Damned Weather

Well, I was scheduled to be flying home for a visit to Canada tomorrow, but there's this big honkin' typhoon parked off the southern coast of Kyushu that seems determined that I postpone my trip at least one day (I'm in Miyazaki, which is about a half an inch northeast of the typhoon's eye in the image on the right). Normally these things blow through in a few hours, but this one seems to be just sitting there taunting me. Typhoon-like conditions began here about 24 hours ago, and it looks like it'll be another 24 hours before we're rid of the damned thing.
Generally I view typhoons in a favorable light. They're always good for a day off work, or cancelling annoying outings that you don't really want to attend. This is the first time in seven years in Japan that I can honestly say I have been inconvenienced by a typhoon.

Japanese 'Gaijin'

"Ground Self-Defense Force troops deployed in Iraq for reconstruction assistance cannot vote in the Sept 11 general election because they do not fulfill the requirements for overseas voting [...]" Apparently, in order to vote in a Japanese election it's not enough to be 'Japanese'. One must either be physically present in Japan or, barring that, be prescient. The following is from the print version of the Daily Yomiuri (Fri, Sept. 2, 2005; not a bad paper, but shitty web presence- in English, at least): "Japanese living overseas have to register in advance to receive an expatriate voting certificate, a process that takes an average of two months to complete." So, any Nihonjin living abroad who did not apply to vote about 6-7 weeks ago can't.
Prime Minister Koizumi dissolved parliament sometime around mid to late August (I can't be bothered checking), and the election campaign itself began this week and will last for two weeks (Americans take note)...
As far as the election itself goes, I suppose I should make some brief comment. The central issue is reform of the post office. Sounds weird, I know. Gwynne Dyer (whether you like him or not) has a pretty good summary of the main facts. The short story: Japan Post is essentially the biggest bank in the world (savings and deposits over $3 trillion); it has 25,000 branches (10 times more than all major banks combined); 85% of Japanese have a savings account at the post office; the post office writes 40% of Japan's insurance policies; as a government institution, it is a cash cow to the perpetually ruling LDP Party, who use it to finance numerous pork barrel projects and secure votes from its 400,000 employees.
The above is certainly troubling, BUT: I frequently read/hear financial commentators refer to the privatization of the Japanese post office as a "freeing up" of funds for "business investment". For me, this only begs the question (to which we all know the answer): why don't the Japanese put their money into banks? The answer is, of course, that the banks are even more corrupt and less secure than the post office. (Smug Canadians might do well to ponder where their savings [if they have any] would be without government protection of the banking system- if a half-dozen member monopolistic entity can be called a 'system'). For most Japanese (and for me) Japan Post is a safe place to keep one's money.

Zeus Wept

To be fair, this kind of shit is not exclusive to Japan--6-month-old girl dies from heat in car while mom plays pachinko, but apparently the stupid bitch didn't even return to the car when a major earthquake struck. Fuck...

Like Clockwork

Some interesting statistics on crimes committed by foreigners in Japan.
A typical headline:Record number of foreigners charged with crimes Jan-June
The facts:Visa violators up alien arrest stats as crimes fall.

Leaving Las Vegas, Korea-style

"A South Korean man who recently quit his job to play more video games died after playing almost non-stop for 50 hours at an internet cafe." I can imagine a similar fate for myslef, but not from fucking video games.

Ishihara's French Kiss-Off: Follow-Up

Pierre over at Loser's Guide has expressed some puzzlement over Ishihara's remarks about French being a "language which cannot count numbers." Near as I can tell, Ishihara was referring to the fact that numbers in French can be complicated: the number 94, for example, translates as "four twenties and fourteen." Of course this is only a problem for people who don't know the language, and can't really compare to the numerous quirks of the Japanese counting systems (yeah, there are several systems). One million, in Japanese, translates as "a hundred ten thousands"; different words are used depending on what is being counted (people, things, etc); Japanese uses both kanji and arabic numerals to express numbers; etc...

Angua wonders "[w]as the minister kicked by a guy in a beret? Forced to eat snails? Hit upside the head with a baguette?" My own fantasy is that some French prostitute must have laughed at him while he was on a school trip to Paris, but the reality is this: Mr. Ishihara is an ultra-nationalist bigot and world class xenophobe who really doesn't have much nice to say about anybody. Over the years he's dropped some zingers. In 1995, he claimed that the Nanjing Massacre was an invention of the Chinese. In 1999, he worried publicly about foreigners rioting in the streets in the event of an earthquake. He refers to Chinese and Koreans as "third world poeple"(sangokujin). Commenting on a bomb that had been placed at the private residence of a deputy foreign minister, he said "[a] bomb was planted there. I think it was deserved."
But, as Angua suggested, "inquiring minds want to know". Why insult the French (heh, as if..., no, I won't say it...)? The following quote, while perhaps inconclusive, may at least offer a clue: "I'm an existentialist--freedom and passion are the most important things to me. I was horribly disappointed when I learned that Sartre was a Communist."

Sometimes the Jokes Write Themselves (Extended Schoolyard Sissyfight Mix)

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara is being sued for "insulting the French language." Apparently Mr. Ishihara, on Oct. 19, said "I have to say that it should be no surprise that French is disqualified as an international language because French is a language which cannot count numbers." Quite predictably this upset the 2 or 3 people who actually (claim to) make a living teaching French in Japan. In their lawsuit they claim that the governor's remarks "give a false impression that French is a poor language, which is not acceptable by international standards [...]"

All in a Day's Work...

Mr. Doudou Diene of Senegal has been to and now left Japan. Mr. Diene, at the end of his nine-day visit said that discrimination in Japan is "deep and profound", that government leaders cannot recognize the depth of the problem, and that the Japanese public had a "strong xenophobic drive." Yawn... Did I mention that Mr. Diene is the UN's special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance? Well, he is.

How the World Works...

According to Japan Today "A U.N. expert on racism and discrimination will visit Japan in July for the first time [...]"

Doudou Diene of Senegal, special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, will arrive in Japan this weekend for his fact-finding mission through July 12.

I wonder how he fits all that onto his business card... From Mr. Diene:

"As a world power in an era of globalization, Japan has to expand to the outside world. But its society is still closed, spiritually and intellectually centered," he said, adding such conflicting positions could create tensions that would lead to racism and discrimination.

I can't really say why, but I'm reminded of a factory I used to work in as a kid back in the 'old country.' About once a year a safety inspector used to come to the place to make sure us workin' stiffs weren't being forced to work in unsafe conditions. He always came while we were eating lunch...
Anyway, according to the article,

Diene will focus on minorities of Korean and Chinese descent, while also looking into the situation that migrants from the rest of Asia, the Arab world and Africa find themselves in as they settle in Japan.

Mmm, no minority groups in Japan missing in that list... (Sometimes, just sometimes, I understand the American loathing of the UN...)

"It is never easy for any government to accept an outside eye in their policies and programs," he said. "It is for me to convince them I am here to listen and understand [...]"

He'd make a good 'safety inspector'...

Yeah, well buddy, we're all bored around here, OK?

A quote I never expected to read: "It is a sad loss for Pakistani hockey [...]"

Dumb Americans: An impending law in the US will punish good, decent, file-sharing folk as severely as those who commit manslaughter.

How bored am I?: This bored.

A good album: Arc Angels (self-titled, 1992).

Another triumph for 'cradle to grave' system: "I wanted to kill someone. It didn't matter who. I had been thinking about doing it for about two years.". The "someone" in this case was a 4-year-old boy...

The papal trojan horse: A hospital in Fredericton (it's in Canada, for the geographically challenged) has removed bibles from bedsides "in a quest to control infections." [Insert Microsoft joke here.]

As If You Cared

A funny lyric: "My masochistic baby went and left me..." (Fatboy Slim, El Bebe Masoquista)

A Timbit: Apparently trash from Tim Horton's accounts for 47% of all fast food trash, and 22% of all trash in Nova Scotia.

An opinion: Rock 'N' Roll is high art. 'Artists,' however, should be banned from any and all recording studios when intending to record rock albums (for the record, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and the like, while they may qualify as artists and make fine music, are NOT rock 'n' rollers). The Stones, for example, have never claimed to be into anything other than music, money and women. Do you think it's remotely possible for them to be embarrassed about being filthy rich old farts with hot young wives? Of course it ain't. It's their philosophy, for fuck's sake. Anyone who's embarrassed by the Stones is simply jealous.... The British 'punks' were supposedly a rebellion against and repudiation of 'traditional' rock values, but really, who ended up looking like the chump? The British punks sold out faster than you could say Sex Pistols. American punks were always, at heart, rockers. I don't recall Iggy Pop ever referring to himself as an 'artist'....

Do I remember this, or is it deja vu?: Little Black Sambo is to be re-issued in Japan

This week on Ebay: Somebody has bid 3.5 billion to buy the entire National Hockey League.

Unrelated Segments

I've decided to begin a list of blogs that I regularly check out (it's somewhere on the left of this page, but I suppose that could change...). Right now the list contains only the blog of my pal Paul over at Subtrahend . I hope to be adding more soon.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries of Japan will start making Patriot 3 missiles. I wonder what kinds of doodads they'll add...

Holy Fucking Shit!

You didn't come here to read about the Red Sox and the greatest comeback in baseball history, but holy fucking shit. In honor of this truly remarkable achievement, today in my university classes we 'studied' the classic Nancy Sinatra song These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. Too bad that my Japanese students are Matsui and, therefore, Yankees fans...

From the Wire Hanger Department

Coke really is better than Pepsi. Joan Crawford screams... from the grave, of course...

Hole in the Sky

As I write this, it's been 29 days 9 hours and 39 minutes since the National Hockey League's owners have locked out the player's union. (Sigh...) To add insult to injury the Yankees are up 2-0 on the Red Sox, my computer is too old to download the newest Google toy, and the Prime Minister of Japan has actually stated that he hopes George W. Bush is re-elected. There ain't no justice...

All Your Base Are Belong to Us...

I'm a big fan of mangled English (some might say I'm a well-versed practitioner). I dug up the following from my archives the other day. I've lost the original link, but clearly it comes from somewhere on the wonderful site of The Korean Central News Agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

If Japan hastens the move to become a military power and the way of reinvasion, overheated by its ambition for militaristic overseas expansion in the new century instead of liquidating its blood-stained history of aggression on Korea and other Asian countries, it would precipitate its final destruction.

Keep up the good work boys, you'll be pounding out Shakespeare in no time.

Mind if I smoke?

According to this story from the CBC, crack addicts in Vancouver are after a safe place to smoke a few rocks. This follows the apparent success of a safe injection site for heroin addicts which opened in Vancouver last year. According to one crack addict, "It's just really high strung standing in this alley, because you're exposed not only to the cops, but to every form of violence." Excuse this aging liberal for sounding flippant, but haven't back alleys in urban centres been dangerous, for anybody engaged in any behaviour, since the world's first mugging? (No, I don' have any fucking idea when and where that was, but I'm fairly certain it happened long before crack was invented.) One is tempted to ask, well, what about a "safe-taking-a-shortcut-at-night room"? Or, a "safe-I-paid-the-bitch-now-I-want-my-blowjob room"? Hell, as a smoker (of cigarettes) I'd be happy to find a place(from past experience) in Vancouver where it was safe to smoke tobacco.
I suppose I should clear up a possible mis-understanding. For the record, I'm in favour of a safe injection place for heroin addicts (or other needle users). It's pretty simple, really. People sharing their dirty needles is a public health issue, connected to, but to a degree separable from the broader social issue of drugs (which should never be a criminal issue--see, I'm a liberal!!). Catching a cold from sharing a crack pipe is not on the same public health plane as catching AIDS from sharing a needle.
There always have been, and always will be 'back alleys'. They have never and will never be 'safe'. This is neither a good nor a bad thing. It may be a necessary thing. I would suggest that anyone who has never been in a back alley probably doesn't have a clear picture of life/reality.
(Heh, as Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" droned in my headphones, I thought I'd try out the spellcheck for this site. It suggested I replace CBC with CBS....)

Sometimes the Jokes Just Write Themselves

The Korean Central News Agency of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has an interesting report on a November 28 "memorandum" made public by The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland and the National Reunification Institute. This document, a "comprehensive survey of the human and material damage caused by the U.S. imperialists to the south Korean people since it occupied south Korea on September 8, 1945", alleges that "[t]he total amount of human and material damage the U.S. imperialists have inflicted upon the south Korean people for nearly 60 years since their occupation of south Korea runs into 43,139,020,630,000 U.S. dollars." [Note: I assume the lower case 's' in 'south' is a convention that these organizations have adopted to make a political point.] While I can't vouch for the math, the report is fairly detailed. Some of the more interesting items:

$22,448,748,170,000 for the 2,323,000 people killed and the 6,520,000 wounded, the document claims, by the United States "right after their occupation of south Korea (September 1945-May 1950) and during the Korean war of aggression (June 1950-July 1953)."

"Hundreds of billions of dollars" for the 38,100 cultural treasures that the U.S. has "vandalized and looted".

Apparently the U.S. has "smuggled" 12 billion dollars worth of illegal drugs into south Korea, "rendering the people mentally and physically deranged."

More than a hundred billion dollars in "sexual damage" has been caused by "the U.S. imperialist aggressor troops", who have "brutally violated many south Korean women and reduced them to sexual slaves, producing hundreds of thousands of foreigners' whores and mixed-bloods." Interestingly, this figure was "calculated according to the standard of compensation to be made for the sexual slavery for the Imperial Japanese Army."

Although this report doesn't quote a single specific source, we are assured that all estimates were "based on a scientific review of various data quoted by statistical yearbooks officially released by the south Korean authorities, publications printed in south Korea and abroad, testimonies of individuals, information available from political, financial, academic, press and various other circles of south Korea and reports of the U.S., Japanese and other foreign media."

...don't know much about history...

The St. Petersburg Times ("General News From St. Petersburg and Russia"? Mmm...) reports that " [a] textbook on modern Russian history that invites students to discuss whether Putin is an authoritarian leader and has formed a police state may be banned in high schools." For his part, Mr. Putin

[...] told a meeting of historians at the Russian State Library on Thursday that history books should not become a political battleground. "Modern textbooks for schools and universities must not become a ground for new political and ideological fighting," he said in televised remarks. "Textbooks should provide historical facts, and they must cultivate a sense of pride among youth in their history and country."

Seems to me the trick would be to take the covers off of all history books, stick them on other, completely unrelated material (like comic books, cook books, Harlequin Romances, etc.), mix them up, and give a different one to each student in the class. Imagine the fun students could have trying to interpret the teacher's history lesson through the lens of "The Joy of Cooking" or "The Justice League of America".
Of course, on the topic of history, the Russians are much better at this sort of thing than the Japanese, who are still busy re-writing stuff from the first half of the 20th century.
Speaking of Japan, the deaths of two Japanese diplomats in Iraq seems to have sucked what little life there was out of any desire to go and help out with the reconstruction effort. I imagine that the Japanese will be ready to go to Iraq round about the time Iraq is ready to join NATO... Meanwhile, PM Koizumi, sounding a bit like GW, is talking tough on terror. Not that I'm a big fan of whoever is behind these attacks in Iraq, but since when is it "terrorism" to engage occupying forces? Maybe we should take the history book idea above and try it out on a dictionary...

A Tale Told by a Fool...[to an Idiot]... Full of Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

According to WorldNetDaily, Al-Qaida has a plan in the works that will kill 100,000 Americans, apparently sometime during Ramadan. "An al-Qaida commander in Iraq close to Osama bin Laden" claims that the attack will "amaze the world and turn al-Qaida into [an organization that] horrifies the world until the law of Allah is implemented [...]". Whatever...