And the gaijin cause takes 2 steps back.

This is the really frustrating thing. Whenever it seems as if gaijin are making headway toward being equal citizens in Japan, someone does something stupid and ruins it for the rest of us. This time, our story takes place in the hallowed halls of Sumo. For the last several years, there has been a massive influx of gaijin sumo wrestlers rising to prominence in the most Japanese of sports. For example, both of the reigning Yokozuna (grand champions) Asashoryu and Hakuho are from Mongolia. And it is not uncommon to see the odd Caucasian in the middle ranks at a major tournament. A few days ago, this all came to a screeching halt.

Two of the most prominent gaijin wrestlers, a pair of brothers from Russia, tested positive for marijuana in the sports first ever round of drug tests on Monday. The reason for these tests was the drug related arrest of another gaijin wrestler a few months ago. He was caught with 2.5oz of pot in his wallet. He will inevitably go to jail and/or be deported and his sumo career is over.

It is worth noting that possession of marijuana is a VERY serious offense in Japan. Possession of a single ounce is worth no less than 3 years in jail (no more than 5) hard labor and a $10,000 fine. It is unknown at this time if criminal charges will be pressed against the brothers who only tested positive for the drug. Possession, distribution, trafficking and being caught while using MJ are crimes. Having used it sometime in the past is not.

However, sumo wrestlers are held to a high moral standard due to the religious origins of their sport. As such, both the brothers have received lifetime bans from the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) and the JSA chairman has resigned in disgrace. This scandal has been front page news across the nation trumping the resignation of Prime Minister Fukuda. And you thought Americans took their games seriously.

At the risk of sounding like John McCain, I say blame the Russians.

Palin is a horrible person

OK, this is the ranting I promised regarding the pros and cons of Sarah Palin as the VP nominee of the GOP. I’ll start with the pros and go from there because the higher quality and more impassioned writing comes with the cons and I want to make you wait for that. Before I begin, I want everyone to remember that this woman is running to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency and the President in question would be a 72 year old man with cancer.

When you consider that the US life expectancy for a man is 75.15 years according to the 2007 world fact book. In other words, statistically speaking and when you consider the stress of the job, John McCain will be dead before his 3rd State of the Union Address. On that less than happy note, let’s do this:

PROS:
1. Palin is literally a continent away from the Bush Administration. The GOP know that President Bush is a complete failure and that McCain is far too buddy-buddy with him. But no one in Washington (including John McCain) knows who she is. She can come out of the blue and be a clean slate.
2. The GOP can control the story, kinda. The idea seems to be that the 24 hour news cycle of the 1990s hasn’t reached Alaska yet so Palin doesn’t have any press record. Therefore the GOP can mold her into anything they choose. This is turning out to be total rubbish but what are you going to do?
3. Energize the base. This woman is such a hardcore conservative that she borders on fascist. Prolife, pro death penalty (I’ve never understood how those aren’t mutually exclusive), pro gun、pro war, anti immigration, pro church, anti everything Jesus actually said. In other words, the GOP’s wet dream.
4. Power to the PUMA! I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but Sarah Palin has breasts! Now, since all of Hilary Clinton’s supporters are women, Sarah Palin will use her connections in the International Sisterhood of the Va**** to get all of the PUMAs to vote for John McCain despite the fact that she everything she stands for are exactly the opposite of everything that Clinton stands for.

OK, yeah, most of those are stupid and backhanded compliments. But I can’t come up with much that is legitimately good with this choice. As for the cons, there are so many that a true list would constitute a book and there is no way I could scare up a publisher or distribution deal in time so I’ll only list the two most egregious.

CONS:
1. Child abuse. The way this woman uses her family as political fodder is disgusting. First, she uses her son Track (Barack is a weird/evil/foreign name but Track is OK?) as a symbol of how much she “Supports the Troops”©. Then she shows her many children as proof that she shares stereotypical small town values (will SOMEONE explain what the hell “small town values” are?). And worst of all, she shows off pregnant 17 year old daughter and her infant son as proof that she lives her prolife stance.

Let me get this last one straight. Her daughter made a mistake. The mistake in question being that she forgot that there are about 90 different kinds of birth control. Now she has to have the baby with the world watching. Her life is changed irrevocably because her mother is running for vice president. I’m not saying that she should have an abortion, that’s her CHOICE. But of all the reasons to have a child “It helps Mom’s poll numbers” is damn close to the bottom.

It gets worse with the baby. Young Trig Palin has Down Syndrome. His existence is being used by the Fixed Noise as prove that Gov. Palin is truly pro life. In other words, the message is: She didn’t get an abortion even though she knew the baby would come out wrong what a wonderful woman!

2. Book burning. This last one has to speak for itself. During her political career Sarah Palin looked into having a large number of books banned from public and school libraries. Fortunately, the local librarians realized that you simply can’t do that in America and swore to fight any such attempt. Palin then had the librarian fired at the earliest opportunity. This list has been floating around the internet. Please note that this list may not be complete or accurate.

This is the list of books Palin tried to have banned.
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Blubber by Judy Blume
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
Carrie by Stephen King
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Christine by Stephen King
Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Cujo by Stephen King
Curses, Hexes, and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
Decameron by Boccaccio
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Fallen Angels by Walter Myers
Fanny Hill (Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure) by John Cleland
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Forever by Judy Blume
Grendel by John Champlin Gardner
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prizoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Have to Go by Robert Munsch
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Impressions edited by Jack Booth
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
It’s Okay if You Don’t Love Me by Norma Klein
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Love is One of the Choices by Norma Klein
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
More Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
My House by Nikki Giovanni
My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
Night Chills by Dean Koontz
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
One Day in The Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
Our Bodies, Ourselves by Boston Women’s Health Collective
Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
Revolting Rhymes by Roald Dahl
Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones by Alvin Schwartz
Scary Stories in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
Separate Peace by John Knowles
Silas Marner by George Eliot
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Bastard by John Jakes
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Devil’s Alternative by Frederick Forsyth
The Figure in the Shadows by John Bellairs
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Snyder
The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks
The Living Bible by William C. Bower
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
The New Teenage Body Book by Kathy McCoy and Charles Wibbelsman
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
The Seduction of Peter S. by Lawrence Sanders
The Shining by Stephen King
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Snyder
Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary by the Merriam-Webster Editorial Staff
Witches, Pumpkins, and Grinning Ghosts: The Story of the Halloween Symbols by Edna Barth

Good night and good luck.

A surprising twist in Japanese politics

At least our losers have some sense. Hi everyone, and by everyone I mean the two family members and occasional spam-bot who read this. I’m back from a long overdue holiday in the US. I’ll write up a report of the things I found interesting returning to the US of A at a later time. Today I want to talk about Former PM Fukuda.

That’s right, the Japanese Prime Minister resigned this morning. Claiming that he felt he could no longer deal with the multitude of issues facing Japan at the moment and that it was time for someone new to take the reigns. And there have been some serious issues: Record gas prices, the end of the longest post-war economic expansion ever, a fruitless G8 summit, and a new healthcare plan that shifted a lot of burden away from the government and the tax payers and on to the elderly. Considering that Japan has the greyest and longest lived population in the world, this was not a bright move.

In addition, Fukuda had to deal with the first divided parliament in Japanese history. One house is controlled by each party but Fukuda’s LDP (Liberal Democratic Party aka The Conservatives) still maintains the overall majority.

As of last week, his approval rating was down to 29% despite a recent reshuffling of the cabinet, normally a guaranteed numbers boost. So, after less than a year in office, the 72 year old Fukuda chose to quit before he dragged the nation too far into the dirt. Isn’t that a nice idea?

Although the ruling party is able to call for elections whenever they choose, they are not REQUIRED to hold a general election until September 2009. Knowing that they are at a low point approval wise, the LDP has decided not to hold an election and instead the party leaders will privately select the new PM. This may happen as soon as the end of the week since Parliament is due to open a new session on Sept. 12th.

Naturally the opposition party is up in arms about the private selection concept and is clamoring for elections to be held. The claim is that the LDP is not willing to hear the voice of the people. Now, none of this is going to do a blessed thing, but it’s a nice point to mention.

The likely replacement for Fukuda is Aso Taro. I don’t know much about him accept that he is a former Foreign Minister and known to be significantly more conservative than Fukuda. I don’t envy the guy. With mandatory election a year away, his party can’t afford 3 failed prime ministers in a row.

I know that most people are bored by Japanese politics. So to balance the scales, my next entry will be an analysis of Sen. McCain’s VP choice including *gasp* some positives.

Now we're getting silly.

Sometimes it seems like humans can’t live unless they are fighting over something. Today, I’m going to weigh in on a story that has been a big deal here in Japan and also over in Korea, the Takeshima/Dokdo debate.

I can already hear you thinking, “What the warm place is he talking about?” Well, that’s perfectly understandable since I sincerely doubt that this has made the US press.

Short version: There is a small chain of islets off the northern coast of Japan that are claimed as sovereign territory by both Japan and South Korea and are called Takeshima and Dokdo by each country respectfully. Who actually owns the islets has been a matter of hot and violent debate for years, but the current stink started a few months ago when the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (the Japanese like to get full mileage out of their ministries) came out with their new guidelines for middle and high school teachers. The most controversial change is that students are now to be taught that the Takeshima islets are part of Japan and the Korean claim is to either be ignored or refuted. As one might expect, this has royally cheesed off the Koreans, who don’t like the Japanese much to begin with, and they have officially recalled their ambassador to Japan.

Long version: Here’s a link to an AP story:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SKOREA_JAPAN?SITE=CTDAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

With all this fuss, you must imagine that these islets are pretty valuable. Full of natural resources ripe for exploitation or with plenty of room for urban development for an over populated country. Well, you’d be dead wrong. These islets, note that they’re not even called islands, can best be described as a pair of rocks that just happen to stick out of the water. The weather is horrendous most times of the year and the terrain is considered all but uninhabitable. The population consists of 2 Korean citizens who live there as part of that nations land claim, 37 Korean security guards to defend the islets (???why???), and 3 Japanese fishermen.

I’m sorry if this sounds like I’m imposing my culture on another, but this is a petty and ridiculous thing to fight over. The core issue is an understandable one however. From 1910 to 1945, Japan occupied South Korea and the Koreans are still angry about it. Wouldn’t you be?
What really ticks me off is the idea of dragging the schools into it. Revisionist history in social studies class is nothing new in Japan or anywhere else for that matter. Just look at any US history textbook in any public school. But to write an ending for a current event is a new low. Imagine if a US history text were to come out tomorrow and the last chapter read, “. . . and then President McCain continued President George W. Bush’s good work and won the war in Iraq without any significant loss of American life.” (Published by Murdoch Pub. Ltd. “We decide, you agree ARRRRR.”) The public outrage would be . . . minor most likely. Americans don’t really care what goes into their children’s textbooks.

OK, that was a depressing thought.

I’m going to stop writing now.

Gotta love the loopholes.

The FISA bill that the President will soon sign is a terrible idea. By protecting the telecom companies from civil lawsuits, it sends the clear message that the President of the United States is above the law. Considering that most of the big wigs at the Dept. of Justice sit at the pleasure of the President, it’s hard to say that he isn’t. But there is one argument against this bill that I’m not sure I buy.

I was watching Countdown via msnbc.com last night and one of the guests made the argument that the FISA bill shreads the 4th amendment. I’m not sure I agree. As a refresher, the 4th amendment is:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

As I understand it, the FISA bill legalizes and/or excuses the government spying on American citizens without a warrant. I haven’t read the bill, so I’m probably missing a lot of the details, but that is how it has been presented so that is what I will argue against.

The government listening in on your phone calls doesn’t violate the exact wording of the forth amendment. The spirit of it, heck yes, but the law is rarely concerned with the spirit. That’s the difference between Law and Justice. Verbal communication doesn’t fall under persons, houses, papers, or effects and the amendment only requires a warrant for those specific things. All four of those categories refer to physical objects, not information. “Persons” means the government can’t search your physical body or clothing. “Houses” is self explanatory. “Papers” refer to your personal records in an era when writing something down was the only way to record anything. “Effects” refer to your physical property such as the contents of your briefcase (In that era, this probably covered your slaves as well).

The big question is: Do spoken words fall under any of these categories? Houses: no. Person, not really because your words can’t be found by a physical search of your person. Papers, possibly, but the Administration’s argument will be that if it isn’t written down, it doesn’t count. Effects, that’s doubtful because you don’t own your words. Something I heard over and over again in school was how once something is said, it’s not private anymore. Under that logic, listening to someone’s phone call is not a search of their private records because words are definitively not private. (OK, yeah, I know that’s a load of rubbish, but that is what my generation was taught to believe in the post-columbine world.)

So the biggest sticker is in papers. If the government or their tele-toadies RECORD the call and play it back, then it becomes a “paper” under this amendment. So all they have to do is listen to the calls live and then prosecute under the 1st grader laws of evidence, “Teacher! Teacher! Johnny said a bad word!” (and yes, that’s the same Johnny who can’t read. What a little brat!) In the days of “You’re an enemy combatant because I said so. Off to Gitmo with ya!” this isn’t as crazy as it sounds.

It all comes down to the fact that we are using a 16th century rule book for a 21st century game. Therefore, the constitution ranks right up there with the Bible as a document that can be interpreted as just about anything. In today’s world, information is as tangible a commodity as bread or rice, something the founding fathers never could have imagined and hence did not plan for.

So the Bush administration is showing uncharacteristic intelligence by working their way around a constitutional loophole. That doesn’t change the fact that George W. Bush is a criminal and deserves to be hauled off to jail for the dozens of felonies he has, or has ordered, committed.

Dubya goes to Japan, part one.

W. is visiting Japan and (since it probably won't make the news state side) I'm here to capture all the fun and frolics.

It’s only natural that when a country hosts an international even that they want to show off their culture. Japan is currently hosting the G8 summit in Hokkaido. As such, the eight world leaders were asked to participate in the Tanabata tradition of writing a wish on a piece of paper and tying it to a tree. This tradition stems from the fact that Tanabata is the Star Festival and the words for “wish” and “star” are the same (hoshi) only written with different kanji. 欲しい and 星 respectfully. By the way, that was an excuse to see if the blogger software can handle Japanese writing.

So, what did the world leaders wish for? According to the Japan Times, the wishes were as follows:

England—PM Gordon “Not Blair” Brown. I will mock the other leaders, but not this one. July 7th may be Tanabata in Japan, but in the UK it is the anniversary of the London terrorist bombing. His wish was for an end to terrorism and a prayer for those who lost their lives in London. A class act.

Germany—Chancellor Angela “no amusing nickname” Merkel. She wished for a bright star to shine over the summit and for all nations to meet their responsibilities. A bit of a “take that” at the USA, which has a decades long reputation for signing treaties and accords, then using them to line the birdcage.

Japan—PM Yasuo “spell check says his name is Fu**er” Fukuda. The current PM has approval ratings below those of President Bush and is basically counting on this summit to save his job. He had a good chance here to show his intelligence and skill with the language (two things the Japanese apparently LIKE in their leaders) and he blew it by just writing one of his political catchphrases. “Learning from past wisdoms and creating new ones.” The spell checker may have been right.

USA—Still President George W. “I’m still allowed to touch things” Bush. This is a good one. I should point out that he wrote in English, it was translated into Japanese for the press, and that was retranslated back into English before the Japan Times published it. Why they didn’t just read the original, I don’t know. The Tanabata wish of Still President Bush: I wish for a world free from tyranny. Please insert your own joke about Jan 20, 2009 here: __________________________________________.

What a maroon!

All's fair in love and war records

OK, there’s nothing much in the Japanese press today except that gas prices have gone up another 10 yen a liter. Speaking of which, I was wrong about the translation of the gas prices I’m paying. 1 gallon is 3.78 liters not 4, my mistake. So I’m actually paying $6.77/gal, not $6.80. (Big !$#%ing deal!)

What I’d like to talk about today is Barack Obama and his decision to take the high road with regards to John McCain. Gen. Wesley Clark Ret. Made some long overdue comments yesterday regarding the logic of equating wartime presidential leadership ability with a military career that involved no wartime command duty whatsoever. Today, Next President Obama said that this was inappropriate, that Gen. Clark was not speaking on his behalf, and that he has no plans to attack the service record of John McCain.

This just goes to show that Barack Obama is simply a better person than John McCain. McCain’s service record is his main selling point, yet nobody is examining it that closely. The general idea is that you don’t attack the record of an ex-POW veteran with several impressive metals attached to his chest. That’s all well and good, but where was that logic 4 years ago when the GOP ripped John Kerry to pieces with false information about his war record?

The double standard extends to this election as well. One reason that nobody is attacking McCain’s record is it is equated as attacking his patriotism or attacking American troops in general. Again, that doesn’t stop the GOP from attacking Obama on the same issues, but what the hell. This is ridiculous of course. Examining his service record is just looking to see if he was any good at his job. It has nothing to do with courage, patriotism, or anything else. It’s about seeing if the foundation of the McCain campaign is strong enough to hold up the entire free world. Kinda important, donja think?

I don’t see what the problem is with looking at McCain’s background. It's ok to look at Obama’s background and experience and evaluate him as a potential POTUS but not ok to do the same to McCain. Why? Because he was in the military? The military contains the same crosscut of individuals as the rest of the population. I say from first hand experience, there are people in the military that I wouldn’t trust to run a cub scout den, much less a country (including some of the peoplewho ran MY cub scout den). Is it because John McCain was a POW? Well, I’m sorry if this sounds crass, but if you crash your plane behind enemy lines and are captured by said enemy then something went very badly wrong! And you automatically deserve to be the President of the United States solely because of that serious screw up. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t add up for me.

While we’re on the subject, would somebody please define the word patriotism or patriot for me? Over the last few years a patriot appears to have come to mean someone who never questions what they are told, a person who never disagrees with the authority figure, a person who proclaims the greatness of their flag and nation without knowing anything about its inner workings or history, a person who is proud of their ignorance, and most importantly a person who is a Republican. And not just a republican, a Bush/Rove republican. That can’t be right. If it is, then I am not a patriot and I am damn proud of it.

Getting back to the point, I just hope this impressive show of class by Obama doesn’t come back to haunt him. Not retaliating in kind when you are attacked and not stooping down to the lowest common level is seen as a sign of weakness under the modern political paradigm. This is a bad idea for the GOP. They are hearing the message “I’m going to be a nice guy while you attack me.” hidden in Obama’s message when they should be hearing, “. . . you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”