The White Peril 白禍

"Don't make highway privatization a failure," warns this morning's Nikkei editorial:

The goal of the Japan Highway Public Corporation was to stop building any more pointless expressways and to decrease debt, now at about ¥40 trillion, as quickly as possible. However, there's a slim chance that we can hope for much from the new corporation regarding those items.

The new private corporation holds no capital but will stick the nation with its debt balance. New road construction will also be ultimately decided upon by a state council. In this structure, which will be completely under state protection and governance, there will be almost no elements through which discipline will come into play in operations. Plans for the laying of 9342 kilometers [of new roadway] are for the most part complete, and there is a strong possibility that the resulting ballooning debt will be shunted off onto the next generation.

This new company, with its complete reliance on state support, has also shown its true colors to the market. Top managers have been arrested on suspicion of bid-rigging, and the books show nothing resembling a drop in losses from unprofitable roads. Even under these exigent circumstances, Japan Public Highway Corporation bonds have remained stable in value. It all makes it look unlike a corporation that's about to be privatized.

In a risk-free world, ethical considerations go out the window. At the instruction of the Prime Minister, the Privatization Promotion Committee formed three years ago proposed "complete privatization," by which buy-off of all assets for the privatized corporation would be accomplished in a projected ten years. But LDP Diet members and the heads of regional government bodies violently opposed the proposal, and it was defanged through the machinations of the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure and part of the privatization committee. Perhaps because [interested parties] saw this and felt a sense of confidence in their untouchability, it was at this point that large-scale institutionalized bid-rigging really began to effloresce.

The Nikkei editors want Koizumi to use his surge in popular support to make sure the privatization of the highway corporation stands a chance of being a significant part of government finance reform. I don't know--Japan Post (speaking of defanged proposals) and highway construction? He'd have to be a miracle worker.

Hi, I'm Nora Ephron. I have this thing where I conceive of every relationship with a man--even a politician--in terms of romantic betrayal, you know? I had this awful ex...well, we won't go into it, but he really affected me.

Sometimes people say that it's kind of pathetic for me to pitch myself as a symbol of female strength when the women in all my romantic comedy and romantic drama and romantic comedy-drama screenplays are kind of drippy and mopey and hung-up and stuff about men.

But I say, would Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson star in "pathetic"? Would "pathetic" have made an inescapable icon out of Meg Ryan? Okay, then. Let's not be having any more of this "pathetic" stuff, or I'll unleash some of my acclaimed snappy wit on you. It'll sting, believe me.

Why didn't Bill love me? Sorry to change the subject so abruptly, but I mean, I was there for him all the time. So were the other feminists. So were the gays. Sometimes we were all there for Bill at the same chic dinner parties. I just don't understand. I don't know why I wasn't enough.

Please, someone stop me before I have a few too many glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and call him up and say something foolish.

Oh, and war is bad.

Goodbye.

Ghost of a Flea reports that Alice Cooper knows a good diva when he hears one. That's so sweet.

Jon Henke has a post up at Q and O with a roundup of links to liberal blogger innuendo about David Dreier's sexuality. Now that Dreier hasn't been made acting Majority Leader, I suppose it doesn't matter all that much, except as a reminder that wacko leftists have a remarkably unprincipled approach to the right to privacy.

However, one of the commenters mentioned a parallel with James McGreevey that I don't think holds up under scrutiny:

Like McGreevey, it’s not a matter of who he is sleeping with, but rather that he expects the taypapers to pay that person’s salary.

Whoa. McGreevey didn't just have a boyfriend on the payroll. McGreevey hired a counterterrorism chief who had no relevant experience and (being a foreign national) couldn't get security clearance for high-level meetings. McGreevey tried to pressure an unwilling employee into a sexual relationship. McGreevey staged his coming out to deflect attention from brewing corruption scandals--thus becoming perhaps the only gay person in history to come out so he could live less honestly. McGreevey's actions screwed over his constituents and slapped other out gay men and women in the face. (Of course, you wouldn't know that from the loathsome flattery he's gotten from gay groups. Even Jonathan Rauch was strangely muted in his response.)

I haven't seen anything to indicate that Dreier's chief of staff is being paid for a job he's not doing, or that the congressman himself has used his power to strongarm guys into sleeping with him. Unless he's committing some kind of crime, he gets to be gay as he sees fit, just like the rest of us. No comparison with McGreevey.

Happy anniversary, Pryhills! Many more to you.

This week's column by the always-acute Anne Applebaum is even more deadly than usual:

In its scale and sheer disregard for common sense, the Louisiana proposal breaks new ground. But I don't want to single out Louisiana: After all, the state's representatives are acting logically, even if they aren't spending logically. They are playing by the rules of the only system for distributing federal funds that there is, and that system allocates money not according to the dictates of logic, but to the demands of politics and patronage.

Nor does this logic apply only to obvious boondoggles such as federal transportation spending, the last $286 billion tranche of which funded Virginia horse trails, Vermont snowmobile trails, a couple of "bridges to nowhere" in rural Alaska and decorative trees for a California freeway named after Ronald Reagan (a president who once vetoed a transportation bill because it contained too much pork). On the contrary, this logic applies even to things we supposedly consider important, such as homeland security. Because neither the administration nor Congress is prepared to do an honest risk assessment, and because no one dares say that there are states at almost no risk of terrorist attack, a good chunk of homeland security funding is distributed according to formulas that give minimum amounts to every state. The inevitable result: In 2004 the residents of Wyoming received, per capita, seven times more money for first responders than the residents of New York City.

Unfortunately, I can't identify the buddy who sent it to me--if his unanimously leftist colleagues found out he was communicating with libertarians, they might tar and feather him--but I think I can get away with quoting his parting shot: "I am so glad to live in a democracy that is free from the pork and corruption of Japan's... (laughing so hard I am crying, or would that be vice versa?)." Uh-huh. The only reason we Americans living in Japan can get away with smirking at the degree of pork-barrel transport and construction spending here is that the federal ministries are so unbelievably profligate they make Washington look frugal by comparison.

As Applebaum says, most people don't get too exercised over waste on infrastructure because it's not a very sexy topic. (Prime Minister Koizumi's push for Japan Post privatization ran into this problem, too--how many citizens want to sit around talking about the financial structure of the postal service?) There's also the fact that things actually do get built. It's hard to arouse voters' ire over poor allocation and inefficient use of resources because those problems are not as easily visible as roads and bridges that don't materialize. And even boondoggles--perhaps especially boondoggles--provide employment.

Applebaum's suggestion is this:

But maybe at least it is time for a change of terminology. After all, taking $200 million of public money to build a bridge, name it after yourself and get reelected isn't merely "pork." Demanding $250 billion of public money for your hurricane-damaged state--in the hope that voters will ignore all the mistakes you made before the hurricane struck--isn't just "waste" either. As I say, corruption comes in many forms. But whatever form it comes in, it will be easier for voters to identify if it's called by its true name.

In an age in which there are news agencies that consider it an affront to call terrorists "terrorists," I'm not sure the idea will catch on. It's a good one, though.

Added at 21:24: Virginia Postrel points out that there are non-infrastructure pork provisions that would be much more useful to cut if we meant business about curbing spending. Alex Kerr made a pertinent point a few years ago--though he was speaking of Japan and in a slightly different context:

At a bank in Tokyo, you can make 10 plus 10 equal 30 if you like--but somewhere far away, at a pension fund in Osaka, for example, it may be that 10 plus 10 will now equal only 15. Or even farther away, implications of this equation may require that a stretch of seashore in Hokkaido must be cemented over.

He was speaking of the shell game Japan plays that makes it seem to defy economic laws that obtain elsewhere, but I think he also illustrated one of the reasons it's hard to get people to think of government spending in big, big, big Jonathan Rauch terms: the different parts of the machine don't seem to be related to each other. How agricultural subsidies could have implications for homeland security resources, say, is (understandably) not something most people give a lot of thought to. With infrastructure spending, on the other hand, there's a direct, vivid connection to a current news story with lots of human interest angles. That doesn't mean that people will necessarily be spurred by Hurricane Katrina to pressure their congresscritters to rein it in a bit, but that seems to be the best hope.

Eric and I had an e-mail exchange that I'd like to quote but can't precisely because it was on the subject that ended up in this recent post of his:

I think that one of the reasons so many bloggers are drawn to this medium is that in too many ways, America has become a country in which people are afraid to say what they think. Blogging gives a voice (if not a loudspeaker) to those who'd normally be silent, but the downside is that it gives them an opportunity to be heard by the very people who'd normally intimidate them into silence. I think there are people who've taken up blogging precisely because thoughts like "I could never say this at work!" or "You just can't discuss issues like this in public!" ran through their minds.

Every so often, I'll get an e-mail to the effect of "Thanks for being so outspoken about [gay/Japan] stuff," and my reaction is to the effect of "Oh, honey, if you only knew!" Since I write under my own name, I have to use content and tone that are compatible with my job, but that doesn't bother me. It's not as if people who try to make their points forcefully but civilly were overrepresented in the public discourse or anything. I also have a few teenaged readers and try to keep my occasional bawdiness mild and good-humored, the better to serve as a thrilling contrast with the latest Britney Spears or Jessica Simpson video.

*******

Of course, not every e-mail is an overblown compliment. I won't post things from people who obviously want to remain anonymous, but I don't see why I shouldn't address the topic raised:

The idea that, because I'm happy and in a settled, sustaining relationship at 33, coming out must have been a breeze for me is an extraordinarily naive one. Coming out reorders your whole view of the world and where you belong in it; anyone going through such an experience is bound to have trouble navigating it. I needed people to cut me some slack without giving up on me altogether, and fortunately, I had friends who were willing to do exactly that. Basically honorable people sometimes do pained, impulsive, nasty things in moments of weakness. That's not to excuse them, only to say that they shouldn't be summarily written off.

But for some people, explaining away their bad behavior as the fault of social prejudice gets to be habit-forming, and if they're going to make self-justifying statements in public, I think those statements deserve to be challenged.

Good news: Japan can stop worrying about the abductee issue, because the UN has totally told North Korea that it needs to cut it out with the human rights abuses and stuff:

On 27 September, UN Secretary General Annan released a report on humanitarian issues in North Korea and indicated that, in addition to engaging in torture and forced labor, the country was also suffering serious food shortages. About the issue of abducted Japanese nationals, he declared that survivors "must be returned to Japan both swiftly and safely."

The report is 22 pages in all and contains 68 items. About the treatment meted out to citizens who are regarded as criminals by the state, it says, "forced labor is practiced on a large scale." It went on to cite further examples [of problems]: "When a given person is punished for crimes related to politics or ideology, his or her family also becomes a target for punishment."

North Korea's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs met with Annan last week, stressing that the food situation has improved; he sought a cessation of humanitarian aid and cooperation in development projects. However, the new UN report states that aid is [still] necessary, and says, regarding the way support is being used, that "effective monitoring that will increase transparency" is vitally important.

Well, there you go. Problem solved. And some people complain that Japan gets no return on its hefty contributions to the UN!

This (via Joel) is too funny:

For the most part, Japanese network television is pretty darn unremarkable. If one were to flip through the channels at any time of day, one would likely find:

• A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless "talents" who are completely and utterly devoid of any actual talent whatsoever
  
• A cooking program
  
• A cooking program featuring a roomful of mindless talents who watch food being cooked and then sample it and loudly and repeatedly exclaim "OISHII!!!"
  
• Some kind of quiz show
  
• A quiz show featuring a roomful of mindless talents demonstrating just how mindless they truly are
  
• A sappy documentary about someone somewhere in the world who faces some sort of adversity (e.g., is looking for a job, is living in a brutal war zone, was born without legs, a combination thereof, etc.) and who Tries His/Her Best® to overcome the hardships of their situation
  
• A variety show featuring a roomful of mindless talents watching a sappy documentary and providing their horribly forced reactions to the hardships (tears) and the overcoming of the hardships (more tears) for the sake of the television viewers at home who have to be instructed how to react since they have neither souls nor a capacity for empathy

That last sentence is a little over the line, but overall: No fooling! Japanese television does have interesting historical dramas; shows about the country's unique geological features; and profiles of famous artworks and artisans. But it does the lowest-common-denominator thing no less, er, adroitly than American television.

The タレント (tarento: "person who's famous for being famous," derived as Jeff notes from the hilariously inappropriate English word talent) phenomenon has to be seen to be believed. You look at some of these people and think, Maybe we don't need to worry so much about having the US education system outcompeted after all. The guys are unbelievably ditzy--and not in the I-bet-he-makes-up-for-it-by-being-good-with-his-hands way, either. The women, who are encouraged by convention to be slightly flibbertigibbety in public anyway, don't help things much. I saw one quiz show a few years ago on which contestents were asked to locate a few countries on a map of Europe and the Mediterranean, and only one person knew where Germany was. Dead serious.

I'm less in agreement with Conbini Bento about Masaki Sumitami:

Known for his revealing black leather S&M outfit, incessant pelvis-thrusting and frequent exclamations of "WOOO!!!", Hard Gay made a splash on the talent scene earlier this year and has quickly become the man of the moment on Japanese television. Despite his flamboyant personality and outrageous appearance reminiscent of the biker in the Village People, Hard Gay is not only not an actual homosexual, but his forays on television thus far have primarily been based on the wholesome concept of yonaoshi, or social improvement (although in recent appearances he has begun drifting into other territory involving his newfound celebrity). His TV segments usually feature him walking the streets and attempting to help out those he perceives as being in need whilst making jokes rich with pun and innuendo and thrusting his crotch with abandon, often to the horror and embarrassment of the subject(s) of his attention. While his antics may push the envelope at times, Hard Gay's controversial moniker and appearance belie his good humor and affability.

Perhaps I can't get into Sumitami's routine because I've spent too many years running into men in revealing black leather S&M outfits who are actual homosexuals and think that incessant pelvis-thrusting and frequent exclamations of "WOOO!!!" are great ways to hit on guys.

I haven't had many interesting search strings lately, but two have cropped up in the last 24 hours. I tell you--the things people expect Google to help them out with! Someone wanted to know "How do you break it off with a married man?"

Uh, let's see. How about "We really shouldn't be doing this. I'm sorry, but I can't see you anymore"? Is that too obvious, or something? It's wise not to add the part when you burst into tears and go, "Dammit, you PROMISED me you were going to LEAVE her! How could you keep stringing me along like this when you KNOW I can make you happier than she does?" That has a way of interfering with closure. (No, I don't know this from having dated a married man myself; but this being Japan, I have a few friends who have.)

The other odd search was "dating: lose the coin purse." I can only assume this was intended as advice? But then, why enter it as part of a search? One doesn't go to Yahoo to tell it things, after all. Besides, in my experience, having one is taken as a conversation-starter, prompting opening lines that range from "Beautiful coin purse!" to "I should get one of those myself--Japanese money is so heavy," which apparently seem less bald than "Come here often?" (though one gets that one a lot, too). Of course, I suppose it depends on the item itself; a lot of coin purses probably look faggy to a fair number of straight women.

Oh, and for the love of Poseidon, I still don't know whether Röb M@rciano is a freakin' homosexual.

Chris Crain has posted on the Washington Blade blog about the problems with gay PR, though he doesn't exactly put it that way:

Then remember this: We gay Americans do not have the luxury of intolerance. When it comes to minorities, we are remarkably minor. Kinsey was nice enough to propagate the 10 percent myth, but subsequent surveys place us at even smaller numbers, well under half that amount. And about one-quarter of us — of us! — voted for the election and the re-election of George W. Bush.

If we cannot tolerate the viewpoint of someone who tries to explain why one-quarter of us like and support the president, then how can we expect the 96 percent of Americans who are heterosexual to listen seriously to our demands for equality?

The growing polarization of American politics has taken root within gay America as well. The explosion of liberal gay bloggers, many of whom spend about as much time on the "gray" of most issues as Rush Limbaugh and his "dittoheads," has only exacerbated the proud queer tradition of disdain for gay Republicans ("Nazi Jews") and the caricature of conservative Christians ("religious right," "religious political extremists").

Whatever the public opinion surveys may say about the growing acceptance of gays, we have lost, and lost badly, every ballot measure to date on marriage, and the numbers haven't improved since Alaska and Hawaii voted on the issue almost a decade ago.

Our activists groups have grown quite fond of talking about the "conversations" we need to have with straight America. Well half of that conversation involves listening, not talking. And if we won't even listen to the heretical views of our own kind, then how can we be open to one of "them"?

He's right. I do think that while the subject is open, though, we might make a request of the conservatives, too: some of you have a real chip on your shoulder about what a brave, exclusive little club of dissenters you are. If you don't knock it off, you're going to have a hard time winning over rank-and-file gays who despise the shrill left but are wary of Republicans.

Yes, yes, yes, I know--there are gay enclaves in which you risk vandalization of your property if you're openly conservative. More commonly you just risk being demonized. (That overused word strikes me as being appropriate here for once.) I'm more than happy to acknowledge that the outrages committed by extreme gay leftists are way worse than the smugness of some of the gay right. But smugness is a turnoff, and as long as the center-right range of gays stays so firmly a minority, it's going to remain easy for lefty activists to claim to represent gays en masse.

The Japanese government plans to increase its monitoring of the disputed East China Sea oil and gas fields:

The government will strengthen its surveillance apparatus in the maritime region around the East China Sea boundary (Japan-China) where the PRC is furthering its plan to develop gas fields. It will increase the frequency of flights by the Maritime SDF's P3C patrol planes. The Maritime Security Agency and Ministry of Trade, Economy, and Industry are communicating closely with other relevant government bodies to bring the PRC's movements to light down to the last detail. The aim is to preclude China's establishing natural gas production incrementally.

China has already completed development of three fields in the vicinity of the boundary: Tengaiten, Shungyo, and Dankyo. It has also constructed a maritime base for exploratory drilling near Heiko. The China National Off-shore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) will begin production of natural gas from the Shungyo field within the month.

This debate has been brewing for a while. He doesn't update anymore, but Meaty Fly's blog still has a great post up here about the background to the Japan-PRC energy conflict. It's also helpful to bear in mind (via Machiruda a few months ago) that scientists aren't sure just how much gas the most haggled-over field holds.

I think I need to create a category for this, because I'm having serious trouble locating things about it in my own archives.

A friend at the office sent me this WaPo article, the latest installment in the seemingly interminable series in which the Western media treat the funkiest aspects of Japanese culture as if they were poised to become the mainstream by next April. I'm not so sure about the general conclusions that are implied, and I also have to wonder about some of the specifics. It's possible that the reporter, Anthony Faiola, has a lot of experience in Japan, but he doesn't sound that way. I was especially puzzled by this sequence:

On busy Tokyo subways these days, it is not unusual to see men fishing for packs of Virginia Slims cigarettes in European-style male purses. They have many models to choose from at Isetan Men's — the successful 10-story department store in chic west Tokyo that opened two years ago and is now the cathedral of masculine vanity.

The store sells more than 100 types of male purses, including jade-colored alligator clutches and rhinestone-encrusted knapsacks, along with hats with peacock feathers, pink leather card holders and thousands of pieces of exotic designer clothes. Sales have outpaced Isetan's other major Tokyo stores, where the emphasis is on women's apparel, according to company officials.

"On busy Tokyo subways these days"? When I first arrived a decade ago, one of my first questions was, "What is up with all the guys' carrying tote bags and little clutches?" The answer, according to every Japanese person I know, is that those shapes simply don't read as any more femmy than briefcases or backpacks. Plenty of regular, un-fashion-conscious guys with wedding rings carry such bags. The rich ones get them at Vuitton or Coach (or their wives pick them out on their behalf), but they're usually in un-showy neutral colors. With respect to clothes rather than accessories, by contrast, men wear pastels and jewel tones more readily here than they do in the US--you frequently see construction workers swaggering around in lavender or seafoam-green rubber trousers. But that's also a long-standing element in the culture and doesn't signify any new development.

Furthermore, Isetan Men's does have a wide variety of outlandishly colored and over-decorated accessories. They're prominently showcased, which makes every department look as if it catered exclusively to fops, but as someone who shops there, I can tell you that most other guys seem to do what I do: wade through to find the more ordinary stuff. What's great about Isetan Men's is that you have almost ten floors devoted to nothing but men's clothing at your disposal. Like many other high-end stores in Japan, Isetan stocks modestly-priced items along with the sticker-shock brands, so people of a relatively wide range of incomes can shop there. If you want a new jacket, you can look at Brooks Brothers and Ermenegildo Zegna and Theory and Burberrys and a few house labels to be sure you're getting what most pleases you, and you don't have to run all over the place. There's no other store like that for men in Tokyo; there are plenty of stores that cater mostly to women. Therefore, it seems to me that the success of Isetan Men's says at least as much about its lack of competition--its acute exploitation of a niche market that had been hiding in plain sight all along--as it does about men's increased dandyism. (Note also that Atsushi and I frequently see a healthy proportion of guys who have clearly been dragged there by their wives or girlfriends, same as in any other men's department the world over.)

Oh, one last thing: Isetan Men's is literally two blocks from Shinjuku 2-chome, the biggest gay district in the city. It's not at all uncommon for guys to do some shopping before the store closes at 8:00, meet friends for dinner, and then go out for a drink afterward. I've done it myself more times than I can count. Do we have a noticeable effect on the store's total revenue? I don't know. Could we help to explain why it makes business sense to keep pink ostrich-print wallets with marabou-feather trim in stock? It seems to me we could. "Some gay guys like outlandishly attention-getting clothes" is hardly the stuff of news stories, though.

The reason I'm going on about this is that it all makes me wonder whether Faiola can be trusted to read cultural signals competently. The underlying issue he's talking about is certainly real and important: post-War Japan barricaded women in their apartments with the kids and shoved men into the office for twelve-hour days. Now that the national goal of prosperity and respect on the world stage has been achieved, it's natural for people to want to use the resulting wealth to the end of arranging their lives more to their personal liking. The quotation from Negami Kishi lamenting the feminization of Japanese men is used without putting it in this rather obvious context. Of course, when women get a little breathing room, they're going to covet the jobs that have always been available to men; men, in turn, don't want to have to wall themselves off emotionally from everyone including their own children. Since the Japanese have not been socialized to be resilient and resourceful in applying their individual talents and know-how to new situations, the transition has been rocky.

Still, that doesn't mean that the popularity of men's cosmetic surgery and of flamboyantly gay entertainers such as Shogo Kariyazaki means what Faiola seems to think it means. It's worth bearing in mind that Kariyazaki is safely stereotypable: a gay guy with fussy clothes who arranges flowers. His straight male fans don't appear to be imitating his personal style, after all.

And on the subject of cosmetic procedures: hairiness is considered rough and somewhat vulgar by many Japanese. (Sorry, Kyushu and Okinawa boys--I'm just describing other people's opinions here.) As the cost and inconvenience of cosmetic procedures drops, men are getting more of them, as you'd expect. It's not surprising that as advances are made in depilation, specifically, Japanese men are taking advantage of them the way Americans have taken to, say, tooth whitening.

About that whole Koizumi-dancing-with-Richard-Gere thing, I have no comment. I will say that I was shocked that Faiola mentioned Gere and then discussed Dandy House several paragraphs later without mentioning the obvious connection: Gere is featured in the company's latest ad campaign, the billboards for which are INESCAPABLE in Tokyo lately.

Added at 20:55: Okay, I changed the first paragraph to make it a bit less mean-spirited. I don't think most reporters are going around with the intention of making Japan sound like a freakshow. They just don't seem to be able to avoid doing so.

Added on 26 September: I changed a few sentences for clarity. Sheesh, my style is turgid when I'm irritated and writing off the cuff.

Added on 28 September: Thanks to Virginia Postrel for the link. Just to emphasize this again: Faiola is absolutely right to be saying that sex roles are in flux at this historical moment in Japan. In fact, there's very little he wrote that I would actually say is inaccurate. My complaint is with the (mostly implicit) connections he's making and the way he characterizes the larger issue. That Isetan Men's carries shocking pink tote bags doesn't necessarily say anything about Japanese manhood outside an extremely small circle of Tokyo-dwellers.

Via John, whose blog would be a daily read of mine if he posted that often but really no pressure buddy at all seriously none, here's a great post by Moebius Stripper on...well, I'll let her tell it:

I've been tutoring a high school kid for the past two months. The kid's in grade 12; when I met him, he was doing math at a grade two or three level. This is not an exaggeration: he couldn't add or multiply single-digit numbers without a calculator. And this wasn't just rustiness, as this inability extended to not being able to compute things like 6+0, 5*1, or 3*0. In other words, he didn’t know what numbers were. Not surprisingly, he couldn't solve linear equations, add fractions, or make heads or tails of the most simple word problem.

I met with him every other day, two hours at a time. And, to his credit, what he lacked in mathematical skill, he more than made up for in persistence. He worked diligently, if not terribly successfully, on his homework. We spent a lot of time on the basics - fractions, simple algebra, the meaning of equations. We also spent a lot of time - far, far more than I'd have liked - on how to use the [expletive regretfully deleted] graphing calculator to perform tasks that every student should know how to do with a pencil and paper.

Numeracy is hugely, hugely important in a very general sense; and somehow the curriculum specialists and teachers seem to have found ways to remove basic, intuitive numeracy from students. Or at least they make it permissible for them to use calculators for so many basic operations that they don't even realize it's possible to be good with numbers.

Just saw Atsushi to the train; he'll be on the plane back to Kyushu at 4:00. Flights were disrupted yesterday, but the weather's cleared here now.

On Thursday, I ended up looking in the refrigerator and seeing that I had corned beef left over that really needed to be used up. That kind of ruled out the French toast plan for Friday--corned beef with French toast? No. So it was buttery scrambled eggs, which themselves were rather nice.

Speaking of eating--it was the cutest thing--we did Vietnamese for dinner that night. I was dilly-dallying about finishing my pho, trying to get the last few noodle fragments into the same spoonful of broth. Atsushi reached over absentmindedly with his chopsticks and started piling noodles into my spoon--an uncharacteristically intimate public gesture for him. He looked up and saw my bemused look and jerked his hand back a little. Then he recovered himself and gave his conspiratorial smirk. (You communicate in conspiratorial smirks a lot in Tokyo gay life.) Then he pointedly picked up the last noodle and deposited it in my spoon. Best mouthful of pho I've ever had.

It was a good food weekend overall, come to think of it. Last night, we went out with a good buddy of mine. (BTW, C., darling? I love you lots, but I swear--you will find a way to be an hour late for your own bleedin' funeral.) Italian. Gay Italian: sea bass carpaccio and gnocchi and veal with cracked pepper and green salad and...ooh, can we get something else with pine nuts? We're into pine nuts today.

My buddy C., BTW, is an example of the kind of guy who knows how to deal with a failed relationship like a gentleman. In the spring, his boyfriend of two and a half years betrayed him and then broke up with him. He still loves the guy and thinks about him all the time, and--well, I'm his friend, so I listen when he needs to talk. I, being loyal to C., hope his ex gets himself run over by a nice truck sometime soon, but I try to keep my own counsel on the subject.

Anyway, the good thing about C. is, unlike some people, he knows when he needs not to talk, too. As in, "It's been 45 minutes of non-stop pining for my ex, so let's change the subject." And then he actually changes the subject. Or lets me change the subject. Of course, his frequent reward is to hear me grouse about how much I miss Atsushi; even so, he's never once played the obvious "How can you complain about your long-distance relationship when I don't even have a boyfriend?" card. What would you not do for such a friend?

So from tonight on, back to cooking for one and making my own tea and not encountering a warm, cuddly man when I roll over at 3 a.m. For another few weeks.

Lisa Loeb is in for Paula Zahn on CNN. I didn't know she had any qualifications as a newscaster.

Typhoon 17 is headed toward Kanto (Chiba Prefecture at the moment), and the JMA is warning that we may get heavy rains starting tonight or tomorrow. It's just off the Izu Islands right now, with top wind speeds of around 90 mph, but the storm itself is running basically parallel to Honshu, so it won't actually make landfall.

Of course, that's nothing compared with what Hurricane Rita is threatening to do to eastern Texas and western Louisiana. CNN's coverage this go-round is a scene I cannot make, so I'm generally going by on-line sources. Hope everyone stays safe.

Why do people insist on asking questions they don't want to know the answers to? Or, more importantly, why can't people find someone else to ask questions they don't want to know the answers to? I don't give unsolicited advice. I know how to be tactful, and I don't hold with the tough-love approach to friendship except in cases of extreme self-destructive behavior.

But there are only so many euphemisms for "The reason your relationship doesn't seem to be working is that your boyfriend is scum." I have enough to last for a few months. Once I've exhausted them and lost my cool, though, my mewling friend may suddenly find himself on the receiving end of the super-deeuphemized version: "The reason your relationship doesn't seem to be working is that your boyfriend is scum and YOU are a SUCKER. A sucker, a sucker, A SUCKER. All he has to do when you read him the riot act is adopt that soulful look and tell you he'll try to do better. Then he's extra-attentive in the sack for the rest of the week, and you're all like, 'Wow! He really loves me after all! I'm so lucky!' Use your head. Three days of molten, ecstatic reconciliatory screwing are not the kind of thing you can expect a gay man to register as a PUNISHMENT, my pet, even if they're preceded by a tiresome four-hour argument about feelings. Where's the incentive to change his behavior?"

I realize this problem is as old as the hills, but I really don't get it. Most of the time before Atsushi, I was a Good Learning Experience for the guys I dated. (Didn't I tell you I was proficient with the euphemisms?) I hope I don't seem to be giving a ringing defense of bad boyfriends when I say that if your behavior signals that you're willing to tolerate being undervalued, it's not illogical for your partner to conclude that he's actually doing just fine overall and that your complaints just mean you're in one of your touchy moods.

That's especially true in a bicultural relationship, in which one of you will always be communicating in a non-native language and set of cultural signals. People do grow up (hi!), but indulging them doesn't help them on the way. It also makes the indulger miserable, and have I mentioned that it drives his friends bananas?

You know, it's hard to be the DPRK. You send a few test missiles over Japan, you sell some nuke technology on the black market, and all of a sudden, everyone's branding you an aggressor and crap. Luckily, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs has the set the UN straight about who the real problem in this part of the world is:

Choe Su-hon, the DPRK Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, addressed the United Nations General Assembly on 22 September, declaring that, because the US is continuing its "policy of hostile regard" and aiming to deliver a nuclear first-strike at North Korea, his country "has no choice but to maintain nuclear deterrance capability for purposes of self-defense, as a method of preserving the dignity and sovereignty of our state."

On the other hand, the Deputy Minister argued that the DPRK's ultimate goal is "the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula" and that it would become unnecessary to possess "even a single nuclear weapon" if relations with the US were normalized. He appealed for...

I can't believe I'm translating this bilge with a straight face.

...[recognition of] the grave necessity of a doctrine of multilateralism with the UN at its core, [as a way of] mindfully taking refuge from the unilateralism and first strikes of the Bush administration, which had invaded Iraq.

Regarding Japan's campaign for permanent membership on the UN Security Council, he emphasized that he sees Japan as refusing to atone for "its past crimes [such as during World War II]" against its neighboring countries, and therefore believes that Japan's request should definitely not be approved.

It may interest people to know that this stuff sounds just as wind-up-lefty and content free in Japanese as in English. What's also interesting is that the word I translated "atone" is 清算 (seisan: "liquidate"), which I've never seen used figuratively. Well, I guess "liquidate" is already figurative, because you don't actually melt assets and pour them away; I've never seen it used outside a financial context. Or maybe I just haven't noticed.

Added at 16:54: Oh, wait--this was the 次官, not the 副官. I called him the "Vice-Minister," who's actually someone else. It's fixed now.

Added still later: Okay, I guess if I see a word used in a way I haven't seen, I could do the normal thing and, like, consult a dictionary. It looks as if 清算 would have been rendered more accurately with something closer to a generalized version of "liquidate," like "deal with conclusively."

Koizumi has reappointed everyone from his previous cabinet for the remainder of the Diet's special session; his predicted reshuffle will be made after the next regular session begins in November.

On the Japan Post privatization, which is the main order of business after the selection of the Prime Minister, the Mainichi has this article, which contributes little new information but has an interesting point buried in it:

The main opposition group, the Democratic Party of Japan, expects to come up with its own counterproposal. But that proposal has been delayed by the disarray in the party following a painful defeat in elections and a change in leadership.

The LDP privatization plan, larded as it is with concessions, has plenty of flaws that the DPJ could be trying to exploit. I doubt that it could somehow come up with arguments powerful enough to counter the Koizumi cabinet's level of public support, but if it started systematically explaining the plan's weaknesses now, it might be able to begin establishing credibility that would help it later. Unfortunately, it has bigger things to worry about, such as, you know, continuing to exist.

Something else that the government has been working on that the Japanese public, if not most international observers, has been paying attention to is the new asbestos victims' compensation bill:

The fund will cover the medical costs of those with mesothelioma, lung cancer and other diseases caused by the inhalation of asbestos particles. It will also pay consolation money and cover funeral expenses for family members of those who have died from such diseases.

The bills stipulate that applications for the fund can come from anyone who thinks that his or her disease was caused by asbestos. Family members of workers at factories that used asbestos or those who live near those plants can also apply.

Applications will be accepted at labor standards inspection offices or public health centers, the officials said.

The story has been gaining steam since spring.

It is to be hoped that the asbestos fund won't end up being milked by enterprising false claimants. Cf. today's disclosure about two nuclear power corporations:

The Japan Nuclear Cycle Development Institute and the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute were revealed on 22 September to have illegally paid over 120 million yen to employees who were not actually eligible to for benefits for those who work with radiation. There were workplaces in which such illegal disbursement was routine.

From April 2002 to May of this year, the JNC paid out 119.55 million to 604 employees; the JAERI, 9.41 million yen to 113 employees. The greatest amount to a single employee was 600,000 yen. Both organizations will require the employees involved who have not retired to return all the money.

The benefits to those who work with radiation are to be paid when the number of days [a worker] has entered into a radiation control zone exceeds a fixed monthly figure. Payments are made based on the work attendance logs employees keep, but those logs were not systematically verified through comparison with sign-in/sign-out sheets at the radiation control zones.

In this context, the motto displayed on the JNC's website is darkly (radiantly?) comical. It must be very easy to fake 出勤簿 (shukkinbo: "work attendance log") at large companies where payroll is handled far from workstations.

Related Posts (on one page):

1. Insurance rate hikes to fund asbestos payouts
2. Diagnostic criteria for asbestos-related diseases to be fixed
3. Odds and ends
4. Word for the summer: 石綿 （sekimen: "rock" + "cotton" --> "asbestos")

Michael (to whom I'm going to have to start paying finder's fees--wasn't there a time long ago when I occasionally found a gay-related media story by myself?) links to this fascinating discussion on Towleroad. The debate is over the NYT article here.

I'm not sure the reporter is to be faulted for simply observing what's going on and giving people's own account of themselves. It does seem, though, that he might have seen fit to question, even in passing, statements such as these:

"There's so much loneliness among gay men," one lot user said. "A lot of guys just want someone to talk to."

...

As for sex, the regulars say that they prefer the parking lot to gay bars since there is little in the way of drugs and alcohol and there is more honesty about sexually transmitted diseases.

It's a pity that honesty doesn't extend to telling their spouses they're getting screwed by strange men on top of junior's lacrosse equipment in the back of the Explorer. Or not doing it in the first place.

And is there no end to the procession of dimwits who think it's impossible to get an STD from some guy who lives in a 5-bedroom mock-Tudor over on Winding Ivy Lane? Because, like, he says he's clean, and he's a lawyer and all?

And that whole "gays are lonely" thing? What. Eh. Ver, Bitch. I'm not lonely. My boyfriend isn't lonely. My friends aren't lonely. I kinda think maybe that's in part because we have more to say to one another than a furtive, haunted, sibilant, "Hey, whatever-your-name-is, want a blow job?" in a parking lot. People should be free to stay closeted and not to get involved in the urban gay scene, but these jokers aren't just talking about discretion; they're talking about deception. Their loneliness strikes me as well-earned, and I can only hope it spurs some of them to long-overdue self-criticism.

Okay, so yesterday I finally gave in and bought a beard trimmer, which I'd resisted doing before because it meant that I officially have a beard that I do NOT WANT. I am now the proud proprietor of a glorified pet groomer. To use on my face. At least the guy pictured on the box is cute. And I guess I shouldn't be complaining too much, because if you use it on the lowest setting, you just end up looking as if you hadn't shaved since yesterday. That I think I can live with, even if it is a little Faith-era George Michael. It's better than Older-era George Michael.

In better news, I forgot that the long weekend starts Friday this time around. That means that Atsushi will be home in a little less than 24 hours. I have to work tomorrow, but we'll have time to have brunch first. I'm thinking of making the baked French toast recipe here. You must understand--people eat like this ALL THE TIME where I grew up. I'm surprised the recipe doesn't tell you to dump powdered sugar over the finished product, and I'm absolutely floored that the writer says you won't need syrup.

Last week, a bunch of people wrote to say, "Wow! I had no idea there was another American expat in Japan who was right of center!" It kind of puzzled me because, for one thing, this guy, who's more visibly conservative than I am, has a blog with a wide readership. And for another, I've never really felt all that marooned among leftists--and bear in mind that I'm not only gay but also employed in educational publishing. I only have one or two American friends, but among the colleagues and acquaintances I frequently discuss such things with, I think the majority supported the Iraq invasion, for example, even if they don't like the way the Bush administration is handling the reconstruction. I'm kind of anti-social and consort with homosexuals and work in a famously left-leaning industry, so I figured I'd see what Gaijin Biker's take was, since he's different on all counts. He said:

I went to an election day barbecue party last year in my Bush/Cheney t-shirt and I had lots of expat guys coming up to me to argue (plus, more entertainingly, slightly drunk Japanese girls telling me Bush is evil).

The typical American I-banker is a New Yorker from a well-off family who went to an ivy league college; those folks tend to be liberals, if of the limousine variety. Choosing a quantitatively-oriented job that pays well screens out some of the extreme tree-huggers, but there are still plenty left in the pool. And once you get outside the U.S. and look at bankers from Britain, France, etc., the Bush-hatred escalates in parallel with the love of nanny-state socialism.

The amazing thing I have learned is that someone can be a razor-sharp capitalist when it comes to analyzing companies or managing money, but still favor extreme liberal positions like super-high tax rates, massive social programs, gun control, etc. Look at George Soros!

That "Britain, France, etc." part applies to other industries, too, BTW--especially law, but also consulting, health care, and import-export. There's nothing more comically irritating than standing in a Tokyo fag bar with a German on your left and a Frenchman on your right--ganging up on you about how America is getting all arrogant as the world's policeman--and having to bite your lip to avoid going all, "Don't give me that crap! The only reason we are here having this conversation is that MY grandfathers kept YOUR grandfathers, honeychile, from killing YOUR grandfathers, bitch." Yes, I have a thing about this.

Maybe part of it is that Japanese electoral politics tends to be dull; the last few weeks are a real anomaly. The locals don't keep the air buzzing with the kind of talk about politics that would stimulate up expats to bring up what's going on at home. Only those of us who are already news junkies really tune in. Be all of that as it may, I'm up-front about my political positions, and I don't recall having had any tiresome confrontations with leftists who wouldn't back down when they're shocked to discover that I voted for Bush (and, in 2000, Santorum) and support the WOT and believe in privatizing everything but the Capitol Building.

I somehow missed this when Michael first posted it and have ended up in the odd position of getting my Gay Orbit bulletin through that straight guy over there. The original article is from 365Gay, which isn't always super-reliable, but I'm assuming it's accurate in the main:

During their 19-year relationship, Rene Price and Betty Jordan thought of themselves as married, especially after they registered as domestic partners on the last day of 2004.

But after Price died unexpectedly in July, Jordan learned that she was not entitled to the couple's Perth Amboy home, their cars, or the $9,000 in Price's bank account.

Price's death at age 61 exposed one of the many places where New Jersey's domestic partnership law does not treat partners like married couples: When a domestic partner without a will dies, the surviving partner has no right to his or her possessions.

This kind of thing always pisses me the hell off. I agree with Michael's commenter Don: "This is sad. But after 19 years of being together why didn't they have arrangements already made?" You said it, brother.

You know, Atsushi's life insurance goes to his parents. He owns our apartment outright. We don't have a joint bank account. He's closeted to both his parents and his company, so we can't do anything that would indicate official recognition of some kind of relationship between us. This is not my ideal arrangement, but my life with him is what's most important to me, so I make the necessary compromises. I am, after all, the one who decided to fall in love with a traditionalist Japanese man. And he sacrifices things, too: his company doesn't promote unmarried men up the management escalator. I make more or less as much money as he does and save responsibly, so I wouldn't have major financial worries; but I would have to leave the artifacts of our shared life behind almost in their entirety and start over. This is not a fun topic of conversation, but we've considered it a necessary one. I know where I stand, and I've made my peace with it.

Therefore, I find myself hard-pressed to lavish unalloyed sympathy on people who don't make wills, don't thoroughly acquaint themselves with the terms of their civil unions, and don't do everything they can to make sure their partners are provided for when they have, from where I'm standing, all kinds of tools at their disposal. Jordan and Price were able to be public about their relationship. They took the availability of civil unions so casually that they put theirs off for six months while one of them decided what to wear. I want to see laws changed so we can provide for our partners as much as anyone does. I also hope things are settled in Jordan's favor. But she and Price were irresponsible. It might not be fair that we have worries that straight married couples do not, but it's reality.

Seiji Maehara's attempt to cobble together a viable party from the tattered DPJ is summarized by the Yomiuri. Among the interesting tidbits to date:

Maehara's appointment of [Yukio] Hatoyama [as secretary general] is expected to be shortly followed by an invitation to [Ichiro] Ozawa to serve as acting president. It is believed the new leader hopes that by including veterans close to Hatoyama and Ozawa he can ensure party unity.

Hatoyama told reporters Sunday he believed the new leader was keen to ensure party unity, but his preferential treatment of midranking and younger members might cause unrest unless all members felt included.

A midranking party member said he thought the appointment of Takeaki Matsumoto, Maehara's fellow national security expert and member of the party's right wing would have an immediate unifying effect once discussion on national security and constitutional reform got under way.

Matsumoto, 46, a Tokyo University law graduate, was elected in the proportional representation bloc for Kinki, the third time he has won a lower house seat since 2000. He had held the positions of Policy Research Committee vice chairman and deputy in the shadow cabinet defense portfolio.

Maehara said in an NHK program Sunday morning that he did not include former SDP lawmakers, who have close relationships with labor unions, because he needed to reconsider the party's relationship with labor unions, especially public-sector ones.

I don't remember how it came up in conversation, but I mentioned "You Belong to Me," and this guy who must have been all of 23 was like, "Oh, yeah, the Jennifer Lopez song."

And I thought, Oh, no.

That's just so unjust. At first I was hoping that Lopez had done that whole retro thing that all the boy bands are doing and covered the Jo Stafford song. No, I don't want to see Stafford abused, either, but there's something especially repellant about someone like Lopez--whose entire singing career is built on frantic, unconvincing assertions that she's still down with the regular folk--denaturing something of Carly Simon's.

Perspective: when I was in college, the whole Riot Grrl thing was all over the news. You know, you'd have these white-bread women singing, like,

I go to Brown on Daddy's dime
But I'm totally oppressed
[skronky guitar noise]
It's an act of true sedition
When I shriek about my breasts
[skronky guitar noise]

The great thing about Carly, in retrospect, is that she approached her spoiled-brat neuroses without a trace of self-pity. Yes, she sang all solemnly about how empty her life felt despite all the parties and expensive romantic jaunts and stuff, but you never got the sense that she was pissy at the world about it. Who cares if she recycled the same half-dozen melodies for ten years and missed half the notes she sang?

Speaking of missing notes all the time: Madge. Are you excited about her new album? I am. I just hope it doesn't suck. The title is promising--whenever she remembers she's a neo-disco chick and stops trying to address the Darkness in our Materialistic Souls and crap like that, she still has it. I seem to be the only life-long Madonna fan, BTW, who doesn't think Ray of Light was the second coming. I'm sorry, crooning about how your new baby is wonderful because she was the latest, greatest step in your program of self-discovery is way creepy.

Have you noticed that my posts are scatty this week? Sorry. Atsushi's coming home for the weekend on Saturday. As he reminded me on the phone last night, exactly one year ago I was visiting him in Kyushu for the first time since his transfer. The first several months were tough, but we're in our groove. I still get fidgety right before I know I'm going to see him, though, so, you know, you get randomness.

Japan has had its second fugu poisoning death for this year:

The man prepared the puffer fish on Saturday after receiving it from a friend, according to a local public health center. Between about 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Sunday, the man ate sashimi from the liver of the fish. At about 11:30 p.m. that evening, he started showing signs of poisoning, and he died in the predawn hours of Monday.

The man had prepared puffer fish in the past, and his family did not stop him from eating it, officials said.

I don't remember having come across the first, but there was a party of four people last year of whom three were poisoned. I think two of them died.

Eric, who's a Pennsylvania native like me, has listed some projects that funnel federal pork into the commonwealth. As he says, each one is modest in scope, but together they contribute to government bloat. Besides, even a small amount of wasteful spending is, well, wasteful.

I'm not sure what the most wasteful federally-funded PA project in recent memory is. Being next door to the domain of Robert "Yes, West Virginia, there is a Santa Clause" Byrd kind of makes you complacent about these things. However, I was impressed by the prodigality and why-is-Washington-involved-in-this? pointlessness of a waterfront redevelopment initiative in Philadelphia, for which then-Representative Joseph Hoeffel secured over $10 million a few years ago. (Note Hoeffel's statist paranoia over what private control might do to the site.) It's not an ongoing project, so I don't think it's eligible for inclusion in Eric's list.

Added later: Perhaps I should point out that if you're thinking you vaguely recognize Hoeffel's name, it's because he was the Democrat who ran against Arlen Specter for the PA US Senate seat that was up for election last year. One of his campaign catch-phrases? "Fiscal restraint," naturally.

Japan isn't entirely happy with the results of the 6-party talks, however. The abductee problem was basically tabled:

On 19 September, the families of Japanese abducted by the DPRK held a Tokyo press conference in reaction to the joint statement adopted at the 6-party talks, voicing dissatisfaction: "The abduction issue was back-burnered." "This is nothing more than a statement predicated on the Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration, which is already drained of content."

The only part of the joint declaration to touch on the abduction issue was this: "After dealing appropriately, in accordance with the Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration, with various pending issues, we will implement a normalization of relations." The vice-representative of the group of families, Shigeo Iizuka (67), made plain his dissatisfaction: "The word abduction doesn't appear in the declaration, and the abduction issue was back-burnered." He indicated further concerns: "If the debate over nuclear issues goes on and on, and and there is no progress seen, the resolution of the abduction issue could become a great deal more difficult."

If you're not familiar with the issue: the DPRK sent agents to the Japanese coast in the 1970s to abduct about a dozen Japanese nationals in their late teens and early 20s. They were brought back to North Korea and forced to teach Japanese language and culture to DPRK spies. Of course, those who are alive are all middle-aged now. The most famous, because her husband happened to be US Army deserter Charles Jenkins, is Hitomi Soga. Their ending was happy: they've come back to Japan and been able to bring their college-age daughters. Other endings have not been happy. Megumi Yokota's family has probably been treated the worst, with the DPRK dismissively shoving random piles of bones at the Japanese as her remains. Other stories are in between. Kaoru Hasuike, for instance, was snatched while on vacation in Hokkaido as a college junior. Having been repatriated at 46, he received permission from his university to complete his degree but was having difficulty deciding on how to proceed--and do you wonder? There are, I think, five of the fifteen abductees accounted for.

For reference, the Ministry of Foreign affairs has the Japan-DPRK Pyongyang Declaration, from almost exactly two years ago, posted in Japanese and English. The section pertinent to the abduction issue is rendered this way in English:

With respect to the outstanding issues of concern related to the lives and security of Japanese nationals, the DPRK side confirmed that it would take appropriate measures so that these regrettable [遺憾な!--SRK] incidents, that took place under the abnormal bilateral relationship, would never happen in the future.

Well, the DPRK doesn't seem to have abducted anyone lately, but it certainly is maintaining an "abnormal" sense of cooperation. At the same time, it's not hard to understand why the nuclear issue superseded the abductee issue at the 6-party talks. However much the Japanese citizenry feels for the families of the abductees, the fact is that the nuclear problem could directly affect millions of people. The abductee problem, while an outrage, does not. Bilateral negotiations between Japan and the DPRK don't seem to fare much better much of the time, unfortunately, so Iizuka's fears may not be unfounded.

Okay, we'll have to see what actually comes of this, but strictly as a gesture, it's good news:

In a dramatic turn to six-nation negotiations that have been held since 2003, Pyongyang agreed to abandon the weapons and rejoin international arms treaties in exchange for energy assistance from neighboring nations and sovereignty guarantees from the United States.

Japan's envoy to the talks in Beijing, Kenichiro Sasae, said North Korea's nuclear program poses a serious threat to peace in Asia and welcomed Monday's outcome for finally settling on common goals. Most of Japan, the world's second biggest economy and host to about 50,000 U.S. military personnel, lies within range of North Korean missiles.

...

Japan's national broadcaster NHK quoted Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda as calling the agreement a positive step but also saying the nations need to "keep a close eye" on North Korea as negotiations proceed. Hosoda also pressed for a resolution to a dispute about the kidnappings of Japanese nationals by North Korea, calling it a key to improved relations between the countries.

Having to recognize the DPRK's "sovereignty" in any formal way is galling, but it's hardly a change from what we've been doing in practice. Of course, the DPRK is famous for reneging on agreements, so I'm with Hosoda on this one. We'll see.

I was in kind of a funk last night. I worked yesterday, and it was a satisfying but draining day. And even though it's officially a three-day weekend, Atsushi's bank has his department in today, so he couldn't come up to Tokyo. He's been working late all the time and not getting enough sleep, and I'm powerless to do anything about it except sound devoted during our ten-minute phone conversation each night. So I went out to one of my hangouts, where the guys behind the bar have all known me for years, to mellow out a little.

They started drawing my vodka as soon as I stepped in the door, and I reached into my bag for my coin purse. It wasn't there. So I rummaged around a little. Then I took my Discman and CD case and handkerchief and water purifying straw and space blanket out, and it still wasn't there. My coin purse is frequently a topic of conversation, because the big joke among the bar guys is that I always pay with exact change. (Don't ask me why, but in this math-skill-obsessed country, paying with exact change is uncommon. Given that the smallest paper bill denomination is ¥1000, the equivalent of US $9 or so, you'd think people would do whatever possible to minimize the number of coins they carry, but they don't.) So they were standing there expecting me to give my usual exact ¥600, and then the bar master started chortling, "Sean-chan, that's the coin purse your honey gave you for your birthday two years ago. The one you never let out of your sight. You don't mean to say you forgot it. We're going to have to tell your boyfriend. We're going to have to report you to Hermès for this one--it's accessory abuse!" Objectively speaking, I guess it was kind of funny--when you walk into a gay bar, naturally, everyone glances over at you, and I'm sure I looked pretty weird yanking things out of my little camera bag and getting increasingly frustrated. All I had to do was get out my wallet for a ¥1000 bill and be done with it, after all.

The thing was, the master was right: it's hokey to say, but having my coin purse with me makes me feel as if Atsushi were close by. It was as if I'd been neglectful and forgotten to bring him along; I was even more unsociable than usual the whole night.

I feel better now, though--not just because I've gotten a grip on myself, but because Atsushi and I will have ready-made in-joke material for tonight's phone call: Instapundit was not only kind enough to give me another link but also kind enough to use it to the end of giving CNN's Aaron Brown a good cuffing. It makes me so happy.

I don't think it's possible to convey just HOW MUCH Aaron Brown annoys me. It's possible that in private life, he's generous and humble and easy-going; but he has to be the most oozingly self-righteous journo on the planet in his professional life. (Once he and Jane Arraf were on a split screen together, and it was like the irresistible smug force meeting the immovable smirky object. I thought they might merge into some vortex of condescension and suck in the whole universe or something.) CNN is the only English-language news source on our cable subscription--not that I miss BBC World, or anything--so I usually grit my teeth and watch to keep from feeling entirely cut off from televised news. I have my limits, though, and Atsushi knows from long experience that when Brown comes on the air, I can be expected to mutter curses at the TV until I just can't take anymore and have to switch back to NHK. It's part of our domestic routine by this point. Suffice it to say, I am delighted to be of modest assistance in deflating that gasbag.

The Democratic Party of Japan has selected its new top four post-Okada leaders:

The DPJ's leader Seiji Maehara decided on 18 September to tap Yukio Hatoyama as Secretary General, Takeaki Matsumoto as chair of the Policy Research Committee, and Yoshihiko Noda as chair of the Diet Affairs Committee. He gathered his new top three men in the evening, planning to confer about responses to the special Diet session called for 21 September.

Maehara is interesting. It appears that he may do the Clinton-in-1992 thing:

Seiji Maehara, a young conservative, began reshaping the main opposition bloc on Sunday by appointing new officers and outlining plans for a stronger military and smaller spending in a vision that drew comparisons to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "third-way" government.

Maehara, a 43-year-old defense expert who wants a more assertive role for Japan's military overseas, was narrowly elected a day earlier to head the DPJ, edging aside staid party veteran and co-founder Naoto Kan.

The new leader said Sunday he would re-examine his party's close ties to labor unions, trim wasteful tax spending and push to amend Japan's Constitution so the country's Self Defense Forces would have greater freedom to fight overseas and support its allies. Maehara also wants spending cuts balanced by strong funding for education and other social welfare programs.

Maehara is strong on defense and says Japan's Constitution must clearly give the SDF the right to fight back if attacked and include a new article stipulating its role in aiding allies.

Of course, Clinton wasn't a defense expert. What I'm referring to is more the idea that Maehara is adopting some positions usually associated with those to his party's right while sweetening them with talk about spending on social programs dear to those on his left. Maehara's website has linked, among his writings, this magazine article from November 2001 about Japan's close defense ties with the US, against the backdrop of 9/11. It's lengthy, but one thing that stands out is that Maehara doesn't--or didn't then--see the Japan-US alliance as arising naturally from our similar societies as Koizumi does:

[T]he value of offering visible aid, recognized by the American people, when our ally the US is suffering, does not stop at the psychological; rather, it is also necessary from the viewpoint of risk management regarding the allegiance itself.

It is fine, I believe, for there to be thinking to the effect that we may want to dissolve our relationship as allies, when we take the long-term view. However, at this moment in time, for our allegiance with the US to change character suddenly would most assuredly not work in Japan's national interest.

That seems fair enough. Of course, maybe I'm biased in Maehara's favor because--can I have failed to mention this?--the dude is hot. (He looks better talking than he does in the posed picture on his homepage, but the photo gives you the general idea.) In objective terms, he's probably not too seriously dreamy, but given the milieu in which he operates, he is very easy on the eyes. The rule seems to be that you're not allowed to be a middle-aged Japanese politician until you've survived a near-fatal whupping with the ugly stick. Right after the election, Gaijin Biker was all crowing about how the LDP had hot women and its opponents were guys who needed paper bags over their heads. Understandably, being hetero, he doesn't seem to have noticed that all the guys on the LDP side were no better.

Yes, I can shift in a paragraph from talking about the Japan-US defense partnership to making lustful comments about men. It's a talent. If you'd like to see me do it in a single clause, I'm sure I can arrange that, too.

Anyway, politics, blah, blah...Japundit thought, before the DPJ vote, that Maehara looks as if he needs more seasoning before he's ready to be a serious competitor for Prime Minister:

Maehara appears at first glance as if he will become a viable leader—in five or 10 years. He is obviously intelligent and talented, but still lacks the gravitas people expect from a prime minister. I got the impression that his candidacy was not for this particular election, but for the next one down the road. With his party in desperate straits, however, he might wind up getting chosen prematurely. Let's hope he doesn't have to go on the political version of life support.

Reasonable enough. On the other hand, we're all just guessing. Politics in this media age frequently thrusts people into situations that turn out to be trial by fire. We may find out relatively quickly whether Maehara can make his combination of hawkishness, support for increased social welfare spending, talk about small government, and near-unprecedented level of cuteness potentially media-friendly image connect with Japanese voters.

You have to read the latest at Go Fug Yourself [strong language alert]. The girls are surpassing themselves, especially on the Renée Zellweger entry. My sides! Personally, I think the real fraud is that which was perpetrated on the American public by all those fashion writers proclaiming that Zellweger is the new Grace Kelly. (Given which way soon-to-be-annulled hubby allegedly swings, you'd think he'd care about having Grace's legacy abused that way--but whatever.) Too funny! I would say the Britney one is funny, too, but it would be mean to acknowledge laughing at it, so I won't.

Added at 21:30: I like Tom's take, too.

May I ask a favor of the people who are doing stuff that makes Japan trendy again? Could you knock it off? 'Cause, see, if it becomes too fashionable, I'm going to get all grossed out and have to leave.

I was talking to this guy the other night, and he said something to the effect of, "Well, you certainly chose your specialization well. Japan is hot right now." I didn't quite know how to answer. The dude was a stylist from LA, around my age. He probably wouldn't have found anything odd, bless him, about the idea of choosing a college major in your late teens with the express hope that it would put you at the cutting edge of hip when you were 33.

But I'm more the preserver/custodian type. I was born and brought up in Pennsylvania (long and noble history of contributing to American liberty, but currently declining in relative population and influence). The heaviest cultural influence on our family was my grandfather, who was from England (glorious imperial past now several steps removed from the shabby-genteel present). In college I studied modern Japanese poetry (nothing more recent than the 1930s). After the bubble burst, Japan's HAPPENING! HERE! NOW! cachet was lost to South Korea and China, with Japan taking a forceful but unassuming place as an established economic power. I moved here and felt very at home.

Got it? I like things that are grand and beautiful, but also kind of past-it and mouldering and a bit scuffed up. If other people want to live in thriving boomtowns like...I don't know...Las Vegas, I think that's great. I'm a libertarian; innovation makes it easier for a wide variety of people to have richer, better lives and stuff. I really believe that.

But all this crap about how Gwen Stefani and anime and Beat Takeshi and Koizumi and blah-blah-blah are making Japan cool again is annoying. It is RUINING MY PARTY.

So remember: Japan is tired. Try Vietnamese food. Or Korean soap stars. Or Chinese liquor. Or Thai martial arts movies. You know, Asia's a big continent. Lots to choose from. Just stop telling me how fashionable it is to be a Japanophile before I throw up all over you.

Thanks!

Added on 18 September: Atsushi--who had the rare opportunity not to work until midnight today--pointed out during our phone call tonight that, given Japan's aging society, excessive hipness is not something I'm likely to have to worry about for long. Point taken.

Since Michael plugged this guy again, it's a good time to link this post of his, in which he recounts how seeing the trailer for Brokeback Mountain brought back to him his own ambivalence when coming out:

Why can't I quit you. Why can't I quit these feelings for my teenage friends. Why are my dreams of this. Why can't I make jokes why can't I talk dirty why can't I feel comfortable when the girls walk by us. Why does this feel forced. Why am I apart. Why am I hiding why am I out here looking for secret encounters why am I a cheating lying fool. Why can't I be more intimate with her. Why can't I change. Why can't I figure my way out of this box.

I think Chris is right when he says that you probably have to have come out in middle age for what he's talking about to resonate in the specific way it did with him. But one of his commenters is also right when he says that most of us went through the same enraged self-flagellation in whatever way was suited to the age and other circumstances in which we found ourselves coming out.

The last woman I ever dated was smart, attractive, funny, sarcastic; she and I had similar spiritual views and arty tastes. I worked so hard at trying to make myself fall in love with her you would have thought I was studying for the bar exam. In fact, I felt as if I were studying for the bar exam--without having gone through law school. Nothing was intuitive, it was all complicated, my friends acted as if it made perfect sense but it was all arbitrary to me, and I tried to work it into my brain but nothing would take hold. Getting a summa cum laude degree in Japanese literature? Ha. Cakewalk, compared to trying to make yourself into another person. I hated myself for it and, to my everlasting discredit, took it out on her.

I treated my first boyfriend like hell, too. No, you're not imagining things if you see a pattern forming here; and yes, I did grow up eventually. He helped quite a bit with that, actually. He told me once, soon after we'd started tentatively dating, that he'd come out to his mother when he was 13.

I think I physically dropped my drink. 13, as in, junior high school 13? At this point, he explained quietly that, considering what the generation of gays before us had given up to make it easier for us to be true to what we were, he thought the least he owed them was to be up-front about being gay once he was sure he was. I can't say I'd recommend that course of action to 13-year-olds, but as a way of thinking, it stuck with me. It's one of the reasons that, when I started reading blogs, I decided to comment about gay issues using my full name.

Another helpful conversation I had early on was with a friend. This was in my "I'm probably not even really bisexual; this is just an experimental-type stage I'm going through on the way to finding the right girl" phase. (Believe it or not, that made sense to me at the time.) At one point, he'd had enough of my self-pity routine and snapped. I then got a version of the speech I now find myself having to give to younger guys when called upon to play big brother (though I use less testy tones):

"The first time you were with a man, did it feel as if the whole world suddenly clicked? As if you were a whole person? As if you could breathe normally for the first time, even though you hadn't realized you weren't before? As if the fact that you were alive made sense? Okay, now, having done that, having figured out who you are, you seriously think you're going to rein it all back in? Go back to being 1000-Repressions Charlie--"

"My grandfather's English and I grew up in Pennsylvania; the straight men in my family are repressed, too."

"Shut up. It's like, you have the talent and the natural inclination to be a great statistician, and you're sitting around bitching because you can't be a concert pianist. Just knock it off."

"Why is everyone so goddamned eager for me to be gay?"

"No one wants you to be anything, man. We just don't want you to be a liar who ruins his life."

I'm glad I was ready to listen--which is not to be taken as a criticism of men or women who take longer to figure things out for themselves. I just was past the stage in which I felt vaguely unlike my friends and figured that I was kind of an introvert, and pretending otherwise was foolish.

All of which is a long way of saying, I second Michael's endorsement. Chris writes beautifully, whether he's talking about joy or pain. Or both at once.

Simon links to an interesting article by Yoichi Funabashi, an Asahi senior correspondent who's now a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution. It asks the question about how the LDP's landslide relates to China from the opposite direction I've been asking it--namely, how will Koizumi's victory play out in Japan's China policy, and what will that mean as the two countries evolve economically?

Curiously enough, foreign policy was almost totally absent from the pre-election debate. Some may perceive this as a sign that Japan is growing increasingly inward-looking, as Koizumi simply wanted to limit the agenda to the single domestic issue of postal privatization. However, this reading would be wrong. Although very difficult to detect since it was discreetly under the radar, I would nevertheless contend that the China factor was actually one of the largest issues in this election, as more than any other factor, a rising China and its direct challenge to Japan set the context for the debate.

I'm not 100% sure I'm convinced by every jot and tittle that follows, but Funabashi is right in the main. Foreign policy was brought up only by relatively minor opposition parties, and then almost exclusively with reference to the SDF deployment in Iraq and the proposed revisions to the Japanese constitution. Not even specific policy issues that were the subjects of recent flare-ups--such as the disputed fossil fuel fields in the East China Sea--were given attention, let alone the larger question of how Japan intends to maintain its strategic role in a shifting Asia.

One part I'm not sure about--not that I disagree, mark you; I just think it could go either way--is this:

Koizumi's landslide victory may in time prove to be the last gasp of the LDP, as the public likely holds unrealistic expectations of how much Koizumi will be able to accomplish before he steps down next September.

Given their shocked reactions to their own party's staggering victory, that was on minds of quite a few LDP members themselves right after the election, too. I wonder, though. Japan is a conformist society, but the Japanese have personal idiosyncrasies like everyone else. Just about everyone here has had multiple experiences with, say, projects at work that failed because protocol and consensus-building were prioritized over practical decision-making. I think it very possible that Koizumi is clever enough to find a way to blame any further stalling of reforms over the next year on, if not hold-outs in the House of Councillors, then federal bureaucrats. In that case, it could be his successor who's in big trouble and will need to get used to doing a Margaret Thatcher impression.

Funabashi doesn't put it this way, but he does by extension raise another very disturbing question: Is it even possible for Japan to fashion a really workable comprehensive China policy, or have conditions gotten to the point that protecting Japan's interests will mean constantly shifting in response to this week's constellation of trade and cultural conflicts? Remember that you have to factor in (something else Funabashi doesn't weigh) that the US and Japan have become even closer military allies over the last several years. The possibilities are endless. It will be very interesting to see what Koizumi does with his momentum over these next few weeks when the sugar high is over.

Another reason to wonder what the PRC thinks about the Koizumi administration's landslide last week is UN Security Council reform, which has been in the news less frequently than before but is still a current issue:

Koizumi, fresh off a landslide victory for his Liberal Democratic Party in Sunday's parliamentary elections, urged U.N. member nations to work toward a quick decision on an expanded council during the upcoming session of the General Assembly.

"Asia and Africa, once under the shackles of colonialism, are now significant players in our global economy. For the last 60 years, Japan has determinedly pursued a course of development as a peace-loving nation," Koizumi said Thursday. "The composition of the Security Council must reflect these fundamental changes."

The Security Council currently has 15 members. Ten are elected for two-year terms and five permanent members--the United States, Britain, Russia, China and France--have veto power.

Japan has argued that, as the second-largest U.N. contributor after the United States, it deserves a U.N. role more commensurate with its status as the world's second-largest economy.

Japan is contributing US$346.4 million (€281.31 million) this year, nearly 20 percent of the U.N. general budget.

Japanese officials said Thursday they want to open talks next year on paying less--a move that could spur a drawn-out battle with fellow member states.

I'm sure there are people with sincere, high-minded ideas about the "global community" who will find such thinking crass and utterly abominable. Personally, I find it crass and utterly understandable. Whatever you believe its role should ideally be, the UN of reality serves as an influence-peddling bureaucratic machine of globe-buggering dimensions. If Japan is disgorging enough money to cover 20% (20%!) of its general budget, why would it not expect to be in the choicest possible positions to take advantage of the action?

*******

Speaking of wastes of money, if you're sick of the grandiloquent, undersubscribed industrial park you currently own, Osaka Prefecture may be in a position to help:

A 65 billion-yen high-rise is being sold in the bargain basement-at a 93 percent discount.

The 56-story Rinku Gate Town Building opened as a semi-public project in 1996 in southern Osaka Prefecture.

After nine years of losses, it will be sold for a mere 4.5 billion yen, under a plan to rehabilitate its debt-laden operator, partly owned by Osaka Prefecture.

The building was constructed in a waterfront development project that is directly connected by rail and roadway to Kansai International Airport on a manmade island in Osaka Bay.

The office and hotel complex in Izumisano, Osaka Prefecture, will be sold to a consortium led by Shinsei Bank for 7 percent of its construction cost.

That will leave a multibillion yen debt with the Osaka prefectural government and local corporate investors-shareholders of the building operator-as well as creditor banks.

According to the rehabilitation plan, the failed Rinku Gate Tower Building Co. will ask creditor banks to forgive 39 billion yen in debt from construction costs.

Osaka Prefecture will be asked to give up 2.2 billion yen it loaned for operating costs.

When other costs are included, the bill for the prefectural government will likely total about 6 billion yen in the next decade.

Oh, too bad. Shinsei Bank beat you to it. Well, at least you're not the Osaka Prefectural Government. Or its taxpayers.

Added: I guess I should point out, before someone does it for me, that that last line is a nice parting shot but is somewhat misleading. The government money that financed the building probably came partially from the Ministry of Construction (which doesn't exist as an individual entity anymore) and may also have come partially from FILP, which was funded by postal savings and insurance deposits. In other words, not only didn't it all come from Osaka, it probably didn't all come from taxes--though, of course, the citizenry ended up paying for it somehow.

These are the sorts of things that take on importance when you live in a society that (1) is aging rapidly and (2) is obsessed with bean counting:

A 110-year-old woman who is ranked 19th on the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry's list of oldest people in the country, which was released Tuesday, may not be alive, although she is still registered with the Arakawa Ward Office in Tokyo.

The ward office has not confirmed she is alive since at least 2002. A ward official admitted, "We automatically put her on the list submitted to the ministry."

The latest finding shocked the ministry because "the incident could shake the credibility of the list of the nation's oldest people." [Stop it! You're killing me!--SRK]

The ministry said it would consider asking the ward authorities to conduct a survey on the elderly in the ward in person.

Soon, you won't count as an elderly citizen without your official "Certified: Not Dead Yet!" badge from the MHLW.

Now, there is a substantive issue lurking here: the possibility that someone is still drawing pension money for a family member who died and thus, obviously, no longer qualifies for it. What's revealing--in addition to hilarious--is that the ministry seems more worried about whether its list of rankings is accurate than about the possibility of fraud, at least as quotations were selected by the Yomiuri. (I wonder, will there be a party in Number 20's honor if she finds out she gets to move up?)

Some of the opponents of Japan Post privatization are forming their own faction in the Diet, or at least proposing doing so:

Legislators who were dropped by the LDP after voting against Japan Post privatization in the ordinary Diet session but managed to win reelection as unaffiliated candidates have begun working toward the formation of a new faction. Takeo Hiranuma stated to the press on 15 September, "If unaffiliated people of the same way of thinking get together, they can form a single new faction." There are, however, those among the unaffiliated legislators who are making moves toward uniting forming a united faction with the People's New Party, so responses may be divided.

Hiranuma is a former Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry, BTW. Not a man of mean power and influence.

Ooh, we like the sound of this:

The Japanese and US governments have begun to coordinate efforts to establish the command center for a "Central Rapid Response Team," a division of the Ground Self-Defense Forces to be newly established in 2006 for the purposes of responding to domestic terrorism and contributing to international missions, on the grounds of the US military base Camp Zama (Kanagawa Prefecture). The plan is to rotate the US Army's First Corps command center from US soil to Camp Zama as part of the restructuring of US military deployments. Japan-US military integration looks poised to progress one more step due to the move, in which command functions brought together at Zama will be used to for the counter-terrorism measures of both countries both domestically and in contributing to international efforts.

I'll be interested to see what more we learn about this. Last year, there was the news that the Japanese federal government was asking Israel for help with its domestic counter-terrorism measures. I haven't seen anything about it since then.

The Iraqi foreign minister is formally asking Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura to extend the deployment of non-combat SDF personnel in Iraq:

On 14 September, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nobutaka Machimura and Iraqi Foreign Minister al-Zebari met at the United Nations headquarters in New York; al-Zebari officially requested an extension of the term of the SDF deployment, which ends in December. Machimura responded that Japan will make its decision based on a comprehensive assessment of the status of Iraq's reconstruction. Also, both foreign ministers were in accord about [the need for] close cooperation toward the goal of stability in Iraq.

The Nikkei says that this is the first official request for such an extension made at a meeting, but Koizumi was reporting a few weeks ago that he'd received such a request (by letter, presumably). His response was almost exactly the same as Machimura's, too. It's not clear how much more time al-Zebari asked for. (This year's deployment is already an extension of last year's, BTW.) Of course, in return, Japan has extracted a promise from Iraq to support its bid for permanent membership on the UN Security Council.

Michael posts about this interesting item:

Scholars studying military personnel policy have found a controversial regulation halting the discharge of gay soldiers in units that are about to be mobilized. The document is significant because of longstanding Pentagon denials that the military requires gays to serve during wartime, only to fire them once peacetime returns. According to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, gays and lesbians must be discharged whether or not the country is at war.

The regulation, contained in a 1999 "Reserve Component Unit Commander's Handbook" and still in effect, states that if a discharge for homosexual conduct is requested "prior to the unit's receipt of alert notification, discharge isn't authorized. Member will enter AD [active duty] with the unit." The 1999 document was obtained by researchers at the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM), a think tank at the University of California, Santa Barbara during research for an ABC Nightline story.

The source certainly looks legit, though I can't judge conclusively. If it's correct, it's very strange. The main argument people use in defending the ban on open gays in the military is unit cohesion. Does that criterion magically become less important when the unit is actually going to go into combat? A friend who's a military guy commented here last year to the effect that DADT is enforced inconsistently and has become a cheap out for some soldiers. I don't have any first-hand experience, but it doesn't seem hard to believe when you see stuff like this.

Results of the Nikkei's latest web-based poll (insert the usual SLOPs caveats here):

On 12 and 13 September, in the wake of the ruling coalition's crushing victory, the Nippon Keizai Shimbun Corporation conducted its fourth Internet poll on the election. Support for the cabinet stands at 54%, 4 points higher than during the last poll just before election day. Support for the LDP is at 45%, an increase of 5 points. Support for the DPJ is reined in at 29% (a 1-point drop). The proportion saying they look forward to the Koizumi administration's tackling the job of improving relations with the PRC, ROK, and other neighboring states reached 69%.

It's helpful to remember that the Nikkei serves a readership that's...well, a lot like me: pro-markets and suspicious of big government. Even within those boundaries, though, I would have been interested to hear what specific China and Korea policies it supported.

New Bonnie Raitt album out today. I like it, but then I expected to; the woman's quality control over the last fifteen years has been something to behold. I'm sure my mother's ecstatic. She's a MAJOR Bonnie devotee. You know, like, she not only owns even the mid-period albums that are 95% crap--Home Plate, anyone?--she also listens to them. She and a friend of hers from Michigan have traveled to see her perform countless times, they get backstage passes through the fan club and stuff, the whole bit. For a solid year when Nick of Time came out, she listened to nothing else. NOTHING. EVER. She'll try to put it over on you that in, like, December 1989 she listened to Revolver once, but she's full of it; it was Dad who put it on the stereo and she just happened to be in the room.

Bear in mind, this was when the album came out--before all the publicity around the Grammy nominations brought Raitt into prominence and made all the Baby Boomer yuppies in America be like, "Oh, wow! It's like, this is totally my story. Well, except for the dropping out of Radcliffe part--who would do that?--but, you know, not finding your true love until hubby number three, and crying when you think about your biological clock ticking, and having this life that's a total journey, and all that is so me!"...and turn their fabled Purchasing Power to the task of making it googol platinum. (Okay, that's not very nice of me. It wasn't really the people who bought it that drove me nuts; it was the press that fell all over itself to treat it as an event of Great Significance when an album made by a 39-year-old appealed to other 39-year-olds.)

Of course, no expansive personality is truly interesting without a major-big-time flaw, and Bonnie's is that she's a sucker for every lame-o liberal activist project IN THE WORLD. You know, No Nukes and Never Kill a Tree and stuff. She's like (sting)^bono. On the other hand, I've always been impressed by her involvement in the push for benefits and royalty reform on behalf of aging R&B pioneers whose innovations made them no money but proved lucrative springboards for later rock-era artists. She's also very modest when she shares a stage with one of her heroes. I was lucky enough to see her with Charles Brown and Ruth Brown on the Longing in Their Hearts tour. We were unlucky enough to see it at the Mann Music Center, which has worse acoustics than the average bedroom closet, but the show itself was a blast.

Speaking of performances, I think she does a big show in New Orleans every year; given her predilection for benefit concerts, I wonder whether she'll turn it into one next go-round. (Happily, she's a celebrity I haven't heard bloviating about the failures of the federal government to play Big Daddy and make everything better after the hurricane, though I can't imagine she's not thinking along those lines.) Anyway, I'm guessing Mom will be pleased with the new album, which is good.

Something interesting I haven't seen given much play: how did the PRC react to Koizumi's big win on Sunday? I've been looking and Googling, but I haven't found anything substantive. There's this from Kyodo about a story in a Singaporean newspaper--which is at least part of the Chinese-speaking world. It says the obvious:

The Chinese-language Lianhe Zaobao said Koizumi is expected to become even more powerful after this election and could easily win wide support for his views on controversial issues such as his recurring visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine. The controversial shrine honors 14 Class-A war criminals along with 2.47 million war dead.

There's also a translated Xinhua editorial at The People's Daily, but it's pretty muffled, too:

In terms of foreign policies, the LDP noted the need to improve ties with Asian neighbors. Yet, the points was rarely mentioned in Koizumi's campaign speeches.

After the voting, the premier stopped short of dismissing the possibility of paying a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine when he was answering questions on a live program of the public broadcaster NHK.

His repeated visits to the war criminal-enshrining facility was the major stumbling block in relations with China and South Korea.

The Yasukuni Shrine issue causes the greatest number of public snits, but there are more important things to think about, trade and energy policy chief among them. It will be interesting to see, and I'm sure we will after everyone's finished gawking at the numbers and talking about Japan Post privatization.

Just for a sense of perspective, here's the section of the DPJ party platform about Japan-China relations; I have no doubt that strategists in Beijing read it:

The restructuring of Japan-China relations is one of the most important tasks for Japanese diplomacy. [Japan should] build a relationship of trust between the leaders of the two nations, and on that basis, systematize and deepen policy dialogue in fields such as the economy, finance, currency, energy, the environment, maritime activities, and security.

I looked--pretty carefully, I think--but I didn't see anything concrete about the big Japan-PRC sticking points. By contrast, the LDP manifesto contained a blandishment or two about mutual prosperity, but there was also this item among its 120 pledges:

Concerning the Hoppo and Takeshima Islands, we will assiduously pursue a resolution. Further, we will secure the maritime interests of our nation, such as the promotion of the development of natural resources in the East China Sea and surveying of the continental shelf.

I'm sure the Chinese got that message. The Koizumi administration's China policy has, after all, not only included refusal to stop visiting the Yasukuni Shrine but also threats to do exploratory drilling in disputed undersea oil and gas fields.

Added over cold coffee: I asked Simon whether he'd seen anything in the Chinese media, and this is his answer: Why, no, not much. He also notes that such mention as there has been has focused on the Yasukuni Shrine issue.

Koizumi is still saying that he will play by the rules and step down as Prime Minister in 2006, but there are noises about extending his tenure:

On Sunday, Koizumi reiterated he would step down in September 2006, when his term as LDP president expires, but more and more members of the ruling coalition have floated the idea of possibly extending his term beyond next September.

"That's an important matter we have to think about," LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe said Sunday night about the possible extension.

"The LDP's rule [that Koizumi's term expires next September] is one thing, but on the other hand there's the question of how we should interpret the people's will expressed [in the landslide victory] in this election," said LDP Acting Secretary General Shinzo Abe, who is frequently cited as a possible successor to Koizumi.

New Komeito representative Takenori Kanzaki also hinted his support for extending Koizumi's term. "I'll be speaking about [term extension] on various occasions from now on. Winning this many seats also comes with a certain responsibility for the prime minister," Kanzaki said Sunday.

Yeah, Koizumi has a "certain responsibility," all right. Having finally returned the LDP to complete and utter domination, he's going to have the party leadership anxious to squeeze whatever remaining gains from him it can. It seems to me that, overall, it would be good for him to groom a successor over the next year and leave office as planned. If Koizumi gets through a few more key policy changes and is able to say, next year around this time, "Thank you, Japan, for giving me the opportunity to do my job. It's finished. Time to move on to [say, Abe]," it would help to counter the LDP's image as a party full of people who seek the greatest amount of power they can amass and then keep a death-grip on it well into their dotage.

Speaking of which, people are already starting to say that it's scary that the LDP won so many seats because now it's going to turn into some big, scary juggernaut. Maybe. Let's remember a few things, though: a lot of government power rests in the appointed officials in the federal ministries, and the elected officials know it. And some of the key public employees don't even work for the federal ministries. Recall that one of the toughest parts about getting Japan Post privatization through was the resistance of the postal workers' unions, which threatened not to use their rural outposts to drum up the support of voters for LDP candidates. Koizumi rode into office on a wave of popularity the first time, too; but we all saw soon enough that that wasn't enough for him to get everything he wanted by a long shot.

Hell, the Japan Post privatization package itself has already been watered down considerably; in fact, the watering down started quite a while ago. (Once again, the analogy is not perfect, but check the potential parallels with the California power privatization fiasco.) Koizumi's next project is said to be the integration of the government's two pension systems: the one for civil servants and the one for the rest of us salaried types. Worryingly, he's been quoted as saying, "It will necessary to listen to a variety of opinions while formulating the plan." Sound familiar?

In any case, it is true that the LDP focused hard on Japan Post privatization during the run-up to the election. It's ridiculous, though, to say that that means that voters, in practice, were voting on that single issue and thus can't be said to have expressed support for Koizumi's overall policy platform. Note that, if it's the DPJ we're talking about, its opposition to the LDP's Japan Post scheme was very well-conceived.

No, the Japanese public has not lost its ambivalence toward the SDF deployment in Iraq or the possible amendment of the constitution to allow for combat participation in collective-defense missions. But please. The other parties were all over those issues. They had plenty of opportunities to make their case. Japanese voters, in turn, had the opportunity to, say, vote in a lot of LDP candidates in single-seat districts but "balance" them with more proportional-representation seats from the opposition. They failed to do so. They failed to do so in a big, bad way. They failed to do so even in Tokyo, which is not generally an LDP stronghold. They failed to do so in such a big, bad, Tokyo-included way that it's hard to interpret the election results in any way but that the electorate wants Koizumi and his crew of upstarts to do what they say they're going to do.

Here you go:





Yeah, I know—not funny. Cute, though. (It's from here.) My camera batteries were dead, and I didn't get around to recharging them until I was getting ready for my buddy's birthday party yesterday. Here I am cropped from one of the group shots:

What Connie said.

Yesterday was the birthday party of a very close friend, so from 19:00 on I was pretty much away from sources of news, except when I talked to Atsushi at midnight-ish. He told me then that it was 自民党大勝利 (jimintou daishouri: "big victory for the LDP"), but I spent the rest of the night carousing and have just awakened.

My loverman was not exaggerating. The ruling coalition won over 300 seats. And the LDP alone--without its coalition partners--has an outright majority:

The 44th lower house general election, in which the major point of contention was which party would control the government, was held on 11 September, with vote counting beginning immediately [after the polls closed]. The LDP won overwhelmingly in both single-seat districts and proportional representation blocs, and together with the Komeito topped 300 seats. It appeared to be an expression of confidence in the trajectory of party president Jun'ichiro Koizumi's reforms, and it is probable that the Japan Post privatization bills will be passed in a special diet session at the end of this month.

...

The LDP will control the chairs of, and won more than the 269 seats necessary to form an absolute majority of members in all of, the lower house's standing committees.

In the morning print edition of the Nikkei, the numbers are updated:

LDP: 295
New Komeito: 30
DPJ: 113
Social Democrats: 6
Communists: 9

The rest of the seats that have been counted went in handfuls to unaffiliated candidates or those with the People's New Party, which was founded by rebel LDP legislators who voted against Japan Post privatization. DPJ leader Katsuya Okada has already announced officially that he's stepping down. Prime Minister Koizumi looks as if he really enjoyed swallowing that canary.

A 2/3 majority! I can't even wrap my head around that--and I like Koizumi and was rooting for him. Of course, there's a lot to think about. The LDP made Japan Post its focal point for the election, but the opposition parties were very vocal about Article 19, the SDF in Iraq, and social welfare policy. Those are issues on which the Japanese are deeply divided, and the election results surely don't signify an unqualified mandate for all aspects of Koizumi's foreign policy. Nevertheless, the voters had a chance to reject the Koizumi government, and it means something that they didn't. (It's worth noting, though, that coalition partner New Komeito is much more pacifist than the LDP--certainly than the Koizumi cabinet--but despite its new dominance in the lower house, the LDP still needs the New Komeito to maintain its upper house majority.)

The English editions of the major dailies have their stories so far here: Asahi, Mainichi, Yomiuri, Japan Times. (Does the Sankei even have an English edition?)

Added at 17:11: Another interesting aspect of the snap election was the use of 刺客 (shikaku: "assassin," lit., "specialized stabber") candidates. These were the high-profile candidates fielded by the LDP in single-seat districts against those (formerly) in its own party who had voted against Japan Post reform. Most of the assassin candidates won.

Added at 18:31: Okay, just one more link to the Mainichi, whose English reports are most closely reflecting what we're seeing in non-linkable broadcast media. This one quotes a series of hilariously stunned LDP members all saying, essentially, "Whoa!" The original Japanese article is here, and its lead paragraph is far funnier:

As day broke the morning after lower house election day in the Nagatacho district of Tokyo, the LDP was having an attack of "296-seat shock." "We won so many seats, the prospect of the next election is frightening." With the LDP victorious and jubilant, and the DPJ soundly defeated and dazed, the blessed and the cursed were sharply distinguishable.

BTW, that former cabinet member quoted in the English article actually said this: "勝ったのにどうかと思うけど、怖い。ものが言えなくなってしまう。ファッショだよ。" ("We won, but I wonder whether this is for the best. It's frightening. I'm just dumbstruck. It's fascistic.") Yes, that last sentence is a literal translation, but since the quotation ends there, I'm not sure whether the official was referring to the cult of personality that can be said to surround Koizumi or to the high percentage of seats won or what.

Added at 19:24: Riding Sun calls the success of the Koizumi administration's strategy to field high-profile women candidates a vindication of the "Japanese Babe Theory." I think he's right--it's not a joke. Most of the women "assassins" seemed smart and lively and, dare I say, sassy. They stood in clear visual contrast to the stereotypical LDP politician. At the same time, I believe the move was also smart because the women candidates suggested a connection to the social and family issues--employment and pension figures, especially, but also education and child and elder care--that the party PR machine was deemphasizing but that most voters care the greatest deal about.

I don't want to downplay the capabilities of any of the candidates. They may, in fact, have expertise in hard policy issues that hasn't been given much attention yet. (At least one, Yuriko Koike, has already been Minister of the Environment.) But image matters, especially when the key issue in an election is an unsexy topic such as Japan Post privatization.

NHK's political yak show has all the party leaders on right now, BTW. No one is saying anything even slightly more interesting than you'd expect. Takebe is, of course, in his cool-biz shirt, looking as if he were headed off to the club for a few whiskeys the minute the lights go down; he appears very somber, but maybe he's just tired. Okada has regained some of his color, but of course he looks very unhappy, and it seems somewhat unkind for NHK to be showing him in extreme close-up when he talks.

LOL. Tamisuke Watanuki, a leader of the Japan Post opponents who were abandoned by the LDP, is talking. The expression on Takebe's face across the table! He looks as if he wanted to vault across the studio and throttle him.

Michael appears not to think anything interesting or important is being addressed here. I do. His current position on gay-directed charity work doesn't very obviously flow from what he said here, where that "color-blind" part seems to me to imply that he wanted no distinctions made at all. If he thinks it's okay to have relief efforts that are publicized as gay-friendly as long as they're not exclusionary, that seems sensible to me. That's my position, too. But then, on the basis of Michael's own reasoning about the rights of gays vis-à-vis those of ethnic minorities, I think asking him whether and why it's still wrong to say "we'd be especially happy to help other white folks" is pretty shrewd.

To me the distinction is, as social conservatives never tire of saying in a lot of other contexts, about behavior, not who you are. If someone offered room to refugees and included the line "We welcome Orthodox Jews," I don't think most people would find that inherently discriminatory. Orthodox Jews run their households according to certain constraints and could hardly be faulted for looking for help from (or offering help to) someone with whom they won't have to have lengthy discussions about expectations.

Today is the snap election here. We'll see whether Koizumi's conviction that the electorate supports his reforms--or supports the way he's going about them--is justified. Atsushi voted last week while he was here. The street was a madhouse yesterday when I got my haircut. (For those who follow my hair-related travails, yesterday found me being massaged with some cinnamon/ginger-y oil and then washed down with apple-scented shampoo. I half-expected to be loaded onto a platter, garnished with mint leaves, and served for dessert with hard sauce and whipped cream.) The Komeito flacks were, indeed, focusing exclusively on Japan Post privatization as they walked by and shook hands. The communists went by in a van blaring about health care and Article 9. We'll see who gets what when the results come in.

We've gotten to the point at which I can look in the mirror without jerking back and saying aloud, "Dad! When did you fly in to Tokyo?" Seriously, I look like my father, but with facial hair, I look exactly like my father. I still don't like having to trim the stupid thing and am hoping to get the go-ahead from my dermatologist to lop it all off again as soon as is feasible.

My most sarcastic friend--who once, when I showed up in my new flirty little acid-green knit shirt, greeted me with a hand on the shoulder and a drawled, "Thank goodness you've arrived, baby--a five-foot-tall Bloody Mary just came by looking for you"--was as non-judgmental as could be expected: "So, did you always have that on your face and I just didn't notice because of the lighting at GB?" More than one other friend has said, "It looks okay, but I liked you when you were more boyish-looking before." These are not, mark you, lecherous middle-aged friends; these are the guys I know in their early 20s. Not sure what that means.

Atsushi says I feel like a hedgehog. But it's only fair to note that I've been telling him he feels like a hedgehog every weekend for four years. He has the typical Asian whiskers that are sparse but perfectly round in cross-section. Each shaft sticks straight out like a boar bristle. After two days of not shaving his chin, he's like an emery bit. The emery bit of my dreams, but an emery bit nonetheless.

Exactly what are you on about, honey?

The LGBT liaison for New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin is sharply critical of the American Red Cross's response to Hurricane Katrina. Larry Bagneris is encouraging the LGBT community to donate money to a newly established fund directed to the needs of LGBT people. "I'm not willing to stick GLBT money where we're not getting any benefits from," said Bagneris, who is also the executive director of the New Orleans Human Relations Commission. "The needs of the community should be recognized."

Bagneris charges that his request for assistance for the LGBT community was met with indifference from Red Cross officials. He said that the Red Cross - which stands to gain $2 million thanks to the Gay and Lesbian Fund of Colorado which announced that because of a $1 million pledge by philanthropist Tim Gill, it will match donations to the Red Cross by Coloradoans up to $250 - was also not helpful in his appeal to raise money within the gay community and seemed to be more concerned about keeping its logo from being used for the effort than it was about helping people within the community. "Specifically, we said we need cash money. But we were shuffled from one room to the next. I said, 'The hell with it, let's take care of our own people,'" he said.

Notice that "let's take care of our own people" is seen as the last resort. [Sigh.]

You know, I've actually kind of been looking for something like this to funnel part of my donation money into. Obviously, general relief for whoever needs it is the highest priority, but let's face it: prejudice exists. Gays may, in fact, have a harder time finding people to take them in. Community centers that were assisting addicts or runaways might have little access to resources at this point. I don't see why I shouldn't earmark some of my donation money for taking care of my own.

But I have to say I'm pretty disinclined to hand it off to a drive led by someone like Bagneris. I know that not everyone who lives paycheck to paycheck does so because of devotion to the party mentality. Sometimes you need major car repairs and a root canal and new shingles over the garage during the same three-month period, and there goes the nest egg. I don't know that that would explain why most gays in New Orleans would be in such straits--assuming Bagneris knows what he's talking about--but we can introduce people to the wonderful concept of the savings account after the emergency has passed.

Be that as it may, I'm still not clear what the Red Cross was supposed to do better. Three incidents of harassment out of the thousands of gays that had to leave the city don't sound like an epidemic of homophobia to me. Could the Red Cross have done anything to prevent them? Did they involve serious physical threats? The other charges are even more nebulous. Was Bagneris trying to get Red Cross money for gays because they were somehow at a disadvantage when seeking relief? I can think of all kinds of reasons that unmarried, able-bodied men might be expected to yield in these circumstances that have nothing to do with homosexuality. And as for the unheeded requests for money, it's not clear whether the Red Cross was giving out funds to any specific population groups at the time he was dunning it.

Maybe it's not nice of me to harp on this. As I say, I've been looking for a good place to send gay-directed aid. I just wish people like Bagneris didn't take every conceivable opportunity to carp that people are being mean to the queers when there are a gajillion other things to manage. It would be nice to hear about gay guys' saying, "Look, I don't have children to worry about. I go to the gym and am in good shape. And I had a job that honed my CONTROL FREA...uh, organizational skills. How can I help?" I'm sure that's happening a lot in reality; it's just that well-connected complainers such as Bagneris are the ones who get quoted as representative of What Gays Are Thinking.

(Via Gay News)

I know that a lot of us are heartily sick of this topic, but for those who can still take it, the following might be instructive.

I write, of course, from Japan. You know, the Japan that makes social-democrat/third-way types feel all warm and fuzzy? The Japan in which enlightened technocrats, enshrined in the federal ministries in Kasumigaseki and insulated from elections and politicking and evil market forces and stuff, guide the nation toward a bright nationally-insured future? Yeah, the bloom is somewhat off the economic rose, but in social policy terms, a lot of my left-leaning acquaintances still swoon over the degree of ministry control here.

Well, I will tell you as someone who has lived here for a decade: what you hear about disaster preparedness ALWAYS involves local intiatives. Sometimes, municipal governments are involved; other times, it's smaller public institutions. 1 September, the anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, was Disaster Prevention Day here. Apparently, over a million people participated in demonstrations and drills and things. Our apartment building's management company distributed leaflets to our mailboxes, outlining what would happen if a quake hit and our building were declared unsafe until inspection. New survival gadgets are always cropping up in human interest features on NHK.

None of this means that the Ministry of Land, Transport, and Infrastructure, for instance, doesn't get involved in a big-time disaster. What it does mean is that...I mean, read this at Q and O. Bruce McQuain corrals a lot of criticisms of response at various levels of government and weighs their merits. One in particular is--well, I was going to call it butt-stupid, but that would be an insult to butts everywhere. Not to mention to the average stupid person, who could probably be relied on not to say anything quite this inane:

If Allbaugh were not an amateur, he would have known that communities, "faith-based organizations" and the private sector become overwhelmed by disasters more modest than this one. In a crisis the federal government should be the first responder, not the last, to take charge, not wait to be asked.

I don't know. Individual organizations may be feeling overwhelmed, but the overall response by private and local organizations seems to be working a damned sight better than anything the government has come up with. The issue isn't just that the constitution doesn't permit the President to barge in and tell a state governor, "Now, little lady, you just stand back and let the big boys handle this"--important as that is. It's also that only locals know local conditions. Level-headed people who are prepared can find ways to keep going until the government does, in fact, have a chance to get to them if necessary (via Joanne Jacobs).

In Japan, what we're told is this: A disaster may render you unreachable. It may cut you off from communication networks and utilities. The appropriate government agencies (starting at the neighborhood level and moving upward depending on the magnitude of the damage) will respond as quickly as they can, but you may be on your own for days until they do. Prepare supplies. Learn escape routes. Then learn alternate escape routes. Know what your region's points of vulnerability are. Get to know your neighbors (especially the elderly or infirm) so you can help each other out and account for each other. Follow directions if you're told to evacuate. Stay put if you aren't. Participate in the earthquake preparation drills in your neighborhood.

If that's the attitude of people in collectivist, obedient, welfare-state Japan, it is beyond the wit of man why any American should be sitting around entertaining the idea that Washington should be the first (or second or fifteenth) entity to step in and keep the nasty wind and rain and shaky-shaky from hurting you. Sheesh.

Oh, and you have to read this post by Andrea. You have to keep reading even after you think all the funny parts are over. You have to read to the end. I second Ilyka's comment, trans-Pacifically. I also get where Connie's coming from.

Added on 13 September: Thanks to Virginia Postrel for the link--not to mention the flattery. I can think of far better sources of news about Japan than my blog, but we'll just let that pass for now. She adds a few points that differentiate earthquakes from typhoons and are worth noting:

Of course, in an earthquake, you have no warning--not a couple of days to get out of town (assuming you have transportation, of course). And there's always that question of where to store the earthquake supplies, since the house could collapse on them, making them inaccessible.

They tell you to choose the corner you think is most structually sound, but, of course, you don't really know what that is until the quake hits and your walls either don't give or do. In a new building (such as ours, fortunately), you almost always have shear walls on the exterior. They can help ensure that the only things that are likely to fail are tall cabinets and shelves and things, so you have to find space for your stash that isn't near furniture. That's no contemptible feat in the average Tokyo apartment, but it's better than expecting the ceiling to come down on your head. My own solution, if that's the word, is to keep my major survival kit in the bedroom but to have supplies (bottled water and flashlights and things) in other places around the apartment also, under the assumption that if the quake is so strong it takes all of them out, I'll probably be too dead to need them anyway.

While I think of it, Dean linked (no trackback) and got a short but good discussion going about whether my comparison between the US and Japan is valid. Justin at Classical Values also linked, and he and Eric and Dennis have a great crew of commenters; it'll be interesting to see what they have to say.

Added on 15 September: Why, how sweet. This nice professor from Tennessee also linked to this post. I don't know much about him, but a little digging reveals that he has a sister who lives in Sevier County. We know what that means, don't we, boys? This guy's sister lives in the county where Dolly Parton was born. And WE LOVE DOLLY TO TINY LITTLE BITS! So welcome, Instapundit readers.

Atsushi's been working a lot of overtime the last four weeks. He always sounds tired, though he's cheerful about it. He takes everything with a good grace--which only goes to prove that opposites do attract.

Speaking of which, it's the sixth anniversary of the opening of the bar where we were introduced. I'm representing our household, as it were, at the party tonight. Like a lot of gay bars here, it isn't a pick-uppy place at all--more like a pub where you can meet your friends and talk and act the way you want. (It's labeled 会員制 (kaiinsei: "members only") outside the door, but that's just to keep reveling straight people from blundering in and getting themselves all weirded out. You don't actually need an introduction from someone who's already a regular customer the way you do at many other Japanese gay places.) Atsushi and I know all the regulars, so I'll be in for a lot of matey gibes about my ongoing work-widow status. Happily, I think there are two bank holiday weekends in October, so he might actually have a chance to recharge a little.

Oh, yeah, did something gay happen in California this week? Hmm. Sample reaction (the comments, not the main post): Bleating about the democratic process? Check. Mewling about equal protection? Check. Hysterically brandishing dodgy civil rights analogies? Check.

Where, oh where, I keep asking myself, do people get the idea that gays are cheap opportunists with self-centered princess complexes? I just don't understand, you know?

Michael's been having some interesting discussions in bars lately. He talked to a couple who were at the Superdome during the hurricane and gave him a thorough accounting of the conditions there. It's a good read, reassuring in some parts and disturbing in others. I hope they have some time to catch their wind before they head back to New Zealand; the 20-hour flight time would probably be enough to finish me off after that ordeal, even if my own bed were waiting at the end.

The kind of bed that was waiting...no, let's not go there. Michael's other conversation was with the manager/bartender of a gay bar who was straight. There are a lot of those here in Tokyo, too; some owners prefer that the bartenders be sort of inaccessible-fantasy material for the patrons. That's easier to do if they're not gay and therefore won't be tempted to date a customer. Tough break if you're hot for one, though.

Heh-heh. One of the search terms I got a referral from over the last few days was "'rob mârciano' hairy chest."

Yeah, I was wondering, too. Before anyone starts with the can't-you-queers-ever-see-a-half-decent-looking-guy-without-imagining-him-with-his-clothes-off? routine...well, the answer is no.

HOWEVER, that's not the point in this case. The point is that your only other option during his live hurricane coverage was to pay attention to what he was saying. One of the problems with 24-hour cable news is that even when the story isn't actually developing, the reporters have to keep talking. I'm sure Rob's a bright guy, but since he couldn't stand there and say, "There sure is a lot of wind and rain here," and then shut up, he was driven to offering patter on the order of, "The National Weather Service has predicted that the rain is going to get even more severe, which our experts say indicates that a great deal of water will fall from the sky." That's not a problem if, like Julie Brown, you like 'em big and stupid. Personally, I felt it was only kind to Rob out there to hope that the weather gods would send a gust of wind strong enough to yank that pancho down away from his throat so we could get a good gander before they cut away to someone who had useful information to impart. (On the other hand, at least we didn't ever get a look at Anderson Cooper south of the collar--you just know sugarcakes either is scarily baby-smooth or just has a half-dozen wires around his nipples.)

Apparently, Simon is back. Cool. He has his first Daily Linklets, which rounds up posts from and about Asia, up in some time. He also notes that people desperate to find a hype-worthy connection between Hurricane Katrina and global warming are popping up in all sorts of improbable fields.

Typhoon 14 has passed over Kyushu and is approaching Hokkaido now. The number of deaths so far is 9, with 14 people missing. One structure that was damaged (this is at the southern end of Honshu) was a bridge that dates back to the late 17th century.

Dean links to this post by Mike Hendrix at Cold Fury, in which he flays leftist bloggers for pooh-poohing Tom Ridge's warnings about disaster preparedness. I agree with Dean that it's good to remember that this is not an exhaustive survey of the opinions of liberal bloggers, and, having clicked through to some of the posts myself, I think that the point several of them were intended to make was that Ridge's warnings were vague and directionless. That doesn't mean the posts in question were well argued, only that they weren't all dismissing the idea of disaster preparedness itself. The points Hendrix makes are good overall, though.

The comments are as interesting to read as the post itself, BTW. This one is from a woman who sounds exactly like the people I was talking about yesterday:

We lived on an island regularly visited by typhoons and we kept three days of water and nonperishable foodstuffs on hand. It was not easy, and it took me time to build up our disaster kit--and then we moved to an area where snowstorms were the problem and we had to do it again but different (I've been without power or water for one week because of a blizzard). Again, it was harder than most people here seem to imagine, but it was doable. Cans of beans, a bottle of bleach, ramen noodles (these make a great snack when they are uncooked--like chips), raisins, peanut butter, rice, boxes of instant mashed potatoes, vegetables you dehydrate yourself (in the oven or on a screen in the sun if you need to) and bottles of water you fill are not that expensive when carefully purchased on sale over time. And the thing about a hurricane is you have some advance notice, so you can start filling up water containers before it knocks out your water supply. Since we always figure it's our duty to help others, we lay in enough extra supplies to share, too. On an airman’s salary.

Plain, old-fashioned resourcefulness. As she says, when your income is very low, you need to plan very carefully, but you look out for rock-bottom sale prices when they're advertised, you lay in just one or two items at a time, and you figure that someone else is probably going to end up more screwed than you are, so you'll need to lend a hand.

I'm sorry I keep harping on this--as I mentioned a few days ago, my own earthquake kit was getting kind of slipshod, so Atsushi and I got everything back in order over the weekend. I myself am not a paragon. But the idea of simply not being ready is one that I can't fathom.

Added at lunch: You know how I just said I was sorry for harping on this? Well, I lied.

If I hear or read one more person's gassing that the sheer magnitude of the damage from Hurricane Katrine means that only the federal government could handle it, I am going to go postal. Situations like this are exactly when you need all those little nuances of on-the-spot knowledge that only locals know: Harrison Street is backed up, so let's try the back way over Keystone Avenue...What? The 7-Eleven's closed? The 7-Eleven doesn't close! But okay...There's a 24-hour mini-mart at the gas station a mile up. Let's try there. Washington doesn't know whether evacuating your city will take 48 or 72 hours, where the best places to go to alert the homeless are, or which churches and civic groups can be relied upon to help get things set up at shelters when they arrive. The federal government can descend on an area with a lot of expensive equipment and trained personnel, but they have to learn their way around by feeling things out or asking questions.

You know when you fall hard for someone you can never have? Of course, you do--we've all done it. It's one of life's great equalizers, since no matter how good-looking, built, successful, smart, and fun-loving you are, there are going to be people to whom you are not irresistible. Everyone gets the chance to be laid low (but not, frustratingly, laid) by desire at times.

As with most sticky situations, handling this one honorably and pragmatically requires delicacy. You have a few options:

• Do the very traditional thing and hide your feelings entirely


• Hide your feelings from everyone except a confidant or two

That first has the disadvantage of not allowing you the tiny hope that someday circumstances might change in your favor. However, it has the advantage of...well, not allowing you the tiny hope that someday circumstances might change in your favor, which can be a very effective self-torture instrument. If you refuse to talk to anyone--not just the object of your unrequited affections, but anyone else also--you're forced to think about other things to do and talk about. The distraction thus effected may not be as miraculously healing as Mother always used to say, but it works better than anything else.

The second seems to be the course of action that most people go for, but it has its drawbacks. Let's just say that, ten years ago when I was coming out, I was the confider...and for the last several years, the gods have paid me back GOOD by frequently making me the confidee. In my conservative Christian upbringing, I frequently heard that if you once gave in to your sexual desire, you'd soon find that it had expanded to the point of taking over your life and making you a total sex maniac. I've never found that to be true. What I've found people do become addicted to is pouring out their self-pity to an always-ready listener. Weekly orgies of sorrow that start with "Why does it hurt so much?"--and descend from there--don't do much to get your mind off your troubles.

Um, and then there's a third possible course of action:

• Bottle everything up, except for neurotically flirtatious comments dropped at regular intervals (which your unwilling intended has no choice but to politely turn aside), then one day completely lose control and deliver a savage, tearful tirade in which you essentially accuse him of leading you on by treating you like all his other friends

I have to say that I don't care for that particular approach, efficacious though it be at conveying in no uncertain terms how abject you are. It's not just that it's unfair to hold someone responsible for feelings he made no effort to stir up; it's also that from then on he's going to have little choice but to give you a wide berth. That, or be gingerly and pitying in his dealings with you, which is generally not that good for the ego. It really is helpful to keep in mind that there are good reasons that most civilized behavior has strong elements of repression.

Bill Whittle has his latest essay up. It's finely written, and I don't mean to take anything away from it when I say that it's a shame everything he says in it isn't so obvious as not to be worth mention. I grew up in a working-class family. Of my parents' closest dozen or so friends, someone was always laid off, or needed an expensive hospital stay, or had his car break down on him. People helped each other out, and everyone got turns at both giving and receiving generosity.

You took assistance with gratitude when you needed it, but it was shameful to be a permanent charity case, and there was no sense of entitlement to other people's largess. One of the (many) times my father was laid off by Bethlehem Steel, he took three part-time jobs--including one at the 7-Eleven--to keep us afloat. As soon as we returned to relative solvency, my parents were back in the group that was inviting people from church over for dinner when they were in straitened circumstances. That's what you did.

I know that losing your Rust Belt job is not the same as going through a hurricane. I'm less trying to compare the situations than making a point about the mindset. I've spent my entire adult life bitching about the entitlement mentality in America, but this past week has made my jaw drop, as person after person interviewed on the news said, essentially, "Where's the government with our Carr's Water Biscuits and Evian?" Some of these people had their children standing right by them. Great lesson from Mom and Dad imparted there, huh? There's nothing embarrassing about not providing for your own kids as long as you're EXTRA CRABBY to show you mean business when you try to get the government to do it.

And, yes, I know: some of the complaints were from people who had been told to wait in location X for a bus that didn't arrive, and some people had newborns in maternity wards that they couldn't bring themselves to be separated from until the last minute, and yet other people had bedridden elders to take into account. Obviously, I'm not criticizing people who were making a good-faith effort to fulfill their responsibilities. They can be forgiven for happening to be caught by CNN in an unguarded moment as they were forced to make wrenching choices on the fly. I also know that I'm asking for trouble as a childless bourgeois gay guy passing judgment on how some parents run their households.

All I can say is, I grew up around humble people who were constantly on the lookout for un-self-aggrandizing ways to serve others and who did everything in their power to provide for themselves before expecting handouts. I know those attitudes when I see them. They've certainly been in evidence this past week, but much less than one might have expected. It's sad.

There's an old student of mine in law school at Tulane; I just heard back from him that he got out before the hurricane and that BU will take him until the end of the year if necessary. I think he left for Boston this weekend. Very cheering news. I know a lot of people have had more disrupted than their coursework, but every person from the Gulf Coast who finds a workable contingency plan is one fewer to worry about.

Wind isn't the only thing going in circles around here. The DPRK has announced that it wants to return to 6-party talks on 13 September.

The Toyoko Line is not running--how not good is that? I hope it wasn't a suicide. Everyone in Tokyo knows you're supposed to throw yourself in front of a train on the Chuo Line. Maybe this guy's wise to avoid the train system altogether, though I can't say I'm fond of the incoming traffic in the morning, either. Luckily, I can go casual to the office if I'm not meeting with clients, and it only takes 40 minutes to walk from home.

I'm also lucky that the weather here is just kind of grey and drizzly. Kyushu has received its visit from Typhoon 14; Atsushi's city was already being deluged and wind-whipped when we talked last night. Evacuation orders are already in effect for 21500 people, mostly in Kagoshima but also in other prefectures. The amount of rainfall in Kyushu since two days ago has ranged between 500 and 800 millimeters depending on the place.

Atsushi flew back to Kyushu yesterday before any flights were canceled. That's a good thing because he was back to go to work today. It's a bad thing because the latest VERY LARGE typhoon is now preparing to engulf the island. They're already giving people shelter warnings in Kagoshima Prefecture (toward the south). The typhoon is expected to pass northeast-ish over Kyushu, then over the Sea of Japan, then over Hokkaido. Japan's compact boomerang shape makes it great for rail lines, but it also means that a single huge storm can drench almost half the country. Wind speeds near the center of Typhoon 14 are around 100 mph. NHK was showing the usual footage of palm trees bent almost 90 degrees (I sometimes think they're just recycling a single videotaped sequence from 10 years ago.) If anyone's reading from down that way, stay safe and dry.

A few days ago, Dean's World contributor Mary Madigan posted a short entry tentatively comparing the reconstruction of New Orleans to that of Kobe after the Great Hanshin Earthquake ten years ago. She cited the Kobe municipal government's shiny, happy version of the Kobe rebuilding. A commenter piped up with the observation that Japan is a law-abiding, conformist society, the implication being that we can expect things to proceed more efficiently in Japan than in the US, with its competing needs and preferences.

I don't think there's any problem with placing the emphasis on Kobe's recovery. Human beings live on hope, after all, and the reconstruction of the city really does demonstrate many of the upsides of social and economic liberalization. Given what New Orleans looks like now, it's a significant comfort to have a real-life example of another first world city that was wrecked and rebuilt in recent memory. Let's not get too high on those shrine-incense fumes, though, and forget that government screw-ups regarding the Kobe earthquake didn't stop with inadequate building and land reclamation codes. Reason has what, in my experience, is the best summary of the multitude of little problems that helped delay recovery in Kobe:

A post-quake report issued by the Kobe YMCA is filled with anecdotes such as this one: Three days after the quake, two women from Kobe Citizens Central Hospital appeared at city hall asking for 10 volunteers to help carry water at the hospital, located about a mile away. Water duty, they explained to city workers, pulled too many skilled nurses from more-urgent medical tasks. Officials on the first floor of city hall turned the women away. Yet on the eighth floor of the same building was a list of 5,000 registered volunteers willing to help any way they could. When the women came back for more help, officials told them to return later with a written request.

Similar bureaucratic procedures beset rescue and recovery efforts at the national level as well. Officials turned away doctors from the United States because they were not certified to practice medicine in Japan. They quarantined European search dogs while Kobe residents picked through the rubble by hand. Even offers of help from within Japan were refused: Although a disabled phone system presented a critical problem to search-and-rescue efforts, officials refused to distribute cellular phones donated by Nippon Motorola because they didn't want to issue the required telephone identification numbers. Officials initially rejected an early offer of medical help from the Japanese Association of Acute Medicine because they were unfamiliar with that organization; they changed their minds a week later as a flu virus raged through evacuation shelters.

...

Such responses were in marked contrast to succor offered from less-official sectors of Japanese society: Immediately after the earthquake, the Kobe YMCA was swamped with volunteers, many of whom had been turned away by city hall. YMCA managers quickly established an emergency headquarters and organized the volunteers into teams that canvassed damaged neighborhoods and reported back on what victims needed most. By bicycle and on foot--and wearing identifying numbers normally used for YMCA sporting events--volunteers delivered food, water, clothes, and blankets. Even members of the yakuza--Japan's organized crime gangs--used their networks to bring food, water, and other supplies into the area. Right-wing political groups, whose loudspeaker trucks regularly roam city streets calling for the restoration of the emperor, dropped their act and used their trucks to deliver hot tea to stricken neighborhoods. This all happened as boxes of instant noodles donated by local merchants sat outside city hall in the rain, untouched and undistributed.

Surveying the post-quake landscape in April 1995, the then-editor of Tokyo Business Today, Hiroshi Fukunga [sic--I assume the name is Fukunaga and this is a typo.--SRK], summarized a disturbing but inescapable lesson from the Kobe experience. "It now seems clear that even in a national emergency the nation's pen-pushers will not swerve a millimeter from official procedures, even if fellow citizens' lives are at risk," wrote Fukunga. "While the hours slopped by and thousands lost their lives in the fiery ruins left by the Kobe disaster, Japanese officials' top priorities were observing protocol and following precedent."

The above is only a tiny fraction of the piece, which follows the reconstruction through 2000 or so.

In Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama, immediate relief is still the highest priority; but as recovery in structural terms begins in earnest, it's a good idea to bear in mind that the Gulf States could be in for some of the same problems as Kobe was. America doesn't have Japan's idiosyncratic property laws or collectivist society, no; but red tape is red tape in any culture. (Remember Hurricane Andrew?) There is plenty of time for more recriminations to be hurled back and forth...with the attendant guilt-fueled increases in funding for programs that have proved useless this time around, creation of redundant new agencies of dubitable use, and adventures in showy micromanagement designed to reassure everyone that the government is "doing something."

Years ago, a friend of mine announced that there was an International Conspiracy of Raisins. I loathe raisins as much as she does, so I knew what she was talking about immediately. None of our other friends had a clue, so in between guffaws we had to explain. See, you'll be at a diner or somewhere, and you'll order the apple pie. What will come to your table will be a slice of pie in which there are raisins all among the apples, and when you say, "Oh, if I'd known there were raisins in it, I would have gone for the coconut custard," the waitress will start noticeably and say, "Oh, yeah, there are raisins in the apple pie. Never noticed before." The raisins have clearly found a way to hide in plain sight from people. With such advanced capabilities, they'll take over the world within our lifetimes.

The reason I mention this is that I just realized for the first time that every gay man in Tokyo has a goatee. I mean, everyone. People have been commenting on my beard--no one's ever seen me anything but cleanshaven or just slightly scruffy--and I keep starting to say, "Well, you know, I actually don't like goatees much at all..." then looking up into a drily expectant face and having to keep going with "on myself, I mean--but just because I can't carry one off as well as you do, big guy!" This is seriously weird. If you'd asked me before this week, I would have told you that a good 80% of my acquaintances were cleanshaven. I don't think I'm all that unobservant, but I really didn't notice how many guys with little beards there were around me before. Now I'm wondering what else I've never noticed.

I feel much better after my weekend with Atsushi. I always do, of course, but it was especially good to have him here while watching, say, Céline Dion melt down on Larry King over how New Orleans rescue efforts are going and scold people for getting cross at looters.

I tell you, I already felt pretty prepared for the next disaster that could hit Tokyo, but after watching this week's events, I decided the Atsushi-Sean household needed reinforcements in a major way. That now-infamous woman who showed up at the Superdome with a Diet Coke and outstretched hand was...wow. And you don't even have to bank on people's being complacent--despite the newness of our building, it's not inconceivable that part of it could fail and take out a neighbor's stash of earthquake stuff. I doubt the weird foreigner in Apt. 3## would be the first place people would go for help, but there's no reason not to overdo the readiness bit.

So I bought a sterilizing jug that holds 4-ish gallons of in addition to the several bottles of Suntory Natural mineral water I'd been keeping. My old radio had more or less conked out, so I picked up a crank-chargeable one that can also be used to charge a cell phone. I'd never bothered stabilizing the freestanding cabinet in the kitchen; I got a brace for it. An extra candle-in-a-can and an all-in-one kit for Atsushi to take back to Ultima Thule with him, and we were good to go.

Oh, except that what John's been saying about carrying around a space blanket and purification tablets piqued me, so I snagged those, too. Actually getting into the sleeping bag would make me feel as if I were dressing as Madge's Sex book for a costume party, but better to look silly than to be hypothermic.

Leaders of the major parties showed up on NHK this morning to discuss their platforms for the election on 11 September. Koizumi appeared alone for the LDP, still doing the cool-biz thing. He spoke with conviction as he always does, but I'm not sure that if I didn't already agree with most of his policies he would have convinced me (not that it matters much, since I'm not a Japanese citizen).

The two women who appeared to speak for the Social Democratic Party were clearly aiming for the housewife/working woman vote. They played up the number of people with at-will contract and part-time jobs instead of full-time regular positions. (One of their proposals is legislation to guarantee that part-time workers are compensated exactly the same as "comparable" company workers.) They talked about the SDF's non-combat involvement in Iraq as a dangerous blow to Japan's vow of non-aggression in the constitution. Their conversation was clearly rehearsed, but sounding artificial is not the sin in Japan it is in America.

The DPJ was next. Man, has Katsuya Okada slept at all this year? He looked green. He was sunken-cheeked and hollow-eyed. He was accompanied by Ho Ren, who was well-spoken but has a smile that the television camera made look like Mother Bates's grinning skull at the end of Psycho. From the looks of things, they were representing the Cadaver Party. Even so, it must be admitted that Okada presented the DPJ's opposition to Japan Post privatization in a way that was pointed and internally coherent. What needs to be done to stop the wasteful use of so much capital that goes through Japan Post is to (1) change the way money is allocated in the government and (2) shrink the amount of household wealth citizens can pour into postal savings accounts and insurance policies. He succeeded in presenting it in a way that made Koizumi sound as if he were obsessed with proving a political point rather than interested in fixing the government. Very shrewd. Too bad he looked as if he'd had to be exhumed for the occasion. The next week will be interesting.

FWIW, the Nikkei's latest web-based poll indicates that 54% of decided voters who responded plan to vote for LDP candidates for single seats. Of course, only 55% of respondents were decided, so WIW may not be much.

Atsushi is coming tomorrow--first time in a month, and not a moment too soon. I spent the night of 9/11 quivering with anger and staring at the television while he came in from time to time to make me more tea and sit with me for a bit; he had to get up at 6:30, but I don't think I was alone for longer than 45 minutes the whole night.

The hurricane coverage isn't the same, because it didn't involve an initial jolt followed by days of looking for answers. If there's one thing you get used to from living in Japan, it's seeing the initial reports of minimal damage after an earthquake or typhoon give way to far grimmer discoveries in succeeding days--but of course Japan hasn't had anything near the broad and deep destruction that was just worked on the Gulf Coast. Poor Atsushi has spent the last few weeks working overtime every business day and going into the office on Saturday and Sunday. I'm going to do my best to provide the two-day respite he deserves, but I'm afraid he's going to come home tomorrow to a boyfriend who can't stop bellowing at CNN but can't stop watching it either.

I'm also scruffier than usual: my dermatologist told me to grow a beard. Well, she didn't put it that way, but she told me that some of the treatments I've gotten lately would heal better without having a razor dragged over the affected area. I grew out the whole thing for a week. Last night, I was told approvingly by friends that I looked "very hard-gay." There was unseemly speculation over what color leather goods would best complete the look. But by today I was ready to claw all the skin off my jawline. I'm not fond of goatees, but I have one now as a compromise; it's my chin I'm not supposed to be abrading, so at least I was able to clean up my itching cheeks. My poor Atsushi may look kind of scuffed up by the time he goes back to Kyushu, though.

Japan's public and private sectors are pledging disaster aid to the US:

Toyota Motor Corp. led the way with 550 million yen [around US $5 million], and the government pitched in half a million dollars, as Japan rallied to assist victims of the hurricane that ripped through the southern United States.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda announced that Japan will offer up to $500,000 worth of emergency relief: $200,000 for the American Red Cross and the remaining $300,000 for the U.S. government in the form of tents, blankets, generators and other supplies.

Irma Thomas made it out of New Orleans--great news. (Thanks, Dean.) No, celebrities are of no greater intrinsic worth than any other human beings, but Thomas is beloved by many in her city (and plenty elsewhere). If she's able to perform over the next few weeks, it ought to be good for morale.

Yes, and yes (also via Michael). And while we're at it, Dean's new contributor Aziz Poonawalla has this to say. And Eric is worried about whether all the finger-pointing going on is creating a serious emotional rift in America--spooky for me to read because I'm over here and have no way to gauge what he's talking about.

We don't control nature, people. There's a lot we can do that we couldn't do even a century ago, but natural disasters are still disastrous. Even relatively routine storms can stop air and rail transport or cause flooding that traps people. This was a huge storm in an especially vulnerable area. It's beginning to seem that the local governments involved could, indeed, have prepared better, but let's not kid ourselves. To hear some people talk, there should have been a way for the Big, Benevolent Government to make Hurricane Katrina little more inconvenient than a fire drill at the office.

Please. Even if every single soul in New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile had evacuated and were now safe and sound, there would still be sunken oil platforms, inoperative ports, and thousands of non-existent houses and livelihoods to contend with now. As it is, many people decided to stay and take their chances, and some didn't have the means to evacuate. The area is large and full of hazards. Law enforcement, search-and-rescue teams, and medical personnel are going to be receiving a steady stream of conflicting information and competing emergencies. They'll be making snap decisions that don't always put them on the better side of public relations when CNN shoves a microphone in the face of someone who ended up getting the short end of the stick. This is heartbreaking, but it's not really avoidable.

Despite our wondrous transport and information network, there are people still alive now who will not be saved. We're in the best position out of all the peoples in history to deal with this sort of situation even so. The global warming crowd is braying about fossil fuel use, but that's what powers the helicopters and buses and trucks that are many people's only hope for getting out of the afflicted areas in one piece. Or getting clean water (in plastic bottles) and non-perishable (processed) food. Now that nature has finished her spree, all those in charge can do is, essentially, muddle through as best they can. That's no one's fault.

Added on 3 September: Connie has a few choice words for people who think they can rely absolutely on the government to save them from harm. Yes, protecting its citizens is a primary government responsibility. But one of the ways natural disasters tend to cause devastation is by incapacitating and isolating people; responsible individuals have to recognize that they may be on their own for several days and prepare accordingly.

This morning's Nikkei editorials were about earthquake preparedness. Hurricane Katrina isn't mentioned, but having the current situation in Louisiana and Mississippi in mind while reading certainly adds heft to the warnings for Japan. The writers begin by noting that 20 percent of the world's earthquakes of Magnitude 6 or above are concentrated in the Japanese Archipelago and that, since the technology to predict earthquakes effectively doesn't yet exist, preparation to deal with a quake immediately after it happens is our only recourse:

The Tokyo Metropolitan District, which is supposed to be the leader in measures such as reinforcing structures against earthquakes and developing hazard maps [that predict where the greatest damage is likely to be], made major slip-ups in handling information. Serious problems for urban disaster prevention--people's being trapped in elevators, the phenomenon in which resonance occurs between super-skyscrapers and low-frequency vibrations, and the vast numbers of people who are stranded away from their residences--have been cropping up continually.

Looking at the situation nationwide, there are still 20,000,000 houses that are insufficiently earthquake-proofed; in areas along the ocean to the southeast and east, not even 1% of municipalities have warning and shelter systems to deal with the tsunami that an off-shore earthquake could very well cause.

In the event of a temblor with its epicenter at the plate boundary just off the mainland, there would be something of a time lapse between the vertical P waves, which would be transmitted immediately, and the S waves from the original quake, which would follow. In the August Miyagi Prefecture quake, the gap was 14 seconds in Sendai. We should use this gap, developing as fully as possible "real-time disaster prevention," which would allow people to seek shelter rapidly and implement safety measures on rail and gas lines.

There are many tasks for the public sphere, including retrofitting schools and hospitals; however, in the event of an earthquake, most individuals' fates will be determined by whether they prepared by getting their houses inspected and reinforced and by securing their furniture.

As we're seeing now in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, staying alive through the initial catastrophic event can be just the beginning of the battle. Tokyo's doomsday scenario would probably be a quake at 8:30 or so on a weekday morning; during extreme weather conditions (February, early August, or right before a typhoon); and with a tsunami, which might not be kind to the parts of central Tokyo that are below sea level or built on infill. There are also, IIRC, fewer streets wide enough to serve as firebreaks than is considered advisable. Like New Orleans, Tokyo is also a port. Unlike New Orleans, it's the economic center of the country; a few days of shutdown would affect a lot more nationwide than gas prices. If we're fantastically fortunate, the next big Kanto earthquake won't hit until at least rudimentary forms of prediction are available to help people brace themselves. The probability of that isn't high, though. It's encouraging that the defects in planning are being publicized (the elevator problem was all over the news after the Chiba earthquake last month), which is the first step on the way to addressing them.

Added on 3 September: It was actually the Chiba earthquake right at the end of July that left people in the area trapped in elevators and highlighted that problem. I've fixed it above. Lots of earthquakes lately; not easy to keep them all straight.