they've arrested Takafumi Horie. I haven't been writing about this latest Livedoor story because...oh, I don't know. Atsushi is the business person in the family, and focusing on Japan's diplomatic soap opera gives me enough to talk about. As of this morning, the questioning Horie was undergoing was voluntary; the Asahi's latest English installment outlines all the key points for those who are interested but haven't really been following along:

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's questioning is apparently focused on Horie's involvement in a number of dubious transactions, including the 2004 purchase of publisher Money Life Co. by Livedoor Marketing Co., a Livedoor affiliate.

Starting in autumn 2003, Livedoor took over six companies, five of them through stock swaps, and then manipulated their stock prices, sources close to the investigation said.

The profits gained through the manipulations were passed on to Livedoor in the form of fictitious transactions with its subsidiaries, the sources said.

Livedoor also listed gains through sales of its own shares as revenue, instead of assets, they said.

These maneuvers enabled Livedoor and its affiliates to window-dress their accounts, the sources said.Some said Livedoor had padded its earnings by about 9 billion yen.

...but so did his opponents, so that part of the outcome wasn't really under dispute.

The Governor of Okinawa spoke today with the head of the JDA on the restructuring of US military installations in Okinawa, which is an ongoing issue on which there seems to be little movement lately:

Okinawa Governor Keiichi Inamine visited Japan Defense Agency head Fukushiro Nukaga at the JDA offices on 23 January. Of the mayoral election in the city of Nago, he stated, "The new mayor will be someone who acts in good faith, but all three candidates stood opposed to the proposal to shift [US military] operations and facilities from the Futenma Base to the coastal areas of Camp Schwab. It will still be a difficult issue from here on." He went on to say of the Futenma restructuring issue that "from the Okinawa side, we will continue to act in good faith."

The JDA has asked for concessions from the US aimed at minimizing the burdens placed on locals where our bases are located. The Yomiuri had a good English-edition rundown of the election referred to above:

In fact, Shimabukuro [who won, BTW--SRK] is opposed to the relocation plan to which the Japanese and the U.S. governments agreed (under the agreed plan, the Futenma Air Station in Ginowan will be relocated to the southern coast of Camp Schwab in Nago). However, Shimabukuro wants to leave room for compromise should the plan be revised.

Henoko Ward Head Yasumasa Oshiro said: "Those who protest against the plan say, 'The money will be gone as it's spent, but the base will remain forever.' But these pretty words don't feed people. What's important is compensation."

Quite a few restaurants in the central part of the ward seemed to have closed down, others seem to be struggling, the English letters on their signs fading away.

An elderly taxi driver said, "This used to be a lively quarter, full of U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War, but now it's deserted, with no young people coming in."

Oshiro is opposed to the current relocation plan, which suggests building the air station only 300 meters away from the closest civilian residence. He does not approve of the way the central government overruled the local governments when it agreed to the plan.

Oshiro criticized the central government, saying: "We're not interested in dugongs and seaweed beds. The government should have dealt effectively with the opponents and promoted the idea of building the airport on reclaimed land in shallow waters off Henoko. It was their delinquency that didn't make it happen."

A few months ago, the US was the party pushing the original reclaimed-land proposal; local voters didn't go for it, and it isn't just a gambit by Okinawan politicians to shove the relocated facilities as far away from the locals as possible.

*******

Oh, and BTW, whoops!

Several unmanned helicopters produced by Yamaha Motor Co. may have been passed on to China's People's Liberation Army, it has been learned.

Suspicions have arisen that the helicopters, which are employed largely for industrial use but can be also used for military purposes, were illegally exported to China, investigators allege.

Yamaha Motor has denied the allegations, but suspicions have arisen that the helicopters may have been passed on to the People's Liberation Army. Police and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry are investigating the company over its actions.

Investigators said Yamaha Motor was involved in trade with an aircraft firm in Beijing. The aircraft firm's Web site says Yamaha Motor's unmanned helicopters have prospects for "wide use in civilian and military fields." An unmanned helicopter is pictured alongside a People's Liberation Army jet.

The bar where Atsushi and I were first introduced is one of those places with lots of shelves and niches full of stuff. The owner has a thing for Chinese culture, so you've got your gongs and your dragons and your red and gold things. He also brought in some books. Guys frequently take down and page through the ones about your zodiac sign or gay places to go in Singapore and stuff. Being a big dork, I frequently took down the one called 水生無脊椎動物 (suisei musekitsui doubutsu: "aquatic invertebrates," which title appears on the cover as Aquatic Invertebrates of the World) and looked at color drawings of the various varieties of starfish and cross sections of sea cucumbers. This drew such comments as "Sean, you're the only gay man on the planet who would sit at a bar and read a book called Aquatic Invertebrates of the World" and...well, that was pretty much the comment everyone made, actually. Until Atsushi. His comment was "Hmmm...," which with him frequently counts as a full sentence, as I would discover later.

You're thinking this is yet another post with no point, but you are WRONG. Knowing the Japanese word for invertebrate means you know the character for spinal cord, and that means you can understand why Japan decided to reinstate its ban on US beef again today, after spinal cord was found in a shipment. The usual statements have been made. No more gyudon from Yoshinoya (again) until things are sorted out.

You have got to be kidding me (via Ace Pryhill at Gay Orbit):

University of Florida employees have to pledge that they're having sex with their domestic partners before qualifying for benefits under a new health care plan at the university.

The partners of homosexual and heterosexual employees are eligible for coverage under UF's plan, which will take effect in February. The enrollment process began this month, and some employees have expressed concern about an affidavit that requires a pledge of sexual activity.

...

Kim Tanzer, chair of the Faculty Senate, said she could understand why some faculty might view the affidavit as invasive.

"I can see (Behnke's) point," she said. "If you ask married folks if they're in a platonic relationship, that's a personal question."

"Some faculty might view the affidavit as invasive"?

Some?

MIGHT?!

And the rest are perfectly sanguine about having a "must fuck" clause built into their health insurance policy? Even Ace herself ("Okay, so while that sounds great, and totally could be used as ammo when one partner doesn't think the other is giving up the booty with enough frequency, it's really a stupid stipulation") and North Dallas Thirty (in the comments: "True, but I can see their point.....DPs really are not meant to cover, as they put it, long-term roommate relationships that don't involve anything deeper than shared space and bills"), both of whom are usually reliably reasonable people, don't seem to see what an OUTRAGE it is to have bean counters passing judgment on one's sex life.

Because, you know? I really can't see their point. Not even kind of sort of in a way. In fact, it's so ludicrous that I clicked around the parent site a little just to make sure we weren't being suckered by an Onion-style parody played straight. No such luck. Normally, I would be chary of interpreting "non-platonic" as meaning "sexual" to the bureaucrats interpreting it, but that's how the UF people quoted sure appear to mean it. (And my understanding from people who have dealt with having their marriages observed for green cards and things is that even the INS only tries to determine whether you live together in an intimate way. If there's some kind of bald sex requirement, it's the one complaint about bringing a spouse back to the States that I've somehow avoided hearing.)

This kind of thing is the perfect illustration of how the campaigners for gay marriage, with their squalling emphasis on achieving "validation" and "respect" and "dignity" through paperpushing, have been shooting themselves in the foot. If two people of undisclosed sexuality decide they're never going to marry and want to be responsible for each other, why shouldn't a domestic partnership arrangement cover them?

I love seeing romance bloom, but I cannot for the life of me imagine having the effrontery to demand it of people. And when it comes to my own household, the only person whose business it is whether Atsushi's being adequately serviced is Atsushi. I don't even discuss what happens in our bedroom with my best friend.

UF's VP of Human Resources is quoted as saying he "had no plans to personally enforce the sex pledge," which is nice, because even if the idea weren't COMPLETELY CRACKERS to begin with, what would you do? Would a used condom with DNA from both partners suffice (in the case of men)? Or would they have to go for it right in front of a certified university employee who would then sign a confirmation that they both got off? And, for that matter, even if they weren't really in a "non-platonic" relationship, couldn't the benefits be good enough that gritting their teeth through one bone-dance session a year (if that were the qualifying minimum) would be worth it for two unmarried roommates?

Unreal. Just unreal.

Happy fifth anniversary to my wonderful boyfriend, who deserves a much better man but, luckily for me, has shown no inclination to look for one. Five years and a month or so ago, I would have said that long-term commitment and stability and stuff were great ideals. You know, for other people. For Atsushi's part, one of the first questions he asked me when we started tentatively dating was "Don't you think it's pretty much impossible to have a lasting relationship with someone whose cultural background is so different from yours?" Glad we were both wrong.

John at TP with Page Numbers says something that one wishes wouldn't have to be repeated quite so often:

What I came away with from those broadcasts [while studying in the then-Soviet Union] was the view that the American press wasn't reporting on the European reaction (mostly negative – we should have given sanctions more time). I used to tell people about that "missing" perspective a lot when I got back here. God, what a little snot I was. I like to think I've grown a lot since then. I was still in my "Americans are so provincial" phase, which I can partially forgive myself for, since I was the only person, outside of my college friends, in my social circle that spoke a language that wasn't high school French or Spanish. If you judge me more harshly, I don't blame you, though. I doubt most Europeans would speak more than one language if another language wasn't as close to them as the state line is to me. And really, even children with Down's syndrome can be taught another language. It's not a sign of intelligence, although it is a sign of diligence, especially if you are in a large monolingual country such as China, Russia, or the US. Most of the pretentious Western Euros I know don't speak the hard languages (non-Indo European, or even Indo-European ones that require a non-Latin alphabet).

I think most of us are kind of snotty when we're in our early twenties, and the "hard languages," as John flatteringly styles them, tend to attract competitive know-it-all types. (Yes, obviously, I'm including myself--I'm aware of my flaws. Or at least aware of that flaw.) So I'm not inclined to judge him harshly, because he was willing to look and learn as he grew up. It's people who retain the "Ooh, FRANCE! How learnèd!" mentality well after they've been around the block enough times to know better that drive me nuts.

Of course, not all change is progress:

And my, how things have changed in 15 years, no? The press is full of the European reaction today. As if American interests should be subject to the judgment of a bunch of snot noses who tear their continent apart every fifty to hundred years or so. My guess is that 15 years ago the old guys with a grain or two of sense, who came of age in the late 40s and early 50s were still around in the newsrooms to keep the Boomers in check, but now the Narcissist Generation is running the show according to the score of '68. For which a lot of Euros happily produce new refrains.

I rag on the Boomers myself, but I think it's useful to note that they developed as their post-War parents, anxious to make everything safe and comfortable and pain-free after the first half of the century, reared them to. Not that all the fatuous navel-gazing was an intended consequence, of course. And plenty of Boomers in the mass audience, if not behind editors' desks, wish the more pompous European commentators would go take a flying leap and probably ignore most of the yak time CNN provides for them. It's still annoying that they're deferred to so much.

I was going to post this immediately after putting this up about my trip to Taiwan. Then I just kind of didn't and figured it was expendable. Then I read a few things that kept reminding me of the topic and thought--this is one of the bad things blogging does to you--Hey, I've still got that post I didn't put up, and there's still time to GIVE IT TO THE WORLD! So this is the other thing that struck me, not for the first time, over the weekend.

I ended up staying at the apartment of the woman who runs the office there--my trip had been arranged pretty hastily, and I guess there are a lot of people trying to get things done in Taipei before the Chinese New Year. My flight was delayed by rain and fog here in Tokyo; when we got in at her building, we had a midnight supper (tortellini and green salad and beer--quick and casual but, for me, like la Tour d'Ar-freakin'-gent after the stuff on the airplane) and talked animatedly for a while before turning in. We had several other meals together in the next few days--we've known each other for years and have become friends, and food in Taiwan is yummy--and I went out for lunches and stuff in various pick-up groups with other people from the office. Some of it was shop talk; I was there for shop, after all. But a lot of it was just the kind of stuff you find yourself talking about with other foreigners who live in Asia (and with Asians who've spent time living in the West; the groups tend to be mixed).

And I kept finding myself thinking how much I like the people I'm surrounded by and, despite my need to spend loads of time alone and my spiel about being a loner, how easy it is to talk to them.

The sheer relief of being able to say that catches up with me at odd moments. Growing up, I never really expected to be in my element. Not that I expected to be a full-on hermit. I was a pretty unpopular kid, but I was never really, seriously, scarily isolated. I always had a few close friends. And they were real, serious friends. I'm only in consistent contact with one of them now, but there's enough writing back and forth with two or three of the others that if by some chance I do go to our twenty-year reunion, I won't be in the dark about which marriages and children and career paths go with whom.

But without really verbalizing it to myself, I essentially figured I'd turn into one of those elderly bachelors who dote on their books and stuff and don't socialize much and (needless to say) never really have even one serious romance. I genuinely love books, so I wasn't too bothered. The implied lack of romance also didn't disturb me, since my best efforts to get worked up over girls came to naught, anyway. And as I say, I always had a very small but genuine set of friends, and you can't complain about that.

Like most people who only really grew into their personalities in college and afterward, though, I found it a new experience to be able to talk to people--just people in general--without having that constant low-level hum in my head that I had to stay reined in so I didn't give myself away somehow. Most of it, yes, was that I'd lost the subconscious fear of inadvertently saying or doing something that might make me look like a fag. (You kind of have to get over that if you're going to call men "honey" as often as I do.) And yet it was a lot of other little general-personality things, too: Being around people who know what it's like to want to move far away from where you grew up even though you love your family and the upbringing they gave you--that's a big one. And having it just assumed in the background, so that you don't have to keep explaining it all the time.

This is turning into one of those posts that dissolve into purposelessness. Perhaps it's just that I've written so many querulous this-article-SUCKS posts this week that I seem to be projecting a rather crabby mood and wanted to write about something positive. Atsushi can't get back for our anniversary tomorrow, but we'll be celebrating next week. Several friends of mine whose relationships ended last year are finding love...or at least fun distractions. The 300th anniversary of Ben Franklin's birth was a few days ago. A close college friend is getting married in May. Things are good, even if a lot of people are saying dumb things about Japan.

Zak, who comments here frequently and has a good (if on-again-off-again) blog here, sent along a link to this article. It's a response, in part, to a Mark Steyn column from a little while back. It also seems to think it's offering a reassuring alternative to the standard line about how Japan should provide for its future, which is characterized thus:

In response to the increasing average national age, money-minded people push for privatization, pension reform, greater per-worker efficiency, less protection, greater ambition. (Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is of this school. Whether he'll call for immigration reform is another matter; some say Japan's amazing new caring, sharing domestic robots have a less-publicized function: to forestall the need to bring Filipina maids and nurses into Japan.) In this view, changing demographics mean that life must get harder, more ruthless, more efficient.

Harder and more ruthless? Well, okay, I guess you could put it that way. I don't see what the crime is in increasing worker productivity, especially given Japan's current level of same and the potential for technology to help. And privatizing social welfare programs does mean that people are more responsible for taking care of themselves. Some might find that more liberating rather than harder.

Not everyone agrees. The soft approach is summed up by Japan's burgeoning Slow Life trend. Ironically for a movement that seeks to shift the social focus from money to quality of life, Slow Life has its roots in marketing. In 2001 prefectural governments, chasing the "green yen" of eco-tourism, began advertising campaigns using the slogan "Ganabaranai! — Don't go for it!" Attempting to lure stressed city dwellers to their rural regions (no doubt on high-speed trains sporting the Koizumite slogan "Ambitious Japan!"), the prefectures devised an eight-point Slow Life Manifesto that stressed nonacademic, noncompetitive lifestyles — walking, wearing traditional clothes and eating food made from local ingredients; durable and sustainable building construction; forestry; respect for the old; self-reliance and living in accord with the rhythms of nature.

Make.

It.

STOP.

Please.

I'm not just saying that as a confirmed urbanite. Who knows? Maybe in forty years my idea of happiness will be living out in the sticks in a thatched hut with a firepit for a stove, communing with the crickets and affectionately straightening Atsushi's obi before sending him off once a week to walk to the co-op for rice. Stranger things have happened.

Additionally, the Slow Life movement, as described in the article, does make a few good points. Urban Japan is not just kinetic; it's downright stressful. And Japan, for all its vaunted love of nature, hasn't been kind to its own countryside in the process of industrializing and becoming rich. And the post-war economy stuffed as many workers as possible into an Organization Man mold that doesn't fit many of them; understandably, many young people are deciding to trade down on money so they can get more leisure time (or do work they find stimulating). Japan is a mature, affluent economy, and it's perfectly natural for people to start thinking about quality of life rather than subsistence and the reconstruction of basic infrastructure.

But the idyll depicted in the article leaves a lot of key points out; and I fail to see how its origin in marketing is in any wise "ironic," given the way it seems to wed a flashy surface come-on to a lack of substance. For one thing, third-rate countries may have delicious food and breezy, non-competitive lifestyles, but they also often have sucky, innovation-free health care (no small consideration in an aged society). Also, you know that rather large country over there? Yes, CHINA--that's the one. No one expects it to attack Japan next week, but enmities in this part of the globe are ancient and deep-running, there are developing economies around that are competing for resources...and I'm not at all sure Japan will find itself able to do without a strong, first-rate defense system if it just announces to the rest of East Asia that everyone in the archipelago is going to devote himself to growing leeks and raking sand from here on.

There are more basic problems, though. Momus (and, to the extent that he's roped in, Ryuichi Sakamoto) seems to assume that we're in a position to get complacent and say that Japan has Achieved Enough and we should just be happy with it and even pull back a bit. The article considers no factors that could be driving Japan's current economy but competitiveness and money-madness--no natural human curiosity...no need for a variety of possible ways of life to be available for individuals to choose from...and no sense of the way people with funky, undemanding occupations still enjoy and depend on things produced by workaholics, or at least by people who are willing to take more structured jobs. Respect for age is a great thing, but many of the protections civilization provides against nature and human depredation come from rambunctious, thrill-seeking, resilient youth.

Therefore, while whether Japan is doomed if its population decreases as predicted is obviously an open question, fantasies like those mentioned in the Wired article don't seem likely to pan out:

Some saw the Slow Life movement as a passing fad, but five years on magazine racks tell a different story. On a recent visit to an Osaka bookstore, I saw a plethora of new magazines using phrases like "slow living," "self-sufficiency" and "natural life" in their titles, all stressing "lifestyles of health and sustainability." As I flipped through them, recurrent themes appeared in the photographs: huts in the forest, wooden furniture (with discreet Apple computers), sleep, wabi sabi patina, simplicity, bare light bulbs, baking bread, little-house-on-the-prairie Puritan style [What on Earth is that supposed to be?--SRK], rustic Okinawa, bathing, artisanship, older Asian lifestyles, slow food, organic vegetables and a pervading urban longing for the rural.

Ah, yes, "self-sufficiency." It's worked so well for the DPRK, after all. (Speak of population decreases!) And those Apple computers you can pay for with a truckload of home-grown eggplants and run on...uh, where is the electricity supposed to come from, exactly? We'll need it for the lightbulbs, too, bare or not; but something tells me these Slow Life people aren't big on engineering new power plants. And the robots, come to think of it.

I think it's wonderful that Japan is rich and that people are making trade-offs that allow them to enjoy life more. It seems to me to be going a bit far to act as if the decline in population were some kind of spiritual opportunity in disguise, though.

I can't decide whether this discussion is interesting and revealing or just people talking past each other.

I understand that people can't control their visceral responses. It's not as if no uncharitable thought about the Japanese ever flashed through my head. Sometimes what I'm getting crabby about really is a thread in Japanese culture that has meaningfully contributed to some of its past misconduct, in which case I might pursue the line of thought and perhaps post about it. But sometimes I'm just being crabby, in which case I don't beat myself up for having stray nasty thoughts, but I don't air them for other people as if they were meaningful, either. Pace this commenter, only half of the comparison he's making works. "France balked at standing up to an enemy in 1940" and "France balked at standing up to an enemy in 2003" is a promising analogy.

"Japan performed unaesthetized vivisections on captives and brutalized POWs in the 1940s" and "Japan is threatening to pull out of an agreement on whaling that it believes is scientifically unsupported and culturally biased" (my composite or summary of his and others' objections, BTW, not direct quotation) may also prove fruitful eventually, but it is not the sort of comparison that can be honorably thrown into the middle of a discussion without defense. Hovering in there, there seems to be an implication that Japan's conduct on the whaling issue is a manifestation of some kind of characteristic, long-standing Japanese untrustworthiness and manipulativeness that bears watching.

Huh?

I can see playing the World War II card in a discussion of history textbooks, shrine pilgrimages, immigration policy, or hiring requirements for civil servants. I do so myself--while I agree with the Japanese government that it has paid its debts and made its apologies as demanded by the victors and should not be called upon to keep officially groveling in front of its neighbors, that isn't the same thing as saying it's handling its history well. There really are instances when the position taken comes perilously close to sounding like "Well, sure, we raped Nanking and forced the Koreans into labor and tried to eradicate Taiwanese culture--but the A-bomb was dropped on two of our cities, and our capital was firebombed, and our emperor was demoted, so can't we just call it even?"

I don't get the whaling connection, though. Japan believes the existing IWC ban on all commercial whaling is excessive, scientifically unsupported, and against its economic interests. The US used pretty much that rationale in not signing on to the Kyoto Protocols, and we've been accused of being cavalier, not being accountable to the "world community," and blah blah blah, too.

To my knowledge, Japan isn't doing anything that violates the IWC ban. It isn't underreporting catches, nor is it fishing--I'm pretty sure about this, but I haven't been able to verify it with a quick-and-dirty Googling--in waters that have been declared preserves by the IWC. Perhaps it would be nice if Japan recognized that Australia's maritime jurisdiction goes beyond twelve nautical miles offshore (or whatever it is; I think that's what we use in the States) for conservation purposes, but I don't see what's duplicitous about its not doing so. Neither does the Australian court system, apparently, BTW.

Additionally, recall that Norway has been exempted from the moratorium simply because it threw an official snit at its inception. Iceland, I think, is in the same position as Japan, though it's been less vociferous in its push to have the ban on commercial whaling lifted. In any case, this isn't just some funny idea of Japan's, and in trying to engineer a vote in its favor and playing show-me-where-it-says-I-can't when an agreement isn't in its best interests, I can't for the life of me see how it's doing anything that every other majoy geopolitical player doesn't do. You may approve or disapprove of such tactics, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that they say anything about the Japanese particularly.

It's not for me to judge which peoples an individual should or should not sympathize with, but feeling free to trot out the WWII analogies every time Japan does something to protect its interests over the objections of others, in the guise of reasoned argument, strikes me as unseemly.

Most unnecessary book ever:

In between intense writing sessions for her next studio album, expected in 2007, Alanis Morissette will spend this year working on a memoir.

To which the only sensible response is "Good grief, woman--is there anything you haven't told us already?"

Apparently so. Look and be afraid:

"It will be all the wisdom I've accrued in the thirty-one years of my life [Be VERY afraid.--SRK]," the singer-songwriter says with a laugh. "A lot about relationships, fame, travel, body-image issues, spirit -- with a lot of self-deprecating humor peppered throughout, 'cause I just can't help it."

I happen to like Alanis. Jagged Little Pill exploded the summer after graduation, when I was living with a bunch of friends for a last few months in Philadelphia and we were all excited about the future and stuff, so I have great memories of that record. Also, unlike a lot of other confessional-bitch singer/songwriters (Hi, Tori!), Alanis doesn't mix in all kinds of fey and twee crap to convince you that she really is nice and cuddly after all. And she writes fantastic tunes--I'm a sucker for a good melody.

An Alanis memoir, though? Kinda thinking I don't really need it.

We let straight folk believe the Global Homosexual Conspiracy is organized around recruiting new members because...well, they seem to get a spy-novel sort of thrill out of thinking so, and why rob people of a source of excitement? Especially when all they'd have left to console themselves with if disillusioned is Rolling Rock and Lean Cuisine.

Anyway, the real purpose of the gay network was illustrated last night when I was out with a few people from our Taipei office at the night market. The Chinese New Year is coming up, so I figured that, since Atsushi has taken an interest in feng shui lately--don't ask me, I don't know either--I'd get him something lucky and Taiwanese. So we looked. There were dog statuettes whose contribution toward our household prosperity and longevity would, unfortunately, have been offset by the degree to which they would have fuglified our decor. Not a bargain, as far as I'm concerned. There were red and gold scrolls and things, but most of the nice ones were too big to fit in my carry-on.

We were getting desperate, so one of the girls from the office made an exaggerated leave-it-to-me-darling flourish with one hand and clapped her cell phone to her ear with the other. As we walked, you could hear her addressing whoever was at the other end as "sweetie." You got snatches of sentences like "No, he wants something AUSPICIOUS...for the Year of the DOG, you know?...yeah, it's for his BOYFRIEND." Minutes later, she hung up. She'd been talking to one of her gay friends. She had to cut out right then--family dinner, or something--but we were left with directions to a shop that furnished very cute bibelots and instructions to call his partner if we got lost. (Amazing the way no gay couple in any country I know of is rationed more than one partner who can give reliable directions.) I remain unconvinced they'll ensure Atsushi's good luck for the year--I'm not really superstitious, though it's nice to think you can guarantee that sort of thing by buying the same kind of useless wood/clay/mineral objets you would have lusted after anyway. But I have something suitably cool to present to him as my お土産 from Taiwan, thanks to two of our unseen boys who, on a work night, let themselves get roped into a twenty-minute discussion about helping a stranger shop. Membership has its privileges.

It's probably bad taste to think this way, but I can't decide whether Huser president Susumu Kojima was extraordinarily unlucky or extraordinarily lucky today.

He was delivering testimony before the Diet, though hardly of his own volition:

In [a further development of the] earthquake resistance falsification scandal, Susumu Kojima, president of Huser Corporation (Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo) gave testimony before the diet during a meeting of the lower house Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Committee on 17 January. Of suspicions that he was essentially aware of the falsifications and applied pressure to keep them from being made public, he repeated his refusal to testify: "It may tend to incriminate me." [Literally, he said that "there is the possibility of investigation and prosecution," but I assume that's the equivalent.--SRK]

Kojima has, it would appear, plenty to clam up about:

An executive of Tokyo-based developer Huser Ltd. repeatedly directed a contracting design firm to let disgraced architect Hidetsugu Aneha calculate the structural integrity of condominiums, citing Aneha's ability to work out "economical designs," The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Monday.

The design firm initially planned to use another structural design firm to conduct earthquake-resistance calculations on a condominium in 2002, but the Huser executive protested, saying: "That firm's designs use excessive materials. Use Aneha because he can do it economically," sources said.

The action highlights the close relationship between the developer and the 48-year-old former architect.

According to the sources, the design firm made a contract with Huser to design a condominium in Tokyo in 2002. It intended to entrust the condominium's structural calculations to the structural design firm with which it had business ties.

The Huser executive, however, criticized the structural design firm for designing buildings with excessive materials. He named Aneha, saying, "We should use the architect who knows how to economize."