The White Peril 白禍

I don't plan to make ex-gays a running theme here--Ex-Gay Watch, whose contributors all know a lot more about various programs and theories than I ever will, usually have that stuff covered just fine. Still, the topic is obviously of more than mere passing interest to me, and in the vein of yesterday's post about MSNBC's blandified article about Love in Action, here is an interview with an ex-ex-gay in Bay Windows (via Gay News).

Naturally, my sympathies are going to lie with Wade Richards, but I can't judge how accurately he's actually portraying people and events. One thing that he says that jibes with everything else I've heard and read about de-gay-ifying programs drew my attention anew, though:

I took a break from the press stuff and was hanging out in Los Angeles and my boss's sister was in an open relationship for 12 years with her girlfriend. We would visit her, and when my boss wasn't around I'd ask her sister Jenny questions. She had really been in a relationship for 12 years? What? You don't do drugs, you don't drink, you work for a youth organization? You volunteer your time most of the time? How weird? And then I'd be in her house and see scripture verses taped up to her mirror and little inspirational things, and I was like, 'What's going on? I thought this doesn't happen. Gay people aren't in monogamous relationships.'

Reparative (or however they style themselves) programs don't have any ethical responsibility to give equal time to the opposition. If you're trying to bring people out of homosexuality, of course, you're not going to be dwelling on the fact that there are gays in stable, long-term, sustaining relationships.

But just because people are confused and depressed doesn't mean they're dum-dums. If you drum into their heads that all gays are dysfunctional, the immediate effect will doubtless be to spook them away from homosexual behavior. But it simply isn't true that we all end up in the gutter (such a dusty place, you know, and not the sort of backdrop that flatters the skin tone). Unless kept under virtual house arrest, they're eventually going to run into some of us gays in regular old couples and start to wonder what other facts you were playing fast and loose with. Irrespective of whose goals you support, bad strategy is bad strategy. Not to mention that, in this case, it's dishonest.

On the other hand, not all the noise this week is good. Lead story of the Nikkei evening edition that I plucked from the mailbox after a hard day at the office:

North Korea: Pieces in place for building of nuclear facilities, production of nuclear weapons

The DPRK has revealed that it has restarted the construction of two nuclear reactors, which was frozen after a 1994 agreement it had mapped out with the US. The move is regarded as an attempt mass-manufacture nuclear weapons; both reactors are low-velocity graphite reactors that can be used to extract weapons-grade plutonium.

This is so great!

Not long ago, the only disturbances at Japanese shareholders meetings came from sokaiya racketeers.

That era ended Wednesday with round after round of tongue-lashings from legitimate shareholders fed up with deceit, waste and simple incompetence of management.

Of companies that closed their books at the end of March and are listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, 1,072, or 59.8 percent, held their shareholders meetings on Wednesday.

It was the first time for the number to fall below 60 percent.

Amid a series of scandals and heightened interest in corporate takeovers, there was a significant increase in the number of individual shareholders at the meetings, many of whom took management to task.

(Nikkei version in Japanese here.)

I don't know that Terry McMillan's marital troubles constitute a conservative case for gay marriage, but I do know that it's a shame Ace's old boyfriend didn't turn out to be as gay as she is: Imagine the mileage he could've gotten from working the name of his employer! And as usual, Ace has good things to say about integrity.

Via the Washington Blade, MSNBC has this article that starts as a summary of the Love Won Out conference sponsored by Focus on the Family but ends up summarizing several of the different views of the origins and mutability of homosexuality.

What's fascinating is that everyone comes off looking more moderate and live-and-let-live than usual. Queer activists prone to hysterics are quoted in austere single-word bites about how "hateful" groups that advocate change are. The representative of Focus on the Family, Bill Maier, emphasizes tolerance for homosexual behavior. This isn't to say the reporter is being disingenuous, only that the side of each party is different from what's usually shown. You might start hallucinating that people with strong opposing opinions can live together in a free society without rancor.

BTW, Focus on the Family's official take (I assume, since the piece was written by James Dobson) on the origins and malleability of homosexuality is here. There's much to agree with: gay activists do engage in propaganda, and the evidence should not be suppressed that people who are troubled by their homosexuality to the point of being non-functional are capable of and better off not acting on it.

The narrative to explain how homosexuality ripens is internally coherent and doubtless appeals to Dobson's constituency, but calling it "definitive" is a bit much. Even if you accept that homosexuality starts with a genetic predisposition toward certain traits plus some kind of emotional dislocation in infancy, which seems like as good an explanation as any to me at this point, that doesn't indicate it's still fundamentally in flux until late adolescence. Dobson calls a dawning awareness of the sensuality of one's own body and a more-pronounced sense of difference from other boys a stage on the way to homosexuality; most of us who are out would say that we experienced it as the emergence, under the special pressures that start for everyone with puberty, of what it's clear in retrospect had been dormant all along. Neither has been proved, but what would help the pro-change side would be evidence that a high percentage of gays change successfully.

Unfortunately, radical gays, egregiously screechy though they be, have no monopoly on exaggeration. Dobson doesn't screech and, in fact, comes off as sincere and humane in intent, but in his hands Robert L. Spitzer's carefully qualified finding that some homosexuals with unusually high motivation can learn to function heterosexually mutates into the blanket statement "Change is possible." Parents and teenagers are assured, "Prevention is effective," without information about success rates. (After all, if Joseph Nicolosi has data to support the contention that 75 percent of boys with "untreated" gender issues become homosexual, isn't it reasonable to figure he'd know more about those who get treatment and are thus within the ken of psychologists? I suppose that kind of information could be elsewhere in the book, but it strains credibility to figure that Dobson wouldn't have cited it--he's advertising preventive therapy, isn't he?)

And the footnotes there are are suspect: Dobson refers to gays' "shorter lifespan" and cites William Bennett's "Clinton, Gays and the Truth" from the Weekly Standard (not on-line, AFAIK). William Bennett has many virtues--especially with respect to the field of education--but he is not a statistician. In fact, he was working from Paul Cameron's notorious "study" of gay life expectancy, which Walter Olson eviscerates here. Bennett himself later conceded that Cameron's survey was not a reliable basis for generalization about the gay population.

The average-lifespan-of-43 figure is not the crux of Dobson's argument, I know. I bring it up because it illustrates a willingness to accept uncritically arguments with which one already sympathizes--a problem that everyone in this debate seems to have in spades but, naturally, only notices in others. It matters even on small points because anyone drawing conclusions on a murky topic like the origins of homosexuality is going to have to look at the fragmentary evidence, make a lot of judgment calls, and ask readers to trust them. Lack of rigor hurts everyone whose primary interest is the truth.

For the foreseeable future, there are going to be a multiplicity of approaches, and we'll all be appalled at those that go against our views. Myself, I ache for gay kids whose parents think their brains have to be rewired for their own good--if they think they were setting the children faulty gender-identification signals, shouldn't they be signing themselves up for brainwashing, too?--but that doesn't make "reparative therapy" programs a special kind of social emergency. Parents do all sorts of things to screw up their kids (and adults do all sorts of things to screw up their own lives) that aren't legally punishable. Outsiders can criticize them but not interfere. What we can all do is work to strengthen our arguments as dispassionately as possible. And lead the sort of responsible, happy lives that make people want to emulate them.


Added on 1 July: Well, sheesh. I would've e-mailed Mike, but I thought it was Daniel's cage we were supposed to be rattling now. :) In any case, Ex-Gay Watch doesn't have its own post up discussing the MSNBC piece yet, but commenters are already starting to debate its weird even-handedness at the short one linked to in the last sentence. Should be interesting; I'll be looking forward to reading what Mike has to say, too.

Added on 7 July: Mike Airhart's post is up.

I saw Susanna had done this the other day, went and took the survey, and copied the button into a post; and then the kettle started whistling and I didn't post it. Anyway, if you haven't encountered it elsewhere, this MIT survey asks questions about blogging and blog reading in some interesting ways:





The title, BTW, is a version of the famous Japanese proverb usually translated as "The nail that sticks out gets pounded down," which seemed appropriate for a post that jokingly refers to the bell curve.

You'd think this kind of crap wouldn't get me exercised by this point, but it does:

The National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce entered into an agreement this month with the Department of the Interior Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization to increase outreach to gay-owned businesses and to educate gay business owners about contract opportunities.

"The agreement says it’s OK to be who you are," said Justin Nelson, co-founder and co-executive director of the NGLCC. "[The Department of the Interior] wants to do business with gay firms in a public manner."

The federal government should be impartial; an announcement from the Department of the Interior that federal contracts are available to businesses regardless of the sexual orientation of those who run them would be great. But we all know that's not what "outreach" means. More on that in a second.

What really jerks my chain, naturally, is that "The agreement says it's OK to be who you are" BS. Can we please, at least every third Thursday or so, not offload our own responsibility for self-definition on the government? Please. And anyway, how exactly does being officially defined as "disadvantaged" make what you are okay, of all things?

The assumptions underlying the program are hardly flattering, after all:

Nelson said that many gay-owned businesses shy away from working with the federal government, because of the perception that the Bush administration is anti-gay.

"Our community is very apprehensive about finding out about opportunities [with federal agencies]," he said. The NGLCC wants to tell gay-owned businesses that, "there's a separation of the policies of the administration and opportunities they should be afforded."

I apparently missed the speech in which the President informed America that gay-owned enterprises should be boycotted until they go out of business. I also wasn't aware that "apprehensiveness" in an entrepreneur was a trait to be indulged rather than outgrown. Aren't business owners supposed to be go-getters? If they want to know what kinds of contracts might be legally available to them as gays, they just need to ask one of their corporate lawyer friends. All of us coat-and-tie queers know twelve lawyers if we know one; for Pete's sake, I sometimes feel like the only middle-class fag in the entire developed world that didn't go to law school.

This nettles me even more than usual because a book I just got around to buying and reading spurred me to go back and revisit some sections of Geraldine Brooks's fascinating Nine Parts of Desire. Here's one passage that sticks in the memory, about a family in Saudi Arabia:

Basilah had invited a woman friend who helped her mother run a successful construction company to join us for tea. When her father died, she and her mother had expected his male relations to run the business and provide for her and her children. But they were lazy and incompetent, and it seemed that everything her father had worked for was going to be destroyed. "Finally my mother took over," the woman explained. "She went to the Ministry of Construction with the papers that needed official approval. No woman had been in there before. The officials ordered her out. She refused to go. She sat there, and sat there, until they were forced to deal with her. She turned out to be a very good manager, and she saved the business."

Fine, the analogy isn't perfect. Still and all, it does seem that if a woman in Saudi Arabia can stand up to a room full of male bureaucrats in order to do what she needs for her company (presumably against her male relatives' wishes), free American gays who run the kinds of firms that the government contracts with could figure out how to pursue jobs without having their hands held.

Sometimes the rigidity of Japanese gender roles can be very darkly amusing--even multiple-murderers play along. This week, two sentences in notorious late-90s murders were upheld. One was the death sentence of the woman convicted of poisoning several acquaintances at a summer festival in 1998:

The Osaka High Court on Tuesday dismissed a woman's appeal against a lower court ruling that sentenced her to death for killing four people at a festival by lacing a curry stew with arsenic.

The appeal trial focused on the credibility of Masumi Hayashi's not-guilty plea over accusations that she put arsenic into a communal curry pot during a summer festival in Wakayama in July 1998.

...

The Wakayama District Court, based on witnesses' accounts, ruled in December 2002 that Hayashi was wearing white clothes and acted suspiciously when she opened the lid of the curry pot.

The district court also ruled that Hayashi had known that people would die from the poison and therefore sentenced her to death.

The Osaka High Court also found Hayashi guilty in several other attempted murder and fraud cases, supporting the Wakayama District Court's ruling that Hayashi attempted to poison her husband and a male acquaintance for insurance benefits.

Hayashi said that her husband and the man drank arsenic by themselves to obtain insurance money and therefore, she didn't try to murder them.

Homicide for the purpose of getting life insurance money is common in Japan.

The man whose death sentence was affirmed was having none of that slow-acting, within-the-family-circle stuff:

The Hiroshima High Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court death sentence handed to a man for killing five and injuring 10 others when he went on a berserk rampage at JR Shimonoseki Station in 1999.

Yasuaki Uwabe, 41, was convicted of driving his car into the concourse of the station in Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture in September 1999, and hitting three people, killing two of them.

Jumping out of the vehicle, Uwabe then began attacking innocent bystanders with a knife. The slashing spree left another three people dead.

When Hayashi and Uwabe are executed, it's likely to happen without advance warning (even to their families) and may be timed to reassure the public that the justice system is dealing effectively with crime.

A few nights ago, Atsushi reminded me in our nightly conversation that the property tax was due by the end of the month. Monday's a day off for me, so I figured that while I was heading to the post office anyway, I may as well mail some other stuff: I took care of a friend's wedding present, letter to my grandfather, few other things. Need I tell you what, when I was halfway out the door and feeling all smug and accomplished, I realized I'd forgotten to do? Personally, I blame the fact that Japan Post hasn't yet been privatized. After all, a private corporation accountable to its customers would develop an array of services more responsive to their needs and...uh...thus...you know, more...memorable. (Don't worry, A., I went back in and paid it.)

Anyway, the privatization bill is still being haggled over. Latest news is:

On the evening of 28 June, the LDP agreed to a review of the Japan Post privatization bill that included the revision of 4 items. The central revision was that, as one of the functions the window-services corporation will be allowed to perform, "the work of a bank or insurance agency" is given as an example. Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi assented to the revision. In accepting this resolution, which had been a sticking point through the debate over revisions, the LDP executive body aims to see the bill passed by the Lower House by the beginning of July. Opposition to the bill is still deep-rooted even among some in the party, however, so there are still many issues that stand in the way of its approval.

This is the same Koizumi who was saying yesterday that he would accept no revisions; he said tonight that his position had not changed. Okay, whatever you say. Perhaps the new provisions don't strike him as neutering the reforms. Along those lines, it remains unclear whether mochiai (mutual shareholding) will be explicitly permitted; some in the LDP were pushing for such a provision yesterday.

Apparently, the du Toits looked across their dining room table at each other this past week and said: "You know, darling, people are really stupid sometimes. More Yorkshire pudding?" "They certainly are. Wish they'd knock it off. And no thanks, I'm full." Their posts come at it from different angles, but they're essentially on the same topic: critical thinking.

By that I mean the good kind: questioning and investigating not only the information presented to you but also your own assumptions. It's necessary to specify that, because what's often referred to as "critical thinking" nowadays seems to consist of little more than the ability to write a five-paragraph essay that's consistent within its own hermetically-sealed logical framework. (I'm hardly the first person to say this, but that's my main gripe with many libertarians: their arguments have the internal purity of rock crystal but are useless for a country of 300 million strong-minded people who all have to live with each other.) Anyway, good reads both.

Oh, I think I've forgotten to mention this:

The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry says it has a slush fund of 31 million yen amassed from setting aside some research expenses to be paid to an affiliate organization.

Vice Minister Hideji Sugiyama also said at a press conference Thursday that Taizo Nakatomi, former head of the planning office at the minister's secretariat, misappropriated part of the fund for his private stock transactions.

Nakatomi, 48, was dismissed on June 6.

The ministry had withheld information related to the slush fund because investigators asked the ministry to keep it confidential.

This was the topic of the Nikkei's main editorial yesterday morning:

Another former official at METI has just recently been charged with insider trading, after all. If we add this new slush fund problem, is it not apparent that there's an institutional lack of vigilance that doesn't end with just one individual? Minister of ETI Nakagawa has resolved to establish an investigative committee made up of outside lawyers and other experts; what he must go on to do is to make sure the facts of ministry doings are brought to light and then cut out the rot.

...

Do the problems really stop with METI? Or do the same problems exist in other Kasumigaseki ministries and government bodies? The issue cannot be settled by targeting the one person at one ministry involved in this particular instance of malfeasance; it is necessary to make the flow of money through the entire government thoroughly transparent, including that involved in relationships among federal ministries and semi-governmental corporations.

I used "cut out the rot" because that's the way we'd usually put it in English. For anyone who's interested, though, the more evocative Japanese metaphor in the original is 膿を出し切る (umi wo dashikiru: "drain all the pus"). Whatever we're calling the infection, obviously, there's a reason the questions at the beginning of that last paragraph are loaded, and everyone in Japan knows it. That doesn't mean the government's moves toward transparency aren't working--the reason we're discussing these cases is that they've been exposed, after all--but they are working slowly.

Machiruda, who does a better job of paying close attention to the China-Japan competition for natural resources than I do, links to a Financial Times series on China's energy ambitions. Good reading, even if the formatting is clunky to negotiate. An article that's not specifically related to fossil fuel procurement is on page 7: "Chinese learn to talk contracts, not contacts." As you probably figured from that headline, it's about how Chinese businessmen are adapting to the Western model of contractual obligation rather than cronyism.

On a different note, Machiruda also went to Nikko earlier this month and posts a photograph of one of the shrine entrances. It's very elaborate, and reminds me of something I've always thought was a shame. When you mention "Japanese architecture" or "Japanese furnishings," Westerners tend to picture, you know, like, Ikea with rice paper. Of course, that's not inaccurate, especially nowadays, with the mass-produced buildings and furniture that are artifacts of Japan's economic efflorescence after the war. Unstained wood, rice paper, and bamboo; low-lying pieces of furniture that seem to hover horizontally over the floor; austere lack of detailing--those are all elements that are genuinely traditional.

But Japan has its rococo strain, too--a bequest of the Momoyama Era. People are often surprised at that, because it's not the "Japanese aesthetic" that influences Western designers. You also don't see much complicated design or bright color in contemporary Japanese houses, with the exception of red lacquer. Rooms are small here, and colorful patterns can get claustrophobic. The tendency to shove brightly-colored cartoon animals, giant lit-up signs, and ornately fugly tile patterns (the station in my beloved Shibuya has at its south exit one of the worst offenders I've ever seen, but it has plenty of competition) in our faces outdoors seems to be the modern outlet for the Japanese instinct for lavishness. The combination of that garish overlighting and obnoxious vanity-project architecture outdoors means that it can make the nondescript blandness of the average Tokyo interior something of a relief.

But only something of. We need a new rug in the living room, and I told Atsushi that I was thinking of something in maybe navy blue or wine red. I figured this would go over well: he's very conservative about his colors. (I also figured the red might be useful for when our dinner guests have had a few.) But his reply was, "Hmm. Won't that make the room too dark?" At this point, I laughed. It wasn't nice, but I couldn't help it. I was like, "Dearest, we have beige vinyl walls, beige curtains, blond wood flooring, and white woodwork. Put a mesh bag of dodge balls in the corner and this could be a nursery school gymnasium. There is no way we could make this place too dark unless we unscrewed all the light bulbs."

Wow. Was I making a point somewhere? China's mad for fossil fuels, it's a shame Japanese rococo isn't better known, and I'm going to have to wear Atsushi down to get a rug that isn't beige into the house. Yeah. Hope everyone's having a good weekend.

Former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, whom fellow Reagan fans will remember, weighed in on the Yasukuni Shrine issue this morning:

Speaking on a Fuji Television program on the morning of 26 June, former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone emphatically voiced his opposition to the construction of a secular facility to commemorate Japan's war dead in place of the Yasukuni Shrine: "I've been against it all along. We absolutely need to avoid letting the Yasukuni Shrine, where those who died for our country are honored, be abandoned."

Of Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi's visits to the shrine, he indicated that "[At this point] they're not in the best interest of the nation. If the Class A war criminals cannot be enshrined separately, I think he should leave off visiting." On the topic of the Tokyo Tribunals, he stated, "I don't concede [that they were just]. Not in the least do I believe that those convicted of Class A war crimes were criminals."

Well, that's unequivocal. Of course, context would help. (I wasn't watching the show.) The belief that many were imprisoned or executed simply for losing the war is understandable in some cases. However, "some cases" does not include those involved in orchestrating a war that included the Rape of Nanking and the comfort women system, which is what we're talking about when we use the bland designation "Class A war crimes." And considering what used to happen to the vanquished in less enlightened times, the punishments meted out to the Germans and Japanese were relatively mild.

For those who, like me, check every now and then but haven't checked in the last week or so, Alice and Connie are both back blogging. Cool!

Damn. So that's how this ends.

"I have to look out for the city as a whole, not just a few people," says Mayor Ernest Hewett, who vacillates between "feeling the residents' pain" and disparaging the neighborhood, which houses a waste water treatment plant. "People were running from the Fort Trumbull area two or three years ago because of the smell. No one would actually buy a house in the Fort Trumbull area."

Yet that's just what Susette Kelo and her husband did in 1997. Not far from Wilhelmina Dery's place, they purchased a delightful pink two-bedroom house on the southeast corner of East Street, that boulevard of broken dreams with a dangerously insufficient radii. Kelo enjoys a view as lively and varied as this traditionally immigrant neighborhood once was, with its auto shops, corner store, factory, café, construction companies, and social club. (As the government lawyers point out, such a mixed-use neighborhood no longer conforms to the city's code and therefore is truly a thing of the past.) In one direction, she can watch ferry boats head to Martha's Vineyard and Block Island. In other directions, she can gaze at petroleum tanks, the stacks of a factory, sailboats parked in a marina, and even the tip of Long Island. The earth-tone-and-glass Pfizer complex is also in view. From her back porch, she takes in the roof tops and thick green foliage of New London.

Kelo arrived home the day before Thanksgiving in 2000 and saw something else: eminent domain paperwork stuck to her door. It gave her until March 2001 to leave the home she loves behind. In the meantime, it demanded she pay rent of $500 a month (in Connecticut, the government technically owns the property once they serve eminent domain papers). The lawsuit, which bears her name, is holding off her eviction for now. But if she loses, she'll be a victim whose dreams have been paved over by progress, government style, in which the rights of citizens to their homes are trumped by the pressing need for increased corner radii.

Read the reasoning behind the New London city government's move to confiscate the Kelos' property. You'll no longer wonder why some people snap and become loony libertarians.

Added on a tea break: I think I've snapped and become a loony libertarian. You know, my parents rented a very small townhouse the whole time I was growing up. We lived comfortably, but our means were straitened.

By saving and planning, they were able to buy a pretty spacious house a few miles outside of town. It was solid and had an acre or two of property with it, but it had been abandoned by tax evaders and not tended to for a few years. In the interim, it had also been broken into by pranksters who spraypainted the place and started a fire in one of the showers and dumped things on the carpets--the sort of non-structural damage that just needs a lot of sweat equity. Nine years of sweat equity later, the place is very nice, filled with furniture my father built (his hobby) in the garage, and well-maintained. So, having grown up in a family that was rising into the middle class, I feel a special sadness and anger in knowing that the door has been opened for a lot of people's fixer-uppers to be treated as, effectively, single-unit public housing.

Of course, if you're a random American, the probability that your property will happen to catch the covetous eye of a "development"-minded municipal official is likely to remain low, no matter how bad the orgy of confiscation that's almost certainly coming actually gets. But that's just statistics. Once you're living in a state in which every county has decided to commandeer just a few homeowners' properties for some cockamamie plan or other, you're not likely to be motivated to fix up a usable but ramshackle old area house, especially if you're in a modest income bracket and will be doing most of the work yourself and on a limited budget. It's neighborhoods of people who aren't rich or influential that tend to get hit with these things, and those who live in them know it.

When I was in high school in 1989, there was a brouhaha over flag burning. I wrote an indignant letter to the local newspaper supporting the ban--or rather, the amendment that would make a ban possible, which I think is what we're actually talking about. Of course, I was 17. I wouldn't now.

Backers argue the legislation is needed to protect a symbol of American democracy; foes warn it would infringe on First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech.

I'm rabid about free speech, but I'm not so sure about the First Amendment argument, however well it may have worked in the past. Expression usually involves gestures of creation: you make words or you make pictures (if you hold with Camille Paglia's definition of images as pagan speech). In making it possible to legislate against flag burning, no one is limiting your ability to shout, "Death to America!" or what have you, if that's what you think needs to be said.

Be that as it may, let's have a sense of proportion here. It is perfectly possible to shun people who injure the flag, or to point out that their ability to criticize their own society so unequivocally is one of the things it represents. I understand the ire that a lot of people have stored up over the last few decades of PC run amok, but this is a bad outlet for it.

Honeychile? Seriously, take yourself off to a remote Micronesian islet already:

Former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey who came out, announced he had an extramarital affair, and resigned from office may be gone from the state capitol but he's not about to be forgotten.

A life-sized portrait of McGreevey will hang in the governor's office in Trenton. The official portrait was completed this week.

McGreevey sat for the painting, done at a cost to taxpayers of about $25,000, after he left office. It was done by Chen Yanning who has painted portraits of Christie Whitman and Queen Elizabeth II.

Details of the ceremony to unveil the painting have not been finalized.

Last August at a hastily arranged news conference McGreevey announced "I am a manipulative whore."

I edited that last sentence for clarity.

It's been a soundbite kind of day here in Japan. From Shinzo Abe, the LDP's acting General Secretary:

Of China-Japan relations, Abe, addressing a press conference, stated, "It is necessary for Japan to engage in a good deal of humble consideration, but we must also be able to count on China to make efforts [to change] structural problems of its own, such as it's anti-Japanese educational system." About Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi's pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine, he said, "His behavior is perfectly proper for a leader of the nation."

I'm not sure, but I think there's a pun there: 一国 refers to "ultra-nationalists" as well as "the whole country," doesn't it?

Speaking of Koizumi and the Yasukuni Shrine, as one so often does these days, I've seen nothing to indicate that Katsuya Okada did, in fact, put the screws in on that topic today. And why would he? There were more important criticisms to level, such as, "Dude, you were so totally schnockered at the meeting the other day--DON'T. EVEN."

At a meeting of the lower house Audits Committee [Literally this would be the "Book Settling Operations and Audits Committee," and if anyone has any idea how the hell we're supposed to translate that one, I'd love to hear.--SRK] on 22 June, the Prime Minister and DPJ leader Katsuya Okada sparred energetically.

In his first response [to questioning], Koizumi disputed [the claims about him]: "I hadn't drunk so much as a drop. Is it proper to go around making these ridiculous accusations without any confirmation?" Okada retorted, "We tried to get a confirmation through the Operations Committee, but the LDP issued no response [to our inquiries]." The Prime Minister refused to concede: "So with no confirmation, you went ahead and submitted a motion to have me censured?"

Just another day running the government of the most mature democracy in the world's most populous region.

The Yasukuni Shrine has not been neglected, though:

Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi spoke to reporters about Health, Labour, and Welfare official Masahiro Morioka's declaration that he had doubts that the Tokyo tribunals [after WWII] had been just. Indicating that he perceived Morioka's statements as inappropriate, he said, "I'd like to you bear in mind that this was the viewpoint of a single official." Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda also emphasized at a press conference that "while (we can debate over) the widely-harbored questions about whether it is appropriate for the victors to pass judgment on the vanquished, the fact remains that the government accepted the judgments handed down, and so we have no standing to register dissent."

Morioka, speaking at a meeting the same day, stated, "Japan implemented its war operations in compliance with international laws governing wartime conduct; that aspect should not have been subject to [further trial and] judgment. It is a mistake to say that the victors only were upright and that the losers were [entirely] in the wrong."

Banal observation: If government officials didn't have the word appropriate at their disposal, they'd never be able to open their mouths lest some actual value judgment slip out.

By the way, the word I've translated as "victor" here is one I very much like, as you might imagine: 戦勝者 (senshousha: "war/battle" + "win" + "person").

Who knows how it'll end up, but the Permanent Partners Immigration Act, under the slightly soggier name Uniting American Families Act, has been reintroduced in congress. I know I strike this gong all the time, but I'm far more concerned that policy-based impediments to our taking care of each other be removed than that the government confer [gag] "recognition" on our relationships.

Joe Riddle, who frequently posts at Ex-Gay Watch, has a post up that more succinctly and effectively makes a point I was trying to make the other day:

My advice to the gay child born to fundamentalist Christian parents: keep your head down and try to stay out of harm's way until you're an adult and you can get away from them.

And obey them as cheerfully as you can muster. They're wrong, unfortunately, about homosexuality; but other aspects of fundamentalist Christianity--constancy, honor, discipline, and the recognition that the world does not revolve around oneself--are not wrong at all. And you'll need them later.

Katsuya Okada, the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, has opined that Prime Minister Koizumi has a decision to make:

Speaking about pilgrimages to the Yasukuni Shrine that were a focal point of the recent meeting between top Japanese and ROK officials, Katsuya Okada told a press conference on 21 June, "Koizumi has failed to convince [people of the rectitude of his position], and therefore his only options are to cease making pilgrimages of his own volition or to resign as Prime Minister." Okada will pursue this line of argument with the Prime Minister on 22 June at a meeting of the Audits Committee of the House of Representatives.

Of course, being the opposition leader, Okada has more or less a duty to throw darts at Koizumi. Much as I like Koizumi, though--especially as a forceful and articulate US ally in the WOT--he really has botched this particular issue and good.

In its campaign for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, Japan has been reduced to trumpeting that it's gotten the support of...Tunisia.

There was an interesting article in the Asahi about Japan's screw-ups on the issue (the piece is from a few weeks ago--this is one of those posts I started and then somehow never finished):

Japan made two serious miscalculations that have all but sunk its strategy to win a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Tokyo overestimated support from the United States by failing to recognize that U.S. interests come first in Washington, not the desires of a key ally. [Duh.--SRK]

The second mistake was Tokyo's underestimation of anger against Japan in China, which has used its growing influence in the world to thwart Tokyo's long-cherished dream to join the exclusive club at the United Nations.

Foreign Minister Machimura's tour through Brunei, Vietnam, and Cambodia to drum up support didn't work so hot--relations with China are important to everyone in the region. Its position right about now is pretty clear, and that makes it hard for its southern neighbors to cross it.

Part of the problem is, though that the G-4 strategy (that is, banding together with Germany, India, and Brazil to push for a set of seats) carried risks that are inherent, predating the recent flare-up of troubles with China. This English Yomiuri article explains one main disadvantage:

Another government source, however, was pessimistic about maintaining the G-4 position.

"As the United States doesn't want to see the European Union getting more say on the international stage, Germany's permanent membership, at least, was out of the question for Washington. Berlin must have been shocked by the U.S. announcement, and the G-4 may end up in disarray," the source said.

Grouping resources allowed the candidate countries more angles from which to massage support out of less-strategic governments, but it also meant that they all stood or fell on each other's alliances and enmities. Need it be pointed out that all these countries have their enemies? We in Japan have been paying the most attention to China, for obvious reasons. But Pakistan has made its feelings known, too.

That the Bush administration seriously supports Japan but does not want a permanent seat for Germany along with it is believable enough. (Reuters has a summary of the Thursday announcements here, BTW.) Let's not forget that the issues surrounding Article 9 of the constitution--which obviously affects whether Japan can participate in collective military defense--have not been resolved. Prime Minister Koizumi has promised to push on with the G-4 plan, but it seems inevitable that the group will, some time after its coming Brussels confab, be announcing its own face-saving postponement to deal with other matters.

I've finally found my gay spiritual leader, and sugarcakes, I haven't been this excited since Kylie hooked up with the Scissor Sisters.

I mean, finally! A gay public voice that's willing to cut the crap and speak the uncomfortable truth we so often try to avoid facing:

"Straight folks, all our problems are your damned fault!"

You know, I realize that op-ed writers with bylines speak for themselves and may have actually been chosen, at least in part, for their idiosyncratic, conversation-starter sorts of opinions. I also realize that The Village Voice likes scare-the-soccer-moms assertions of combative leftism. There's nothing wrong with shaking people up a little on the opinion page.

But couldn't some editor somewhere have given a thought to basic coherence before publishing this? Writer Patrick Moore makes a few passing, ritual acknowledgements that gay individuals might in some sense be responsible for their own conduct. He specifically uses crystal meth use as a point of departure for a discussion of what he thinks is a more general dearth of mentoring among gay guys. But the promising idea that we (as in, gays ourselves) need to change the environment in which gay men come of age is backed-and-filled into meaninglessness:

There are some problems with environmental prevention. First, if used in a simplistic way, it can lead to judgmental sexual repression that is anathema to gay culture. Second, the approach does not help those who have already entered into active addiction. So the question remains, how to create a healthier environment in the gay community.

The questions Moore asks about what we can do to help keep more people from wrecking their lives are important, but some of the answers are more apparent than he makes them seem. Sooner or later, anyone in a position to give spiritual and moral guidance to rudderless gay guys is going to have to address a few facts: exposing yourself to the mucous membranes of multiple partners a week is hell on the immune system. The problem is not just STDs per se: it's also the lowered resistance to colds, and the mysterious sore throat that keeps you from making a key presentation at work, and the tiredness from fighting things off all the time.

Then there are the psychological issues. Moore relates that he frequently asks residents in a drug rehabilitation program what it is that getting high allows them to do: "[F]or most, their fantasy is no more than to get fucked and to connect with another man. Albeit in all the wrong places and all the wrong ways, these guys are basically looking for love." Well, no. They're looking for the self-affirmation that comes from being loved without the self-discpline you have to exercise to love back.

Mentorship from older guys with their heads screwed on straight is, indeed, necessary to help the young and lost to avoid falling into the trap of short-term gratification that eventually turns into long-term disaster. Moore never seems to get around to explaining how that's supposed to work, though, if we're not going to tell guys that a little "repression" wouldn't hurt them. The most specific his advice gets is...okay, I'll tell you, but you have to promise not to laugh.

Seriously, promise?

Okay, here it is:

Coming out of the gay faerie movement, the Gay Men's Medicine Circle continues to create rituals that encourage spiritual growth. These organizations and their rituals may seem like quaint reminders of a more innocent time. However, they are vital models for the kind of programs that might actually change the tone of gay life in America.

Bitches, you promised! But then, I sprayed my tea all over the monitor when I first read that paragraph, too, so who am I to judge?

Speaking of exercising judgment: I can only assume that the, erm, "gay faerie movement" has developed rituals that celebrate nature and our place in it. As an atheist, I'm not troubled by the obvious paganism there. However, I do have to wonder what good such practices are for "spiritual growth" if they're incompatible with acknowledging that nature favors procreation and does not favor indiscriminate promiscuity. Our human civilizations are founded on defying and fending off the power of nature, true; but there are limits within which we must work, and there is ample evidence that screwing around all the time almost always leads to a sickly, short, destructive, miserable life. You would think that even those for whom monogamy has nasty bourgeois associations would be able to recognize that.

Added on 21 June: I stuck back in some stray phrases I'd cut out of the draft of this post when finalizing it. I hope it reads better. Also, Eric (to whom I sent a somewhat intemperate honey-will-you-get-a-load-of-this-crap! message when I started thinking about Moore's article) has a post of his own that comments more generally on the annoying tendency for people to ask to be protected from themselves.

Amritas has a sensible post on how far emergency service providers should go to accommodate people who can't speak English. There's a fire department in Georgia (the state, not the former Soviet republic) that's supplying its personnel with certain useful phrases in the native languages of many area immigrants:

I'm usually opposed to multiculturalism, but I don't see anything wrong with a few phrases (mispronounced, alas) that could save lives. I'd treat emergencies like these as exceptional.  Immigrants to the US should learn English, but should people die just because they got off the plane yesterday and can't answer the firefighters' questions?

The problem is ... what counts as an emergency?  Here's my take: Fires are split-second situations.  Most other situations aren't. So I don't believe in multilingual ballots.  You won't die if you don't vote.  Multilingual welfare?  You want our (tax) money, you learn our language.  But what about medical emergencies?  Your every ache and pain tended to in Whateverese? You want that, you pay for it.

Ah, that brings a soft libertarian-flavored solution to mind: public emergency services are in English only - the language of the majority of taxpayers - but one can pay for private emergency services in the language of one's choice, just as one can pay for Whateverese-speaking doctors, lawyers, etc. (Hard libertarians would of course argue that all services, emergency or not, should be privatized because the government is eeeevil.) So in this scenario, a small, poor community of Whateverese speakers who can't afford private emergency services (which aren't in Whateverese, because there's no money in it), would have to (gasp) learn English or die.

Does that sound depressing?  It's not much worse than what linguistic minorities face in parts of the world which haven't sipped any mooltee-kooltee Kool-Aid yet.  If you are an Iranian in Japan, do you think a 消防士 shouboushi extinguish-prevent-person' will deign to speak to you in فارسی Persian?

Another consideration is that, even if dispatchers and firemen have memorized a few useful questions, will they understand when the person they're talking to says, "My daughter's still in her bedroom--northeast corner of the fourth floor--and she has asthma!"? Ideally, some able-bodied and civic-minded members of the various immigrant communities would be moved to serve as emergency and law-enforcement personnel. Or, at least, some bilingual community leaders would agree to be on-call if they were needed in such an emergency. Those who emigrate to the States as teenagers usually become fluent in English pretty rapidly, even if they retain an accent.

Okay, third time's the charm. Tom, Joel, and Susanna have all passed me that book thing again. I got it from Dean a while ago, so I'll post an updated version of my original response:

How many books you own

On which land mass? If you count the books I have here, the ones I have at my parents' house, the ones that are still in the apartment in New York with my old roommate, and the ones that are still at his parents' house (yes, I plan to recollect them all eventually), uh, I'm going to say 1000. Of course, I pitilessly throw away books I think suck (Tokyo-sized apartment, kids).

Last book you bought

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi (Ordered with a bunch of others from Amazon, of course; some day when I'm up to it we'll talk about how much Kinokuniya or Tower or Book 1st shakes you down for imported books.)

Last book you read

The Division of Labour in Society by Emile Durkheim (No, I haven't gotten around to reading it before. I should have stuck with French after high school, because the translation is pretty turgid; but anything that dense I would have had to read again, anyway, so it's going to end up being the next book I read, too.)

Five books that mean a lot to you

• 恍惚の人、有吉佐和子作 (kokotsu no hito, ariyoshi sawako saku: "The Ecstatic Ones by Sawako Ariyoshi," translated pretty effectively as The Twilight Years)
  
  This was the first novel I read all the way through in Japanese. It was first published serially in the early 1970s. It follows a housewife with a part-time job as she copes with the death of her mother-in-law and the realization that her widowed father-in-law is senile. It was written at a time of great transition in Japanese society, and Ariyoshi was very prescient about which issues would prove to be the thorniest as the Japanese household (the center of any society) evolved. It starts to lose focus and emotional charge toward the end, but the final scene is still devastating. I reread it every year.
  
  
• A History of Civilizations by Fernand Braudel
  
  I'm terrible at keeping historical dates straight or, conversely, at reading what was going on in some corner of the world in 1350 and being able to recall what was happening at the same time elsewhere. Braudel's book was written for high school students, but it was written for perceptive, industrious high school students to use as a basis on which to build further knowledge about specific historical facts. Some of his predictions (the book was written in the 60s) are outdated, but overall you get a real feel for the overarching development of social and political structures over time.
  



• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
  
  Dickinson is the greatest American poet, and I will not deign to entertain counterarguments from supporters of that insufferable Whitman guy.
  



• 新古今和歌集 (shinkokinwakashu), the third of the great anthologies of Heian poetry
  
  The earlier 古今和歌集 (kokinwakashu: "Collected Poems Old and New") is usually regarded as the best of the three great anthologies, but, perhaps because of the way I was taught them, I like the third one the best. That's especially true of the inclusions by the Priest Saigyo and the Princess Shokushi.



• Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
  
  I think you have to be a certain kind of person to have your world reordered by this book, so I'm not sure how much universal value as art it has. Officially, it's a mystery, but there's less interest in the whodunnit aspect than in why protagonist Miss Pym thinks and acts as she does. It's a really acute study of the unconscious factors that often impinge when we think we're making clear-eyed ethical judgments: favoring people who are attractive and well-spoken, lazily drawing conclusions from circumstantial evidence, clinging to assumptions we're comfortable with even after it's obvious we should be questioning them.

The Japanese tolerance for drunkenness is something you never quite get used to. I mean, I've got English, German, and Polish genes in me, so I know how to tie one on--believe me. What I'm talking about is public, undisguised drunkenness, which is a big no-no in the States (at least, everywhere I've been).

That Tokyo stress gets to everyone, though, including LDP members of the Diet:

The session [of the House of Representatives on Friday] began its recess at 5 p.m. and reopened just before 9 p.m. Tomoko Abe (Social Democratic Party), who had stood up to argue against voting [to extend the Diet session], looked out over the red faces of several members and spoke. "We should all get out of here right now," she said, raising her voice. "If this is going to be the 'Pickled Diet,' there's no need to extend the session."

When Osamu Yoshida (DPJ) got in Ken'ya Akiba's (LDP) face, Akiba left the chamber immediately after casting his vote, despite the fact that the doors were officially sealed for the session. Subsequently, there was commotion in the chamber.

There's often commotion in the chamber. (That's a fact that seems to floor a lot of Westerners schooled to think of Japan as a place where the citizens do everything in neat rows.)

DPJ leader Katsuya Okada censured the Prime Minister:

"Prime Minister Koizumi and former Prime Minister Yoshio Mori were both casting votes red-faced. You'd think they'd understand how to comport themselves during these sorts of proceedings."

Fingers are being pointed in multiple directions: the DPJ has submitted a motion to the Speaker of the House that Akiba and Mori be disciplined. The LDP is seeking disciplinary action against Yoshida.

I'm a big believer in strict formal behavior on ceremonial occasions, and obviously public service at the level of Diet membership deserves to be performed very respectfully. On the other hand, it doesn't take much alcohol for a lot of East Asians to turn bright red. I don't know that I'd be affronted if a bunch of MP's had one or two servings of liquor over a four-hour period. It's odd that the opposition party was apparently able to abstain, though.

Added after lunch: Atsushi--safely delivered to me by JAL, thankfully--says that there was at least one DPJ representative who was also looking extra-ruddy at this particular Diet session, so it wasn't just the LDP.

Added before dinner: Thanks to Dean for linking this. His angle is interesting. I've now lived in Japan for a quarter of my life, so I'm used to undisguised curiosity about ethnic characteristics. It can get annoying. Japanese people don't always apply to foreigners the respect for personal space they use among each other, and I get heartily sick of having my arm hair yanked as if I were a science exhibit. (Being told, "Wow! That's so sexy!" while it's happening doesn't help. Hair is attached, people.) And some of the reasoning is a bit sketchy. I've heard all of these multiple times over the years: "Are you sure all your ancestors are northern European? You're so dark!" (I have no idea where this one comes from. I have green eyes and the skin tone of a dead mackeral's underbelly; only my hair is brown.) "You can't be American! Americans are fat!" (Not if they have to pay Tokyo food prices for eight years.) "You can't be American! You're so quiet!" (If it makes any difference, my superpower arrogance more than compensates for my lack of volubility.)

It can also get ugly. One frequently hears Koreans blithely characterized as congenitally lazy and stupid, for example. My standard reply is to wonder aloud where all those impressive math/science scores in the ROK and among Korean immigrants in the US come from.

On the whole, though, the sheer frank acknowledgement that there are physical differences in the way people have evolved in various parts of the globe can be refreshing. When the tone is good-natured rather than petty, hearing one Japanese person tell another that he has "a Thai nose" or "Indian eyebrows" is kind of sweet.

Okay, must we always do this right before Atsushi is scheduled to fly home?

An All Nippon Airways (ANA) plane made an emergency landing at Osaka Airport Friday morning after its cockpit filled with smoke, airline officials said.

At around 10:55 a.m., the captain of ANA DHC8-400 turbo-prop plane radioed to air traffic controllers that its cockpit had filled with smoke, ANA officials said.

The aircraft returned and made an emergency landing at the airport at 11:09 a.m. None of the 64 passengers or crewmembers was injured.

This has been a real banner week for airline mishaps/publicizing of mishaps.

A few months ago there was a story about a South African man's partner who was suing over inheritance rights. The parents have settled:

The parents of a deceased property dealer have agreed to give his home, furniture and several of his valuable art works to a French chef whose serious romantic involvement with their son they had previously denied.

And James Middleton and his wife, Joan, retired parents of Phillip Middleton, have agreed to contribute R250 000 towards the legal costs that Dominique Ripoll-Dausa had to pay to dispute their denial that he and their son had been involved in a "life partnership".

It's hard to tell whether they came around to recognizing the relationship or just didn't have the money and energy to keep battling in court. The judge encouraged them to settle, but there's no indication of how encouraging he was.

Brick wall, meet head:

Questions still remain even after 48 hours of debate over postal privatization bills among members of the House of Representatives' special committee, which is discussing how the three postal services will change following privatization.

...

[Social Democrat Mitsuko] Tomon said she was concerned the amount of depopulated areas could change as a result of continuing town, city and village mergers, adding that the mergers could make it difficult for the government to maintain the current number of postal employees. [No! Not fewer government employees!--SRK]

She then asked the government to release the number of post offices at the end of fiscal 2005 after consolidation under the former Special Mergers Law was complete.

In response to her question, Cabinet Councilor Makoto Hosomi from the government's postal privatization preparation office reassured Tomon that the number would not change because the areas would continue to be regarded as depopulated even after increasing in size and finances through mergers.

The government has said the number of post offices in urban areas will drop after the privatization.

...

Heizo Takenaka, state minister in charge of economic, fiscal and postal reform policy, has not mentioned any details about efforts to streamline the services, but has said such actions would depend on the judgment of post office network management, and the ministry would direct and supervise if necessary.

Been a great day for Japanese aeronautics, yeah? First, we had this morning's incident in which a JAL flight landed at Haneda so bumpy-like that two of the plane's tires were shredded:

The Ministry of Land, Transportation, and Infrastructure designated this a "serious incident" in which there had been risk of a major accident. Four investigators were dispatched by the Air and Rail Accident Research Committee.

According to JAL, the captain (39) and copilot (37) have stated that at the time of the accident, "The rear wheels showed absolutely no aberrations up until landing, but at the instant the front wheels touched down, there were several abnormal jolts that made a bang." At the time, the copilot was steering the plane.

Cheeringly, JAL's managing director affirmed that future passenger safety is not in jeopardy with a comment that can be best summarized as, "Huh?"

On the afternoon of 15 May, JAL International's managing director, Takao Imai, addressed a press conference held at the Ministry of Land, Transportation, and Infrastructure. "We have no idea what the origin of the problem was. We've heard of no precedent for this kind of thing, including at other airlines," he said with a bewildered expression.

Not to be outdone, ANA had to suspend a pilot and copilot after an incident last week in which a plane flew in the wrong air lane for over a half-hour:

Flight 664 bound for Tokyo took off from Nagasaki Airport just past 11 a.m. on June 5.About 10 minutes after take-off, while ascending past 3,000 meters, the captain of the Boeing 767 noticed that his computer screen showed a higher altitude than the one on the co-pilot's screen.

The captain reconnected his altimeter to what he mistakenly believed was a third computer in the cockpit. In fact, he had reconnected it to the co-pilot's computer-the one that had malfunctioned and displayed the wrong altitude.

But the captain believed that nothing was wrong because the two figures for altitude matched.

...

"The biggest factor in this case was the captain's error on the number of computers," ANA's chief of operation control division told reporters at the transport ministry Tuesday.

"This was a critical matter of impermissible nature. Mistaken altitude figures could nullify the air traffic controlling system that administers the safety of other airplanes."

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Tuesday gave a stern warning to ANA.

Why should JAL get all the stern warnings?

All in all, the perfect time to announce that Japan and France are planning to cooperate in the development of a new SST to replace the defunct Concorde. (Yes, I know the new jet will be created by aerospace engineers and not pilots or air traffic controllers. The coincidence is still funny.)

I don't entirely agree with Michael's quickie assent to Andrew Sullivan's comment on this poor kid, who's being packed off to a de-gay-programming retreat by his conservative Christian mother. (At least, assuming Michael was agreeing with everything Sullivan said.)

There are all kinds of things parents do to their children that most of us find cruel but aren't in a position to liberate them from, from telling them they're stupid and will never amount to anything to sending them to sports programs/music lessons with mean coaches who are supposed to toughen them up by tearing them down. Yes, of course, as a gay man, I feel this is in a different league--the reason I've been rewriting this for days without posting it is that I haven't been able to keep it even-tempered.

Here's something I think worth considering, though, if I can get it to come out correctly: we all have issues to resolve with our parents, and in my experience knowing that you've done what they asked and tried their way and not disobeyed them while you were under their authority is a real comfort when you're navigating life as an adult. No, I wasn't sent to several weeks of straightening camp, to be sure. I don't know what it's like to go through that sort of concentrated brainwashing in which your mind is not your own (the better to enable you to make a covenant with God as a free moral agent, one is left to assume?) for weeks at a time, and I won't pretend to. But Zach seems like a grounded, if understandably shaken-up, kid. There's a lot of ethical leverage in being able to point out later that you were never a compulsive, resentful little trouble-maker.

Straight guys are so cute sometimes. Gay News links to this piece by an English writer who gets all fidgety over whether it looks gay if you go out to dinner with another man. He seems not to realize that his and his buddy's thoroughgoing heterotude is proved beyond a shadow of a doubt from paragraph 1:

Not so long ago I was having dinner with a (male) friend of mine - just the two of us in a cosy little Italian restaurant in Soho - when he suddenly started laughing. "God, this all looks a bit gay, doesn't it?" he chuckled, indicating the plastic carnation in the middle of the table, the bottle of sparkling white wine, the tomato salad we were sharing. "I wonder if anyone thinks we're like... you know... a couple?"

You caught the important part, right? Of course, you did--otherwise you wouldn't be hanging out here.

But, okay, just in case you're having an off day, here it is highlighted:

Not so long ago I was having dinner with a (male) friend of mine - just the two of us in a cosy little Italian restaurant in Soho - when he suddenly started laughing. "God, this all looks a bit gay, doesn't it?" he chuckled, indicating the plastic carnation in the middle of the table, the bottle of sparkling white wine, the tomato salad we were sharing. "I wonder if anyone thinks we're like... you know... a couple?"

Not if they know any queers. In the language of flowers, a gay guy who takes another gay guy to a restaurant with plastic carnations on the table is saying, "You will NEVER get into my pants."

BTW, Paul Sussman, the writer of the Guardian piece here, may not be anti-gay, but he's a regular old fount of stereotypes. I'm aware that the tone of the article is tongue-in-cheek, but there's still room for clue-deprivation:

In a "two-guy" situation I always try to stick to "manly" beverages such as beer or whisky - the sparkling wine mentioned was a momentary aberration - and plump for cholesterol-packed, hunter-gatherer-type main courses (rump steak, rack of lamb) rather than flans, tofu or (the ultimate no-no) anything involving filo pastry and baby courgettes. I try to tell stories that involve me miming punching someone, or throwing a rugby ball, or unclipping a bra and squeezing it's contents. Most pathetic of all, I always but always make a point of telling the waitress in a jokey-but-firm sort of way as she leads us to our table: "We're not lovers, you know!" (On one occasion this drew the memorably caustic response: "That's unlucky, because I can't see any woman wanting to shag you.")

(Aside: Why is it that the nebbishy sorts of hetero guys like to invite the audience to laugh at the humiliating sexual put-downs women have delivered to them? So not charming. Anyway.) Half-joking or not, anyone who thinks gay guys are calorie-obsessed anorexic gym bunnies who gravitate toward fussy foods needs to see my friends some time as they tunnel ruthlessly through the romaine in a Thai beef salad to get to the meat. (Animals! You have any idea how long it takes me to wash and individually wipe those lettuce leaves dry, guys?) Or make a bowl of mashed potatoes and a boat of gravy disappear five minutes after I've put it on the table. I've been known to drink a wine spritzer or two, but I can assure you that most of us know our way around whisky and beer, too.

Be that as it may, a word to the wise: the best way to look gay--or, more precisely, look like a certain breed of see-and-be-seen gay guy you see plenty of in cities such as London--is to make it clear that you're taking in the effect you're having on surrounding diners and desperately hoping you're making the "right" impression. Secure people focus on their dinner partners, whatever plans they have for them afterwards.

The student who threw a home-made bomb into a classroom full of students on Friday may, the principal admits, have been suffering from bullying. Of a kind:

On 13 June, Principal Yukio Hironaka of Hikari Prefectural High School, in the city of Hikari, Yamaguchi Prefecture, held a press conference to discuss the incident last Friday in which a bottle bomb exploded after being thrown into a classroom in use, injuring 58 students. Hironaka said, "It is possible that there was bullying, in a broad sense of the term, behind the incident," acknowledgin the possibility that bullying was the motive for the student (18) who was arrested for throwing the bomb.

The information is still sketchy, but the Nikkei article goes on to mention something that's being reported elsewhere: this wasn't the kind of ijime in which everyone turned on a single student and made him a target. When other students would address him, he would walk away. The Mainichi also says that he was into survival games:

After graduating from the school, however, all the friends he played survival games with entered other schools and he could not make friends with his new classmates at Hikari High School, leading him to become increasingly isolated.

Whenever classes were reorganized, his new classmates tried to make friends with him, but he ignored them each time. A few months later, his classmates gave up trying to speak to him, according to the sources.

There have been cases in which bullying appears to have driven otherwise-healthy children insane. Bullying is hard to take anywhere, but it's an especially potent force in a society that so stresses group identity and fitting in. The pattern here, to the extent that it's emerging, is that the student in question rebuffed people who were actually trying to be friendly. There was obviously something going on there, though we probably won't know what for a while. Incidentally, the bomb was made in a fashion similar to those favored by Palestinian suicide bombers: it contained lots of hard little objects designed to maximize injuries.

Darn. NHK just had a lengthy report today on a big-time victim of the newest variety of the "Pay up!" scam, and I was all excited to write about it--but, of course, the Mainichi English edition, which can be relied upon to report the latest scumbag-related news the minute it hits the airwaves, got there first:

Four people who apparently made 100 million yen carrying out a scam centering on people's fears of a relative being arrested for groping female train commuters were arrested in Tokyo, police said on Monday.

...

Police said the specific case for which Mitsuyama and his co-conspirators were arrested involved a call made in March to a 56-year-old Kawasaki woman.

Mitsuyama claimed to be a lawyer acting on behalf of the woman's husband and said her husband used his mobile phone to take racy pictures, police said, adding that Mitsuyama had threatened to contact the media if the woman did not obey his demands for money.

Eventually, the suspects forced the woman to transfer 3.5 million yen into an account they had designated, police said.

Claiming to be seeking hush money to cover-up a relative's arrest for groping female train commuters has become a popular type of fraud in recent weeks, police said.

Since the recent introduction of women's only trains in Tokyo and a crackdown on train perverts last month to coincide with the change, the number of victims falling for the scam has increased, with about 80 reported cases in Tokyo during May alone.

The ease with which women are prepared to believe their husbands were groping random women on trains is its own commentary. However, those who collect Japanese compounds will love this new one, which is the way NHK labeled the swindle (I'd just seen it explained piecemeal in sentences before): 痴漢示談金振り込め詐欺 (chikan-jidankin-furikome-sagi: "the [out-of-court] settlement-for-groping 'Pay up!' scam"). Were it not for that native Japanese verb in the middle, it would be a marvel of 漢語 dementia.

In other exciting news, Atsushi's parents received a "Pay up!" call last week, but the story they were given was nothing exciting--the story was just a dumb old car accident, if I recall correctly. They're savvy people and didn't pay, fortunately. I did get a kick out of imagining some con artist's possibly trying to impersonate Atsushi by calling his parents and greeting them with "オレ、オレ!" (ore-ore: "It's me, it's me!"), which was the original version of the scam. Having heard his end of four years of phone calls to the parents, I can attest that he always announces himself with a warm but respectful "Hello, this is Atsu."

Susanna of Cut on the Bias has been having trouble registering to comment. This cannot be tolerated: what could be more piquant than commentary on a gay guy's ravings about disco by a conservative Christian woman living in rural Alabama? Here was Susanna's comment:

It's not a dance song, but I always liked "MacArthur Park" for it's sheer incomprehensibility. And when did Madonna get in the disco thing? I thought disco died before The Non-Virgin got her start.

I lived through the disco years, having been born in 1961, but as I was a teenaged Christian tucked away in the hills of Kentucky in the late 1970s, I can't say I have a good handle on the full range of music from the era. My mom actually broke and threw away my single of "Rock N Roll Heaven". I liked the BeeGees. I was more enamored of the Eagles. I confess to not remembering more than half the songs on Camille's list.

My dad did have leisure suits though. He may still have one around. Want me to send it to you so you can fit in with the new mode of down-dressing in Japan? :D

I think that wearing a suit with a jacket is considered an infraction, but thanks for the offer. Short-sleeved Qiana shirts might do it, though I don't plan on finding out.

To respond to the other parts of Susanna's post: "MacArthur Park" wasn't originally written as a disco song, but Donna Summer's version of it certainly was one. And, no, I have no idea what the, um, blazes (just in case Susanna's mother is looking over her shoulder) the lyrics are supposed to be about. Summer's "Love to Love You Baby" was one of the first disco recordings to score with the American mass audience--kind of ironic: in my experience it's a bad choice at a club, because just about everyone looks like a complete idiot dancing to it. There's something about "Love to Love You Baby" that makes people surrender to their Inner Stripper, and most of us have Inner Strippers that aren't very talented.

As for why Madonna's music can be considered disco, I think that as long as it's uptempo, has a 4/4 meter with every beat hit on the bass drum, has a heavy and syncopated bass line, and has hi-hat or cowbell fills, it's disco. (This Wikipedia article tells you that, but you have to be willing to dig for it.) It's the steady drumbeat that reminds people who don't like disco of a pounding headache, though it's the bassline they think they're complaining about. They stopped calling it "disco" because the public backlash meant the term was no longer marketable and there were lots of little sub-genres forming.

My family was very devout, like Susanna's. My mother had been reared Catholic, too, so you can imagine what she thought of Madonna. A lot of our ministers frowned on any pop music edgier than Pat Boone; but my parents had met playing in a cover band after high school, so while they wouldn't let anything that was frankly lewd into the house, they didn't go ballistic over songs with passing lines expressing mild, good-natured bawdiness.

Of course, as Susanna said in a later message, the dividing line was different back then. It's not disco, but the other day I was listening to Physical by Olivia Newton-John and remembering how brazen everyone considered it at the time (1981). These days, Physical is the kind of album a pop star would make to tone down the sexuality of her image after marrying, having a child, and converting to Seventh Day Adventism.

The US Army is still having trouble hitting its recruitment targets:

The U.S. Army, facing recruiting woes and a reorganized force, will relax requirements for new officers, welcoming older candidates and allowing more tolerance of past minor crimes, officials said on Thursday.

Trying to stem the loss of current personnel, the Army also has made it more difficult to kick soldiers out of the military for alcohol or drug abuse, being overweight or "unsatisfactory performance," according to a recent memo.

At least there's no talk of letting in the non-closeted homos, who would clearly spell doom for the Republic.

Interesting mini-article on the Nikkei:

Honda, Matsushita Electric, and about 120 other companies will introduce a system that allows the use of cellular phones to cast votes at general shareholder meetings. Many corporations are giving more consideration to individual shareholders and are urging the exercise of individual voting rights by increasing the convenience [of the system]. The number of corporations that allow Internet-based voting is also expected to increase to around 300. The IT-ization of the operations side of shareholder meetings has been advancing, with the ease with which shareholders can see their wishes reflected in company policy increasing accordingly.

This represents a big shift. Their influence is not what it once was, but the 総会屋 (soukaiya: "general" + "meeting" + "shopkeeper") are still around, and I assume that allowing people to vote remotely--surely that's the purpose of Internet voting?--is to no small degree a move to counter them.

I wasn't going to write my own explanation of what the soukaiya do, but there doesn't seem to be a good, concise definition that I can link to as a primary source. This Mainichi article from a few years ago gives a representative sample of their activities. The soukaiya basically buy small numbers of shares in a company, dig up some of its management's nastier doings (every company has nasty doings ready for digging, of course) and threaten to disrupt the general shareholders' meeting if not given hush money. Some of them are tied to vast networks of gangsters, but many are independent. Those not ambitious enough to poke around for scandalous material have been known to simply show up and start blurting out inanities in the hopes that someone will give them a few hundred bucks to shut the hell up. Beats working at 7-Eleven, apparently.

Of course, soukaiya are the interesting problem. The more mundane but far-reaching problem has been that many Japanese companies engage in mutual shareholding. The big banks were required to sell off their mutually-held shares, and though many other companies within conglomerates have retained them among themselves, the result has been an overall increase in the number of small shareholders. Whether financial transparency has really increased enough for them to have any idea what they're voting about is debatable, but the fact that air is being let in is encouraging.

Sleeping too soundly? Get a load of the participial modifier that begins this Asahi article:

Fearing a flare-up in North Korea at any time, the Defense Agency has abandoned plans for the domestic production of a high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and will purchase U.S.-made planes instead, sources said.

They said the decision was made because strengthened surveillance of airspace around Japan has become a priority, given the uncertain situation on the Korean Peninsula.

Analysts said it likely would have taken a decade for Japan to deploy a domestically produced unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The Pentagon operates several UAV versions, so deploying one that fits Defense Agency needs should be no problem, the sources said.

The aircraft would be used not only for patrol and reconnaissance over Japanese airspace, but could also be used for intelligence gathering from North Korea-even while flying in Japan's Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ), which establishes the boundaries for territorial airspace.

...

A Defense Agency study team visited the United States in April for a first-hand look at what UAVs actually do. Members focused on high-altitude aircraft like the Global Hawk and Predator as well as the low-altitude Fire Scout and Eagle Eye.

I don't know that the DPRK is going to erupt at Japan any time soon--though the SDF should be able to predict better than I can. I do know (this is something I've remarked on before) that the feeling of living in Japan is completely different from that of living in the States. If you're good at spatial relations, you know that map in your head that appears whenever you read the name of a country or think about the location of a city? When you're in America, of course, the only close-by major countries are Mexico and Canada. Our closest enemy is Cuba, and it hasn't exactly been making many belligerent noises lately.

In Japan, you're within spitting distance of the DPRK, one of the craziest regimes on the planet, which tests missiles by flying them over your head and has been known to sneak onto your shores and snatch your citizens. Moving westward, you also have China, the most populous country in the world, a rising economic competitor whose citizens alternate between gratefully taking jobs and consuming goods created by your enterprises, on the one hand, and demonstrating against you, on the other. It treats nearby democracy Taiwan as a renegade province. Even South Korea, the other democracy in the region, has bitter memories of being occupied by you within the last century and is not always amicable.

It's little wonder that everyday citizens don't think too hard about world politics; you could drive yourself insane. I'm glad the SDF, whose job it is to deal with grim realities, is accelerating its plans, even if it means buying planes from foreigners.

And that, my dear blogdaddy, is why I still use the word libertarian. Moderate is a state of mind, not a set of political positions. This is not to trivialize the very important philosophical and ethical principle that we should all listen to those with opposing views, deal honestly with the valid points they make, and be willing to change our positions if their counterarguments are strong enough.

It's just that, if what you're looking for is an indication of what the person you're talking to thinks the relationship between government and society should be, hearing him says he's a "moderate" tells you nothing except that he likes to congratulate himself about how fair-minded he is. You still need to find out whether he's a conservative, a leftist, a nanny-statist, a one-world pacifist, or an isolationist; and the only way to do that is to start talking policy.

Of course, libertarian has its downside--especially since all too many people like to hear "gay libertarian" as "gay libertine." But in its implication that someone so labeled is likely to defend the strict delimitation of government power in relation to most issues that come up--which I've actually been known to do pretty immoderately--it suits me better than anything else I've encountered.

Added on 10 June, Pretenders playing in the background: Alan Stewart Carl has his own take on centrism. It's a good read. I'm still not entirely sure about this part, however:

I have very firm beliefs (free markets, social inclusion, privacy rights, vigorous national defense, etc.) but other Centrists may fall to my left or right on some issues. That doesn't make us mushy.

Indeed? Sounds pretty mushy to me. I'm not accusing these individuals of being mushy, mind you, only saying that any political movement they're all yoked into is going to be, unless you list out policy positions and do a sort of two-from-column-A-two-from-column-B diagnostic kind of thing.

This part also caused my eyebrows to rise a bit:

The current political environment too often serves up only two possible solutions. And too often the adherents to those solutions are unwilling to consider change (just look at the Social Security debate). Centrism seeks to get away from the choice A, choice B or no choice at all method of problem solving. We believe there is often a third way. And we want to find it.

This is attractive on its face; we've all heard the proposals from the two major parties on a given issue and thought, "Wow, those both suck." But surely centrists have noticed that, in the real world, the "third way" that is actually arrived at is frequently a cheerfully schizoid "bipartisan compromise," produced by haggling and deal-brokering and back-scratching and pork-barreling in which coherent policy aims recede from view. If Alan thinks he has a better way that's genuinely practicable, I, for one, would very much like to hear about it.

I doubt that more hand-wringing about "special interests" is going to be of much help, though. By this point every American belongs to a half-dozen interest groups, whether he pays membership dues to any organization or not. Those that are very powerful tend to be those that have a lot of constituents (AARP, anyone?), which makes calling them "special" somewhat misleading. We are the special interests, and if those who self-identify as centrists want to decry the general entitlement-mindedness of the citizenry, I'm certainly on board. But in that case, you have to acknowledge (at least, I think you do) that stern, uncompromising calls for self-reliance are more likely to be effective there than yet more willingness to negotiate or endlessly poke around for more options.

I don't want to sound dismissive, because I do think what he's saying is very important. The models for discourse we're frequently offered these days usually come in two varieties: "politeness" = "namby-pamby PC-ism" and "character assassination/gruesomely gleeful expletive-throwing/screechy overstatement" = "daring truth-telling." Both are tiresome beyond belief.

But both also extend beyond the political realm and into popular culture, the arts, education, and what passes for conversation at dinner parties. Which is to say, a general return to civility, in which strongly-held, fact-based opinions are respectfully aired and heard, is what's called for. Casting it as a move for political reform seems to me misleading and insufficient.

I bumped the mouse while I was over at Eric's and happened to land on this site. It turned out to be a felicitous accident, because he (I think it's a he) has what looks like an author profile/review of a book posted. The book is by a Muslim lesbian, born in Uganda and brought up in Toronto. I could seriously learn to like this woman:

"[Gay Muslim activists] say, 'Don’t confuse me with being anti-Jewish, I'm just anti-Israel,'" Manji says. "I say, 'Hold on sister. I oppose that premise and so should you.' I have never said that Israel has a perfect human rights record. Neither does America. I make the case that Israel's existence does not lie at the heart of what's wrong with the Muslim world.

"I say, yes, feel free to criticize the IDF [Israeli Defense Force] and their policies. There absolutely is an occupation but there is also a political occupation inflicted by the Palestinian leaders," she says. "They have rejected every proposal for an independent state. They have always been rejected without the consultation of the Palestinian people. The last one, the Oslo Accords, was not translated into Arabic. This should burn every human rights activist."

That's something I've always found it difficult to get my head around. On the one hand, it annoys me to see people wringing sacred texts like dishcloths to squeeze out meanings that they happen to want to be there. I find it much easier to deal with Biblical literalists (like those I grew up around) than, like, Unitarians. On the other hand, debate (including that over meanings) is how you learn that strong, vibrant personalities are going to disagree, that you're not always right, and that the only thinking and behavior you can reliably change is your own.

Come to think of it, maybe it's the lack of self-criticism and constant finger-pointing at the same bugbear that makes gay activists feel such an affinity for, say, Palestinian activists:

"The fact that the neo-con right and preachers have called Muslims on their hypocrisy makes it difficult for the political left to condemn it," Manji says. "To criticize, they say, says you are only feeding into the so-called fear of Islam. It’s the same thing if someone were to say, 'Oh, I think we need to overthrow Hussein because of his atrocious record on human rights.'

"To criticize the gross human rights violations of Hussein means that you support the Bush administration," she says. "I long to see the day when gay and lesbian leaders will attend Muslim speak-outs and ask the Muslims in those protests if they in turn will speak out against gay homophobia. I don't hear too many queer activists hammering that."

Manji contends that Islam is the only religion that has no sense of moderation. Even Christianity has moderate factions, she says, despite the loud, mouthy rhetoric of apocalyptic social conservatives.

"Whenever I would air anti-gay remarks from Christian leaders on my television show, Christian viewers would flood our lines with tolerant biblical interpretations," she says. "But when I expose anti-gay feedback from Muslim leaders, not once did other leaders offer other interpretations. It is as if these bigots spoke for Islam. Even those who don't share mainstream Islam's prejudices against homosexuality won't speak up."

Manji says she hears from many Muslims on her Web site, www.muslim-refusenik.com, and face-to-face that they can't be public with their support of diversity because they fear persecution. She believes this is because literalism has gone mainstream.

"Every religion has its fair share of literalists but in Islam, literalism is worldwide. Even moderate Muslims believe that the holy Koran is God 3.0," she says. "Most Muslims still don't know how to debate because they have never been taught to. The same cannot be said of moderate Christians and Jews."

If their moderation is in conflict with their beliefs about God, I don't really see what the moderate Muslims Manji is describing can do except pick one. That doesn't make it much easier to explain why they bother offering her secretive shows of solidarity and support, though.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is not an organization I've done much paying attention to. Something one of its spokespersons said yesterday caught my eye, though, and made me wonder anew at how callow some people can be.

Reuters says a Spanish judge wants to haul in US soldiers for questioning over an incident two years ago in which a Spanish journalist was killed:

The Pentagon has exonerated the U.S. soldiers from any blame, but High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz wants to question the three who were in the tank, a court official said on Tuesday.

"Spanish cameraman Jose Couso, who worked for Telecinco, and Reuters cameraman Taras Protsiuk, a Ukrainian, were killed and several people were wounded when the U.S. tank fired a shell directly into the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, 2003.

The Spanish court would have jurisdiction only over the death of the Spanish citizen.

The American soldiers would be questioned as suspects for murder and crimes against the international community, which carry sentences of 15 to 20 years in jail and 10 to 15 years respectively.

...

"It is difficult to conceive of any set of circumstances under which we would submit U.S. military personnel to questioning before a foreign court of criminal jurisdiction regarding the conduct of authorized combat operations," said Navy Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Hey, I wonder whether targeting journalists is a hate crime in Spain. Perhaps US forces were trying to create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation. I'm not sure what other "crimes against the international community" [retch! heave!] we could be talking about.

Maybe my irreverence is misplaced; it's possible that the actual journalists who were killed had a clear-headed, philosophical view of the risks involved in covering combat operations and would be displeased at their colleagues' reactions to their deaths.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists obtained the full report under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Among other criticisms, the committee said the report failed to address "the question of why U.S. troops were not aware that the Palestine Hotel — one of the best-known civilian sites in Baghdad at the time — was full of journalists."

The Committee to Protect Journalists (and Reuters) made similar noises at the time, it seems:

"I note that the commander of the U.S. 3rd Infantry has now said that one of its tanks fired a round at the Palestine Hotel," Reuters Editor-in-chief Geert Linnebank said in a statement. "He said it did this after it came under fire from the hotel."

"... the incident nonetheless raises questions about the judgment of the advancing U.S. troops who have known all along that this hotel is the main base for almost all foreign journalists in Baghdad. (The Reuters cameraman's) death, and the injuries sustained by the others, were so unnecessary."

...

The Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday that the incidents violated the Geneva Conventions and called for an "immediate and thorough investigation," the results of which should be made public.

These people are out of their gourd. The idea of marking off a little Temenos of Innocence in the middle of a war zone, in which journalists can expect absolute safety, is idiotic. Central Command made the common-sense point that such sites become a magnet for dirty-fighting combatants who want to camouflage themselves (and to make the enemy hestitate to strike at them hard). CPJ seems to think that the ground forces involved should have been told that there was a significant press presence in the Palestine Hotel. How that would have changed the fact that those ground forces were being shot at and needed to respond is not explained. As it was, those manning the tank didn't keep firing, or call in reinforcements to help flatten the place, so they clearly didn't mistake it for an enemy bunker.

CPJ keeps its own statistics on journalists who die in the line of duty. Its total for 2004: 39 confirmed, including 13 in Iraq. Considering the risk involved in walking around a war zone without combat training, that doesn't strike me as an outrageously high number.

This is very cool--I'm assuming it's the "announcement of monumental significance" referred to in the last newsletter:

June is gay pride month and to mark the occasion, the gay community will gather for a mortgage burning party on Friday, June 3rd at 2 p.m. to celebrate a mortgage retirement gift of $274,000 to the William Way Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender (GLBT) Community Center. The donor, a respected community leader and businessman, will be announced at the event. The William Way Community Center is located at 1315 Spruce Street in Philadelphia.

The Center will save $391,270 in mortgage principal and interest payments over a ten-year period. For this reason, the gift will enable the community center to immediately develop a new spectrum of educational, cultural, social, and health services for Philadelphia's diverse sexual and gender minority community.

When I was looking for a gay community center in Philadelphia to donate to, I asked this guy, and it was William Way he suggested. He showed Eric and me around when I was in Philadelphia in December. Great place (love the URL, too). Congratulations.

Japanese convenience stores, especially 7-Eleven, have shaped food retailing here in ways that have drawn a lot of attention. The egg-salad sandwiches on spongy white bread, the triangular o-nigiri, and the salads consisting largely of shredded iceberg lettuce and canned corn are still there, but they've been joined by snazzier and tastier offerings (some developed in cooperation with restaurant chefs) that are very popular among people who have to eat lunch at their desks or just hate to cook. The industry has become very competitive.

Of course, the potential downside is the eternal problem of inventory. The Mainichi appears to be doing a series on wastefulness in Japan, spurred by the declaration by Nobel Peace Prize Wangari Maathai winner a few months ago that she just loves Japanese conservation-mindedness, and the first installment (Japanese, English) is about how much prepared food is thrown away at various convenience stores:

In Japan, about 20 million tons of food waste is thrown out each year. That's about 150 kilograms per person. As Japan looks to eliminate wastefulness, adopting the spirit of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, this unused food is raising questions over overproduction, especially in Japan's convenience store business.

...

"We do this because we're taking into consideration the period in which the products will actually be consumed after they are taken home," explains an official from the Kanto convenience store. As a rule the store is not permitted to discount products approaching their expiry date in the same way as supermarkets do.

On the day the store was visited, it discarded 75 items, with a combined price of about 16,000 yen. Last year, a total of 4.5 million yen worth of prepared food products were thrown out — about 8 percent of sales of prepared food.

That does sound like a lot, though I suspect that among Japan's notoriously inefficient domestic industries it may not be egregious. You also have to wonder about a few things. For one, how does it stack up against the noodle shops and corporate dormitory cafeterias where many people who now eat convenience store meals would otherwise have eaten? Or against the amount of food such people who don't like to cook throw away after one of their valiant but futile attempts at shopping?

I was also wondering about compliance with recycling regulations, oddly unmentioned in the Mainichi article. I'm not very familiar with Japan for Sustainability, but it also quotes the 20 million tons figure and gives some others that are, presumably, based on the same data:

Of the household and general commercial waste, about 20 million tons consist of food waste. This is six times the weight of used-newspaper waste and 4 times that of discarded automobiles.

Out of 20 million tons of food waste, 18% is produced at the "processing and manufacturing" stage, about 30% is commercial waste from food distribution channels and restaurants, and the remaining 52% is from households. This means that, every year, Japanese households produce about 10 million tons of food waste, equivalent to annual rice consumption in Japan.

The article also has a few interesting examples of businesses that are recycling their food waste. (I'm not really sure I needed to know that the New Otani Hotel has a compost pile underneath it, but, hey.)

The US-Japan cooperative missile defense program is moving forward:

Speaking to reporters at a hotel in Singapore, Ono said the sea-based missile defense project would move from research to development, with the agency planning to request several billions of yen in fiscal 2006 for the first year's development.

Production will begin following a five-year development phase that ends in fiscal 2011, he said.

Japan and the United States are jointly developing a large sea-based interceptor missile with a 53-centimeter diameter with a longer range that enables it to cover a wide area. The missile can distinguish a targeted missile from a decoy.

The most interesting reason this is a good thing for Japan to be considering is buried near the end of the article:

"Japan doesn't consider China a threat, but Beijing's defense spending is under wraps. A Chinese submarine intruded into Japanese waters and its marine survey and gas field development are provocative," Ono said.

The conflict over exploration for fossil fuels (especially a particular natural gas field) has been growing. Demand is growing in China's expanding economy, and it's always been high in Japan's:

Although the current standoff has not changed, it is very regrettable that the PRC has continued its project of developing the Shungyo Gas Fields near the center line [between China and Japan]. The Chinese side says that it expects to open the field for production as early as October. It will be a major problem if the rough sailing for negotiations and long-term developments turn out to be advantageous only for the PRC side. The PRC should first temporarily cease development of the Shungyo Gas Fields.

From some on the PRC side, the following argument has recently emerged: there is a fault line between the gas fields and the center line through maritime territory on the Japanese side, so because it is partitioned by geological structure, Japanese natural resources will not be affected even if [China] begins production of gas and petroleum from Shungyo. But if that is the case, we would like to see it proved clearly with detailed data. After all, what both countries need to do is get an objective confirmation of what the true state of the available natural resources is. The sharing of accurate information will make cool-headed dialogue possible.

The Japanese government has already deemed the move by the Chinese to develop the gas fields a "possible infringement on our rights." It's not surprising everyone is so worked up: estimates are that there are 7 trillion cubic feet of gas under there, and (as the Nikkei editorial above implies) it is not certain that the fault line actually partitions the reservoirs into distinct pockets. The BBC has a simple surface map that gives at least a basic idea where we're talking about.

No one is predicting at this point that China and Japan are in danger of full-scale war over natural resources. Nevertheless, it's important to remember, as accusations about history books and shrine visits fly around, that there are more substantive things under dispute.

Well, knock me over with a feather:

A rapid spread of AIDS over the past decade has reached a level that has confounded and alarmed the health establishment in Japan, a country that has long felt protected by a first-rate health system and widespread condom use.

Infections which had stayed at infinitesimal levels [as in, official levels--SRK] are surging at rates similar to developing countries, and some experts say the real number of Japanese with HIV or AIDS is two to four times the official toll.

The rest of the experts probably peg it at five times. This is one of those Japan stories that get recycled every few years (I commented on a few others last year when Susanna asked about a specific one). That isn't to say that such articles aren't addressing real problems; it's the air of discovery that's irritating. Likewise the tendency toward exaggeration:

Among women, Sato is one of the careful ones. The 23-year-old Tokyoite has unprotected sex with multiple partners, but at least she occasionally gets herself tested for HIV.

That first sentence is idiotic. Ms. Sato may be "one of the careful ones" among the women who live in Tokyo (or Osaka), go clubbing frequently, and hook up with strange men all the time. But Tokyo and Osaka don't represent Japan any more than New York and LA represent America, even if they do comprise a higher proportion of the population.

Still, the government is not worrying over nothing. I will leave straight people and their dissolute ways to those who know them more intimately. But I heard plenty of real lulus as a gay guy newly arrived from New York in the mid-90's. Chief among them was the one that said you can't get HIV from Japanese people (unless they've lived abroad, in which case they're practically foreigners, anyway). For at least two or three years, the messages with the free condoms in the bar toilets have emphasized that the incidence of reported infection in Tokyo has been on the rise and that Japanese-only saunas are not to be considered extra-safe. I'm not sure how easy it's going to be to bring down infection rates in a country in which "if nobody talks about it, it's not happening" is a major social principle and tolerance for male playing around is frequently taken to an extreme.

Nichi Nichi has a good roundup of the depressing results of the Japanese government's new "no taste" "no tie" policy. Among the pictures is one of Prime Minister Koizumi in an Okinawan shirt, looking as if he were practicing his Bea Arthur drag act.

Naturally, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs isn't pressing the policy too much; an acquaintance of mine who was brought up in Switzerland was recently taken to task by his supervisor there for wearing a striped shirt and wine-colored tie rather than the funeral-director look (white shirt, tie in color range from grey to navy with non-assertive pattern) that's an unofficial requirement.

Otherwise, there's a lot of huffing and puffing going on to make un-suit-edness "cool." Yuriko Koike, the Minister of the Environment, has called upon designers to come up with "cool biz" looks. There will be a fashion show of them at the Aichi World Expo.

As Joe says, given the torturing heat and humidity of summer here, and the fact that a lot of people travel around in packed trains rather than cars, it makes sense not to require them to dress to the point of near-suffocation. Still, it's unfortunate, if not unexpected, that everyone seems to be gravitating toward the dress-shirt-without-a-tie look. (I mean, everyone besides the high-ranking officials who are dressing distinctively just to draw attention to the policy.) It makes them all look as if they'd neglected to finish putting their clothes on in the morning. Or taken off their jackets and ties in preparation for a few rounds of beer and karaoke. Outfits that didn't look as if something were missing--linen or scrupulously pressed chambray with trousers would be the obvious choices--would look more on-duty.

Now that Gay Pride is a full month, Paul Varnell says, we should find a way to use it that goes beyond just being one of the installments of the "Let's Celebrate [Designated Aggrieved Group]" routine:

If you are not impressed by any of these ideas, create your own. The point is to use Gay Pride Month to create circumstances where gays and lesbians get to know a few more people, learn a little more, develop a greater appreciation of the community they are a part of and experience something in common beyond the mere datum of being gay.

Pride is best expressed by viewing our sexuality as a potential good and talent to be cultivated. I understand the impulse toward "liberation," but when coarsely indulged in, it sends mixed signals: "We're ordinary folks just like you" + "We're freaks who run loose on the streets in magenta leather thongs" is not a message that's easily parsed, though it should be easy to figure out which part of it is likely to stick in the Middle-American memory.

Since I'm not a big organization-joiner, my own modest suggestions are of the pokier, everyday variety:

Gay people have to stop making excuses for each other all the time. Yes, we suffer. Yes, there's a lot of crap to take. Yes, it's wrong. But there's no more "pride" involved in listening sympathetically while our friends explain for the 100th time why they can't [break it off with that married man / stop drinking to the point that it affects their job / resist the impulse to flee whenever a relationship threatens to get riskily intimate / stand up to their parents] than there is in behaving that way ourselves. I don't recommend being sententious, but a little more shunning of chronic liars and cheaters would not do most of us any harm. Nor would making it clear to nebbishy friends that they cannot count on an inexhaustible series of bailouts when they get themselves in trouble.

That includes those who complain about society's attitude toward gays but have a litany of reasons they can't come out to their families. The only real way to address anti-gay ignorance is to refute it, visibly, in the way we live. If you're so blasted filial, by all means go the whole way: get married and start giving Mom and Dad grandchildren. Or stay gay and honorably closeted, and quit--as in, COLD TURKEY--generalized bitching about homophobia.

Straight people who support us have a role in this, too. The valuable kind of pride comes from solving problems, overcoming obstacles, and accomplishing things--that's no less true for us than for you. Considering it natural, even entertaining, for us to live brittle, neurotic, messy lives (while you do everything you can to stabilize your own) does no one any favors.

All of this is stuff that should be happening anyway, of course; but as long as someone has waved a wand over June and declared it All Hail the Queers month, there's no reason not to make the best of it.

Sometimes, it feels as if I'd never left America:

The Democratic Party of Japan's return to Diet sessions Wednesday reflected its acknowledgement of the limit on what can be gained from adopting the outmoded parliamentary tactic of boycotting debates.

During the current Diet session, the DPJ refused to attend debates for several days over a dispute concerning the absence of Heizo Takenaka, the minister responsible for postal privatization, from a session of the House of Representatives' Internal Affairs and Communications Committee.

The 10-day boycott did not result in any remarkable achievements. Instead it gave the impression that the largest opposition party was indecisive on how to confront the ruling coalition.

Which country is this? Oh, yeah: the one where the leader of the Democratic Party is actually kind of cute, which is a convenient distinguishing factor.

Regarding larger developments in the Japan Post privatization free-for-all...let's see. A former Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Seiko Noda, had some questions for Prime Minister Koizumi in committee this morning:

"Mr. Prime Minister, if you are so certain that Japan Post is irredeemable as a public corporation, why did you pass its public incorporation bill during your administration?" Ms. Noda asked, attacking the Prime Minister's position.

Koizumi stated, "Both ruling and opposition parties overwhelmingly opposed privatization, so as a politician it was my job to find a way to push through that." He indicated that setting up the Japan Post Public Corporation had not been his real intention all along.

Ms. Noda went on to indicate that the government had not explained thoroughly the disadvantages of privatization and ended her series of questions by saying, "One can by no means clearly see what ideals would be accomplished by the results of privatizing the [existing] public corporation. In the midst of that [state of affairs], there's extraordinary uncertainty and room for hesitation involved in pushing forward with this [plan]."

Also heard:

Eiji Ozawa (LDP) critized the bills related to the privatization proposal as unrealistic and said, "The Prime Minister is [behaving like] Don Quixote." The Prime Minister stated, "Well, actually, I like Don Quixote. I'd like the privatization of Japan Post to make people say [later], 'That Koizumi knew what he was doing, after all.'"

(I took quite a bit of liberty with that last part. 先見の明があったな actually means something more literally like, "had the clarity of foresight, huh!" I couldn't find a better way to de-clunk-ify it.) Ozawa is presumably talking about the literary character and not the arson-prone discount retailer. Before I moved into Atsushi's apartment, I lived in the Dogenzaka section of Shibuya--right across the street, essentially, from the 東急本店. Whenever I so much as went out for a run, I'd be assailed by that insufferable "Don, Don, Don...Don Quiiiii...Don, Qui...Hoh, Teh" theme song. I thought I'd lose my mind.

What was the topic? Ah, yes: Japan Post, as it so often is. Anyway, things are moving along, kind of. No one expected the opposition to melt away, or to fail to play the who-knows-what-will-happen-without-the-government-to-nanny-this? card. I'd kind of enjoy it if someone in the government just stood up and said, "Mr. Prime Minister, Japan Post has a great deal of money, and, to be frank, WE WANT THAT MONEY! WE WANT TO KEEP OUR MITTS ON EVERY YEN OF THAT MOOONNNNNNEEEEEEEY!" Hoping for that amount of forthrightness would be...well, quixotic, one might say.

Camille has a site--does everyone else already know about this?--to go with her new book. Included are several pages of "Camille's World," which is centered around top-ten lists, of which my...uh...favorite, is the following:

LIST #2: The World's Top 10 Disco Classics

1. Irene Cara, "Flashdance" (Giorgio Moroder)
2. Donna Summer, "Rumour Has It" (Giorgio Moroder)
3. Jackie Moore, "This Time, Baby"
4. Sylvester, "Stars"
5. Lime, "Angel Eyes"
6. Machine, "There But For the Grace of God"
7. Evelyn Champagne King, "Shame"
8. Pamela Stanley, "Coming Out of Hiding"
9. Gloria Estefan's cover of Vickie Sue Robinson's "Turn the Beat Around"
10. Madonna, "Deeper and Deeper"

To which my reaction is: Okay, honey, whatever you say.





Or on second thought, you know what? Not. NOT whatever you say.

I mean, "Flashdance"? "Flashdance"?! For some reason I can't quite put my finger on, I get the impression that Camille was thinking more of Jennifer Beals's wet hair, pastel hardhat, and leotarded ass than of, you know, the song itself.

Wait! I can put my finger on the reason: the song is crap. Not crap that deserves to be expelled from civilization--I'm kind of fond of "Flashdance" myself. But please. Camille identifies disco with African earth cult and dark sexual ambiguity. Listen to "Flashdance" and tell me you find anything whatever dark or ambiguous. Jeez. "A Fifth of Beethoven" has more sexual menace. From Donna's oeuvre alone, I would pick about 12 different songs over "Flashdance."

Speaking of Donna, "Rumour Has It," full stop? Eh? Better than "Love to Love You Baby," certainly. Better than "She Works Hard for the Money," which I've never warmed to. But, like, better than "I Feel Love"? "Dim All the Lights"? "Love's Unkind"? Come on.

And before anyone points out that I was born in 1972--yeah, I know. But I'm a gay guy; it says right on the ID card that you get to have imperious opinions about disco. I mean, I thought Paglia was pushing it by trying elevate Joni Mitchell to Great Modern Poet status. I should've known you can never underestimate her ability to top herself for sheer excess.



"Flashdance"!

Miss Manners keeps telling you the little gestures of politeness are important, but do you listen? Of course not. However, President Bush does--at least according to one agency in the DPRK government:

A spokesperson for the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs praised US President Bush for having referred to Premier Kim Jong-il with the honorific "Mister" on 31 May, saying, "If what he said puts a full stop on the conflict between hard-liners and moderates, it will contribute toward the building of an atmosphere [congenial to] the 6-party talks.

It strikes me that, coming from a head of state who's known for his chumminess, the fussy use of "Mister" could just as easily be an expression of chill distance. (Or maybe that's just me, since I deliver expressions of chill distance with some regularity.)

Interestingly, while looking for something about the speech in English, I came across this old CSM article. It's by a Russian diplomat who traveled with Kim for three weeks the summer before 9/11. The more I look at it, the more I think I remember having read it at the time, although I can't be sure:

I was warned that the leader does not approve of the address, "Mister." We were a bit shocked at first, but we got used to [saying], "Could you tell the Great General...." Now it was natural for me to address the North Korean leader as "Comrade Chairman," "Chairman Kim Jong Il."

...

Kim Jong Il expressed regret that, since George Bush came to power, the US approach to Korean affairs has changed. The North Korean leader does not like it that the administration of the American president places [North Korea] on the same shelf as countries promoting extremism, violence, and terror.

If you'd like to nauseate yourself, you can linger over Kim's fulsome praise of Bill Clinton; an icky, borderline-flirtatious conversation with Madeleine Albright during her famous visit; and an interlude of relaxed mateyness with Vladimir Putin.

On returning to the present, remember that, "Mister" or no "Mister," there's still plenty of room for animosity:

DPRK Ambassador to the UN Pak Gil-yon, lecturing at the Toronto Center for International Research, sharply criticized the US: "Not only has the US not changed its posture of frank hostility, but it has left the DPRK no choice but to tackle the task of nuclear arms development." Pak also criticized Japan for its position on historical issues. Asked during the Q&A session after his lecture about [the possibility] of returning to the 6-party talks, he responded, "We are working hard [on a resolution]. We have unlimited time."

What with all the attention the reform of Japan Post has gotten, the woes of Japan's Social Insurance program--which is even more screwed than its US counterpart--can sometimes go virtually unnoticed. The government's been thinking about it, though (Japanese, English). The recommendation involves those three little words we all love to hear: "new government entity."

As part of the Social Insurance Agency reform, a new government entity will be established to manage public pension programs, but the government will retain complete control over the system.

The plan was based on similar recommendations made in a final report by an advisory panel on the agency's reform to Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda and Liberal Democratic Party proposals.

The government has finally completed a reform plan, prompted by the revelation of a series of scandals involving the agency. But its plan may attract criticism as only creating a different facade rather than implementing an overhaul.

...

Unlike the heated discussions of the past, the LDP panel meeting held at the party's headquarters Tuesday proceeded quietly.

I'll bet! Of course, it's easy to argue airily that having the government in charge will keep things going as smoothly as possible, but when you look at the specifics, there's plenty to be doubtful about. Non-payment of premiums is already a pervasive problem. Last year right around this time, it was starting to sound as if no bureaucrat in the history of the Japanese government had ever made a single payment into the kitty. Speak of setting a good example, huh? In the meantime, the restructuring of the SIA is supposed to take place in 2008, so there's plenty of time for things to become even more Byzantine as more and more people with something to lose have their say. Should be fun.

Latest word on the expansion of permanent membership to the UN Security Council:

The contents of US policy on the reform of the United Nations Security Council, to be released this month, have been revealed. The major focal point is how to expand the number of permanent seats, and on that issue, the pillars of the US's position are (1) the criteria for selection [of new permanent member states] should give more weight to "degree of contribution" to the UN than to regional balance, (2) that new members should not be granted veto power, and (3) that the number of new members should be kept to a minimum.

Even in the Nikkei article, "degree of contribution" is in quotation marks; presumably, it was not elaborated on. Japan is the second-largest monetary contributor to the UN, but the PRC is a UNSC member that already has veto power.

If you're interested something that'll really shake up your vision of the world, by all means, don't bother clicking here. Japan's latest scandal to serve up a tasty stew of collusion, bid-rigging, and the revolving door between government and public or semi-public corporations involves bridge-building:

A former director of Japan Highway Public Corporation played a pivotal role in fixing contracts for JH bridges, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Friday.

...

He compiled the list [of contracts pre-allocated to various construction firms] following JH's customary announcement of the list of orders to be placed for the fiscal year. He would then have Takashi Tanaka, the deputy chief of the bridge division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., distribute his own list of predetermined contractor winners to the companies.

...

The arrests are related to a scandal involving bridge projects ordered by the Construction and Transport Ministry under which two cartels divvied up the public works projects amongst member companies.

...

The retired JH executive once was a central figure in Kazura-kai (vine society), an association of former JH officials who had landed cushy jobs at bridge building companies in a practice known as amakudari, or descent from heaven. Members of the group met regularly and handled sales at JH on behalf of their new employers.

The former JH director's list of predetermined contract allocations covered nearly 100 large projects each year. Sources have pointed out that it would have been difficult for him to do everything on his own, therefore, Kazura-kai members are suspected of involvement in allotting JH orders to specific bridge builders.

Obviously, as a supporter of free markets, I don't approve of any of this for one second. I do, however, feel a great deal of sympathy for young and talented Japanese people moving into public-sector jobs. The whole system has been designed so that they spend most of their careers making less money than their schoolmates who moved into private industry, with the express expectation that they'll be able to cash in on their connections through their post-retirement jobs. Not the sort of work for an idealist.

This might also be a good time to note that the 2001 reshuffling of the federal ministries does not seem to have occasioned the dawn of efficiency and transparency in federal doings that had been promised. Then, too, these things take time. If there's one thing bureaucrats know how to do, it's cling to power with the tenacity of barnacles. Scandals are always depressing, but they at least represent some gains for public accountability. In Japan's huge and boondoggle-prone construction sector, every little bit helps.