The White Peril 白禍

The Iranian foreign minister met with Prime Minister Koizumi today:

On 28 February, Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki at the Prime Minister's residence. About the issue of Iran's nuclear program, Koizumi stated, "We would like you to do whatever you must to win the trust of the global community," requesting an immediate cessation of Iran's experiments with uranium enrichment and activities related to nuclear development. Mottaki responded, "We have a right to the peaceable use of nuclear power" and rejected the idea of ceasing nuclear development.

...

LDP Secretary General Shinzo Abe, also on 28 February, stated emphatically to a press conference, "We seek Iran's cessation of uranium enrichment and complete fulfillment of the terms laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board so that it may avoid being isolated from the global community."

No surprises, no revelations--as expected. Japan has affirmed that it's on the side of (blech) the global community, and Iran seems not to have taken Japan's position as a sign of enmity.

FWIW, the part I didn't bother translating states that Speaker of the House Yohei Kono requested that Iran accept the proposal from this weekend for a joint initiative with Russia, whereby the uranium enrichment Iran needs would be attended to there.

I'm afraid that if I don't stop reading Jeff and Joanne, I am going to lose my mind, collar Atsushi and take him away from this topsy-turvy world to an uncharted island, where we can read poetry and history beneath a shady lean-to woven from leaves and I can feed him on green mango salad and roasted fishies and we can live out our days in peace without constantly being reminded how many TOTAL NINNIES there are abroad in the land.

Apparently, Oriana Fallaci is now a fascist. Who knew, huh? Cathy Seipp says that a friend of hers wanted a copy of the English translation of Fallaci's latest book and thought, foolishly, that City Lights would be an apt place to pick it up:

So he asked a clerk if the new Fallaci book was in yet.

"No," snapped the clerk. "We don't carry books by fascists."

Now let's just savor the absurd details of this for a minute. City Lights has a long and proud history of supporting banned authors — owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti was indicted (and acquitted) for obscenity in 1957 for selling Allen Ginsberg's "Howl," and a photo at the bookstore showed Ferlinghetti proudly posing next to a sign reading "banned books."

Yet his store won't carry, of all people, Fallaci, who is not only being sued in Italy for insulting religion because of her latest book but continues to fight the good fight against those who think that the appropriate response to offensive books and cartoons is violent riots. It's particularly repugnant that someone who fought against actual fascism in World War II should be deemed a fascist by a snotty San Francisco clerk.

Strangest of all is the scenario of such a person disliking an author for defending Western civilization against radical Islam — when one of the first things those poor, persecuted Islamists would do, if they ever (Allah forbid) came to power in the United States, is crush suspected homosexuals like him beneath walls.

Not only is it helping free speech not to stock a book by a noted free-thinker, but it's apparently liberating to a teenager to tell her she should shut her mind to a major academic subject. Joanne Jacobs retains her ever-unflappable demeanor while posting a critique of this incomprehensibly dumb Richard Cohen column:

I confess to be one of those people who hate math. I can do my basic arithmetic all right (although not percentages) but I flunked algebra (once), barely passed it the second time--the only proof I've ever seen of divine intervention--somehow passed geometry and resolved, with a grateful exhale of breath, that I would never go near math again. I let others go on to intermediate algebra and trigonometry while I busied myself learning how to type. In due course, this came to be the way I made my living. Typing: Best class I ever took.

Here's the thing, Gabriela: You will never need to know algebra. I have never once used it and never once even rued that I could not use it. You will never need to know--never mind want to know--how many boys it will take to mow a lawn if one of them quits halfway and two more show up later--or something like that. Most of math can now be done by a computer or a calculator. On the other hand, no computer can write a column or even a thank-you note--or reason even a little bit. If, say, the school asked you for another year of English or, God forbid, history, so that you actually had to know something about your world, I would be on its side. But algebra? Please.

The column is over a week old and has been whaled away at by several education bloggers linked by Joanne. Most of them have done an admirable job of defending the usefulness of algebra. But another aspect that deserves attention is Cohen's corresponding (and self-congratulatory) balderdash about writing.

Certainly, too few people can write well--no one can gainsay that point. However, there are far too many people who think that style is a substitute for substance. The world now has plenty of English and sociology and history majors who got by by producing essays using the approved template--organized into paragraphs, featuring footnotes in MLA style, relying on the occasional po-mo wordplay to score points for insouciance--without being schooled in cold, hard facts. These are the people you encounter whose arguments sound great when you first hear them--because their internal logic is sound--but fall apart a few hours later when you have time to test them against real life and think, Wait a minute! She never even CONSIDERED the possibility that.... The more facts you have in your mental database, the more likely you are to have some sense of what you don't know and, thus, to be able to diagnose and address your own assumptions. Pooh-poohing the rigidities of math and overpraising the flexibilities of writing is a good way to reinforce the too-common American belief that you can bluff your way through anything.

The Iranian foreign minister is now in Japan for talks; the build-up was covered in the Japanese press, though there never really seemed to be any developments interesting enough to comment on. In any case, Japan has normal relations with Iran and buys quite a bit of its petroleum, so it has a lot of incentive to smooth some of the recent conflicts over:

Iran and Russia on Sunday agreed in principle to establish a joint uranium enrichment venture, a breakthrough in talks on the U.S.-backed Kremlin proposal. But it was not known whether Iran will entirely give up enrichment at home, a top demand of the West.

Japan, which relies on Iran for much of its oil imports, has been keen to play a role in resolving the standoff. Tokyo also has a special link with Mottaki, who served as ambassador to Japan from 1994-1999.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was slated to meet Japan's Foreign Minister Taro Aso later Monday. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also was to greet Mottaki, the Foreign Ministry said.

This TEPCO page puts the percent of Japan's 2003 oil imports that came from Iran at 16.1%.

The Nikkei doesn't have one of its quickie five-line stories posted about the visit, which suggests that the meeting with Aso hasn't yet produced anything quotable.

The US may give some of the Yokota airbase back to Japan. The issue is airspace rather than land:

Each day, about 470 commercial flights in and out of Haneda and Narita airports must take alternate routes to avoid airspace controlled by the U.S. military's Yokota airbase, according to a calculation by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.

Some flights detour around the space and others make steeper ascents than needed.

The number of flights affected will rise to about 650 in 2009 with more traffic at the airports, the study said.

The extra fuel cost is 8 billion yen a year, likely to climb to 10.9 billion yen in 2009.

If a southern section of the airspace were returned to Japan, the extra cost and the flight times could be minimized, the report said.

While Japan's population isn't rising, the number of flights in and out of Tokyo is. The closest Japan has had to a civil aviation disaster since the Otsuka crash in 1985 was in 2001, when two JAL jets came within thirty feet of colliding. Tokyo Metro Governor Shintaro Ishihara blamed the strictures on flightpaths imposed by having US military airspace so close to Haneda and Narita, though it must be noted that weird ascent and descent patterns were not exactly the only problem on display:

Transport ministry officials said the post-accident report filed by the DC-10 pilot, Tatsuyuki Akazawa, 45, also indicated the two planes missed each other by a whisker. "Altitude difference little, lateral distance none," Mr. Akazawa's report said.

The incident occurred early Wednesday evening. The Boeing Flight 907 was ascending to a cruising altitude of 11,300 meters, while the DC-10 Flight 958 was descending from 11,900 meters to prepare for landing at the New Tokyo International Airport in Narita, Chiba Prefecture, transport ministry officials said.

Both planes were equipped with the Traffic Collision Avoidance System, a computerized device that would alert pilots when they were flying too close to each other.

...

Ministry officials said air traffic communications records kept at the Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center, based in Tokorozawa, Saitama Prefecture, show that air traffic controllers repeatedly used wrong flight numbers in telling the pilots of the two airplanes to change course.

The official in charge of the two flights, a 26-year-old man in his third year of training as an air traffic controller, first realized that the flight paths of the two planes were too close and initiated warnings to the two pilots under the supervision of a 32-year-old controller who served as his coach.

According to air traffic communications records released by the transport ministry, the male air traffic controller twice ordered the Boeing 747 to lower its attitude and the DC-10 to turn right.

As there was no response, the coach broke into the radio channel and told " Flight 957" to immediately lower its altitude.

The record shows that the coach again misspoke the flight number when the Boeing 747 pilot radioed in that there was an alert on the aircraft's collision avoidance system and he was descending. "Roger, flight 908," she said, in a message meant for the Boeing flight 907 pilot.

Moments later, the DC-10 flight 958 pilot reported to air traffic control that alert also sounded on his collision avoidance system, and the trainee controller responded, "Roger, flight 908." "The situation was extremely dangerous," Mr. Watanabe told air traffic control after the near-fatal collision was averted. Analysts said that had the Boeing not dived to avoid a collision, "the worst ever accident in aviation history" could have occurred.

The Boeing 747 was carrying 411 passengers and 16 crew members, and the DC-10 had 250 passengers and crew members on board.

Poor communication about the collision avoidance system was the major cause of the midair collision over Germany in 2002, though the air traffic controller involved was undone by circumstances and didn't blurt out non-existent flight numbers.

Speaking of changes in US military facilities, several thousand Marines may or may not be moved out of Okinawa as part of the Futenma restructuring plan. They would be relocated to Guam.

Just saw Atsushi off at the station. I have to go in to the office today, and things are easier for him at work on Monday if he doesn't take the last flight and get back to Kyushu late. That meant I had about twenty-six hours to help him recharge.

Yesterday he was tired as usual--insufficient sleep is really common among office workers here--so after we had tea in our new Froot Loops-inspired cups, he napped while I finally got around to writing a few letters. (You'll have no trouble believing I'm the fountain-pen-and-linen-paper type, yeah?)

One envelope for my best friend from high school. She lives in Toronto now, and up until a year or so ago, we were really good about calling and writing once every two months or so. But you know, you get busy, and you figure you can always e-mail, and then you just sort of don't. Meaning that I'm just now answering her Christmas card.

Inside another envelope, a letter to my first American gay friend in Japan, a former colleague now in his late forties who's been with his Japanese boyfriend for...jeez, it must be going on fifteen years?...anyway, they're two of the buddies who helped me through my twenties by listening to my bitching and doing their you're-not-seriously-going-to-date-that-organism-are-you-sweetie? duty when necessary. No, I'm not going to tell you how often it was necessary. I will say that, naturally, they love Atsushi.

They moved back to the States a few years ago, and they're going to kill me if I don't take them up on their invitation to visit them in Oregon one of these days; but for now, all I can manage is to answer not only their Christmas card but this random package they sent me a few months ago. It had a bag of truly frightening cheap-o candy in it--garishly-colored fake hamburgers and french fries and stuff--with a bunch of jokey post-it notes attached and a thinking-of-you message scrawled in magic marker. It came on a day that really needed some brightening up (some friends seem to have a sixth sense about that), and I wrote a thank-you e-mail right away and swore I'd produce a real, proper, witticism-filled, intimate letter that weekend. I think that was...November?

Look, at least I e-mailed right away.

And no, those are not the only people I owe letters. Everyone else gets tackled tomorrow.

Speaking of tackling--hell, speaking of e-mails--while I was making brunch this morning, we had one of the Sunday political yak shows on, and the whole deliciously inane debate over that supposedly incriminating e-mail from Takafumi Horie instructing that money be paid to Chief Cabinet Secretary Tsutomu Takebe's younger son (Nikkei Japanese report, Yomiuri English report--love the headline!) was the story of the day.

Those who haven't lived here seem to assume, because of the Japanese cultural reputation for inscrutable politeness, that government proceedings are executed with a "With all due respect to my esteemed colleague from Aomori Prefecture, I believe that he is under something of a misapprehension" tone.

Ha-ha.

They showed Takebe getting windily indignant in front of a press conference, which was only marginally entertaining. Then they showed Prime Minister Koizumi and DPJ leader Seiji Maehara (is it my imagination, or does he look more like Nefertiti every time he appears in front of a camera?) blustering at each other in the Diet. I couldn't pay close attention from the kitchen, but it was the expected "You've proved nothing!" and "We need time to see whether we can prove something--it's a freakin' Swiss bank account!" stuff. As always, there was angry burbling in the background that you figured might erupt, which would have been all kinds of cool. We LOVE uproar in the Diet. Unfortunately, things didn't explode. Papers didn't fly through the air, water pitchers remained un-upended, and things just sort of stayed at the percolating-animosity level. But hey--there's plenty of time for things to get more complicated and vicious, and this is already more fun than Rathergate!

Off to work.

Added over slovenly-bachelor busy-day lunch of Big Mac, fries, and Coke: Atsushi reads this blog and asks me questions about cultural references and slang he doesn't get, so I know that tonight, I'll pick up my cell phone when it rings and hear, "Hi, dearest. What are Froot Loops?" Froot Loops are a super-sugary breakfast cereal. When I was little, I only ate at friends' houses or my grandmother's. My parents bought only unsweetened cereal most of the time. But of course, you couldn't miss the ads unless you didn't have a TV, and it's a pretty universally-known consumer-culture artifact.

This is also a good opportunity to point out that the pro-Denmark gathering in DC took place as planned over the weekend. Instapundit naturally has pictures.

I should be in bed, but I couldn't raise Atsushi on the phone earlier. It turned out (by no means unusually) that his company had had a drinking party after work.

Fortunately, he called me back at 00:45-ish to say that he was going to make his flight here tomorrow as planned. Unfortunately, he also said that he can't stay until Tuesday as we'd hoped. (He has vacation days stored up, and we were figuring that this would be a good time to burn through some of them.) At least he'll have 36 hours or so of being tended to, since tomorrow I don't have to go in to the office, so when he arrives, we can go buy whatever he'd like me to make for lunch. Then he can veg on the sofa for a while as usual. No, of course, I'm not using that as an excuse to get him to help with the weekly household shopping.

Okay, maybe just a little bit.

But the POINT is that I at least have two days to work out the stress he's accumulated from living in his designated hovel and working in Kyushu, so we'll make the most of it as always. If there's big news here, I may post about it; otherwise, hope everyone has a good weekend.

Getting about time for spring poems to be appropriate again. The Vernal Equinox is still a while off, but not spring according to the traditional lunar calendar. I posted one of my favorites when I first began this blog:

岩間とぢし氷も今朝はとけそめて苔の下水みちもとむらむ

西行法師

Iwama todjishi / koori mo kesa ha / tokesomete / Koke no shita mizu / michi motomuramu

Saigyou-houshi

Even the ice that shackles the rocks has begun to melt this morning--the water under the moss will be seeking a pathway.

the Priest Saigyo

The Japanese are very big on what you might call "the moment before." As in, the cherry trees are considered most poignantly beautiful immediately before they bloom--when you can see the buds straining to burst open. What Saigyo describes above isn't the return of spring, exactly--it's that moment when you get a sense that something is stirring under the remaining cover of winter.

Of course, the Japanese can also poeticize the moment after. Another of my favorite poets, Yosano Akiko, included this among the first poems in her most famous collection:

ゆあみして泉を出でしわがはだにふるるはつらき人の世のきぬ

与謝野晶子

Yu-ami shite / izumi wo ideshi / Waga hada ni / fururu ha tsuraki / hito no yo no kinu

Yosano Akiko

Finishing my bath
and emerging from the spring,
I could hardly bear
their chafing against my skin,
the silks of the world of man

Yosano Akiko

I have a vague memory that the きぬ may have been glossed, in an old annotated version I read years ago, as just meaning "robe," but if Akiko isn't going to use kanji, then I'm going to assume she means "silk," which in any case intensifies the heightened, raw sensitivity she feels. My guess is that the poem is from, if not now, some time in the winter, because that's when you get out of an open-air hot spring and think, Man, it's cold! Well, if you're not a poet, like me. If you're a poet, like Akiko, you think in tanka.

Damn. If your US residence is in the 15th District, you can get something called the Dent Dispatch, which feeds your inbox with the latest news from Charlie Dent's website. Most of the time it's the usual "I managed to snag $3 million in federal money for a Memorial to Pennsylvania Dutch Settlers to be erected in front of the old Hess's Main Store" or whatever. But Reason has reached back a few months for one of his more wacky overreaches. I find that when reading whatever his latest post is, it helps to linger a few seconds on the very adorable picture he has posted at the top of each page first, because once you get to the words...well, look here:

"The growing availability of methamphetamine is a form of terrorism unto itself," Congressman Dent said. "This bill will help reduce the supply of this deadly drug by making it more difficult to obtain the ingredients necessary for production. It will also stiffen existing penalties for anyone caught producing or trafficking in meth."

You know, if Pennsylvania politicians keep talking nonsense like this whenever they open their mouth about terrorism, I'm going to have to start telling people I'm from "near New Jersey."

Okay, no, it'll never get that bad. But still.

The availability of meth is a form of terrorism? I can see how buying illegal drugs, which puts money in the hands of shady characters who sometimes funnel it to terrorists, can be seen as abetting terrorism. That doesn't mean I'm in favor of the War on Drugs, I hope it's obvious. I'm just saying that someone who managed to brush past rationality in a crowded hallway within the last week could see a connection.

There's so much information lacking about the port-rental-connected-to-UAE-holding-company thing that I figure I'll let everyone else rupture a few arteries and decide what I think when we actually know what we're talking about.

While the subject is raw, however, Peggy Noonan has some great points to make about security concerns:

It is almost five years since 9/11, and since the new security regime began. Why hasn't it gotten better? Why has it gotten worse? It's a disgrace, this airport security system, and it's an embarrassment. I'm sure my Englishman didn't come away with a greater respect or regard for America.

So we're all talking about port security this week, and the debate over the Bush administration decision to allow United Arab Emirates company to manage six ports in the United States. That debate is turning bitter, and I wonder if the backlash against President Bush isn't partly due to the fact that everyone in America has witnessed or has been a victim of the incompetence of the airport security system. Why would people assume the government knows what it's doing when it makes decisions about the ports? It doesn't know what it's doing at the airports.

This is a flying nation. We fly. And everyone knows airport security is an increasingly sad joke, that TSA itself often appears to have forgotten its mission, if it ever knew it, and taken on a new one--the ritual abuse of passengers.

Now there's a security problem. Solve that one.

Yeah, or how about learning to be competent at both? I'm one of those people who usually find the great machines that keep our civilization going inspiring and exhilarating. Turning me off to something like flying is a major undertaking. But nowadays there are few experiences more dispiriting than taking off for the airport.

Of course, JFK has always been a horrible place--especially so if you've got a lot of airports in other countries to compare it to, but plenty crappy on its own terms. Still, it's only gotten worse since 9/11. Like Noonan, I seem to win (?) the wand-down lottery frequently, though whether it's because of my Irish-sounding name and non-menacing slightness of build I don't pretend to know.

I don't pretend to enjoy it, either, but frequently the fact that the people doing the extra-special sweeps go out of their way to be nice and seem to care about being methodical at least restores your faith that someone gives a damn. (Yes, I'm cynically aware that they're probably under orders not to get you riled up, but you take what you can get.) I don't know of other facility that can match JFK for sheer blasé surliness, but all the other hubs I've been through in the last several years have managed to leave a similar impression of high-handedness combined with slackness.

Japan Defense Agency head Fukushiro Nukaga speaks:

A special lower house budgetary committee deliberatory session revolving around collusion in construction projects for the Defense Facilities Administrative Agency was held the morning of 22 February. Defense Agency leader Fukushiro Nukaga, on being given news of the rearrest of a former top agency official, stated, "we are thoroghly investigating the problems in both administrative and organizational terms, and making a fresh start is the responsibility of the DFAA leader and my mission." He denied anew that either he himself or DFAA head Iwao Kitahara would resign.

Nukaga stated that Kitahara has assumed the job of chair of the investigative committee that has been established in the DFAA, and indicated that there is no immediate plan for Kitahara to be reassigned.

Kitahara is of special interest to those who follow US-Japan military ties because, for one thing, he used to be DFAA chief in Okinawa and, partly because of that and partly because he's now the general secretary, he's been one of the chief negotiators in the drive to restructure US military facilities in that prefecture (especially, of course, Futenma). To what extent he allowed the culture of collusion to continue to flourish at the DFAA is an open question--he was clearly good at rising through the ranks, but on the other hand he's only been in the driver's seat for a year or so. It doesn't seem unreasonable, on the face of it, for Nukaga to decide that the imminent clean-up is, as he says, Kitahara's proper job.

Aum Shinrikyo founder Chizuo Matsumoto may be evil, but he's not nuts. Or, at least, the psychiatric evaluator appointed by the court has ruled that he's fit to stand trial (Yomiuri English report, Nikkei Japanese report). This is from the Yomiuri:

Meantime, judicial sources said the high court was now likely to dismiss the appeal by Matsumoto, commonly known as Shoko Asahara, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, an irrevocable confirmation of the death penalty meted out by the Tokyo District Court in February 2004.

The lower court found him guilty of masterminding 13 crimes, including sarin gas attacks on Tokyo's subway system in 1995 that killed 12 people and injured more than 5,500 others, and in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, in 1994, as well as the 1989 murder of a lawyer and his family.

The defense counsel for the cult founder had argued that the 50-year-old defendant was not fit for trial, while presiding Judge Masaru Suda had maintained that the cult founder was competent enough to stand trial or defend himself in court with the help of defense lawyers.

...

The doctor is believed to have diagnosed that Matsumoto's abnormal behavior stems from either a mild reaction to incarceration--a mental breakdown caused by prolonged detention--or that he is feigning sickness.

The evaluation ran to 88 pages, according to the Nikkei.

*******

Yesterday there was a stoppage on JR East's Yamanote Line, which rings the very center of Tokyo like London's Circle Line. It was just before 8 a.m. Not a pleasant scene, given that the three-hour (!) interruption of service caused problems for 112000 commuters. I'm sure the cab drivers loved it. I'm sure the buses were pandemonium, too.

To preserve balance and harmony, one imagines, JR West reported yesterday that over a thousand of its trains have bad brakes in the front cars:

Emergency brakes of the automatic train stop system on more than 40 percent of 2,700 lead cars West Japan Railway Co. uses would not function when their regular brakes fail, the firm said Monday.

The problem was caused when circuits connecting the ATS-SW and emergency braking systems were modified in 1994 to help facilitate the recovery process after an ATS malfunction. JR West used these lead cars for 12 years without noticing any fault.

The emergency brakes would not function on about 1,200 lead cars, the company said.

A representative of JR West's public relations department said, "We apologize for making passengers anxious."

To which residents of JR West territories are probably replying, "Thanks, pal, but we were anxious already." It was a JR West train that derailed last year in Amagasaki, killing over a hundred people. That accident was found to be due to misjudgment by the train driver...and his misjudgment was probably the result at least in part of systemic flaws in JR West's training. It became a lightning rod for questions about transportation safety in light of Japan's evolving economy and aging infrastructure.

The cars in question in this case, as you might suspect, are old. They were all manufactured two decades ago, before the rail system was privatized.

*******

The other big story today, besides the elimination of the Japanese women's curling team from Olympic competition, is about an e-mail:

Caution was urged Monday in the use of the Diet's authority to invoke special investigative powers to verify the authenticity of a controversial e-mail allegedly sent by former Livedoor Co. President Takafumi Horie that instructed that 30 million yen be remitted to the younger son of the Liberal Democratic Party's secretary general.

House of Representatives Budget Committee Chairman Tadamori Oshima of the LDP said the allegation by the opposition Democratic Party of Japan regarding what it claims is an e-mail sent by Horie is not serious enough to warrant using the constitutional powers of the Diet to investigate it.

"Given that the investigation right of the Diet into state affairs as stipulated by the Constitution is extremely significant, it should only be exercised with great prudence," Oshima said at a meeting of directors of the Budget Committee.

Prior to Oshima's statement, an LDP director at the meeting said the DPJ, which originally raised the remittance issue, should present clear evidence to prove that 30 million yen was sent to the son of LDP Secretary General Tsutomu Takebe, such as a bank account statement. The director said the LDP would agree to hold a Budget Committee meeting in camera for that purpose.

More finger-pointing to ensue, no doubt.

I find the long-distance relationship thing easier if I keep the apartment as if Atsushi might return for good tomorrow. You know, no slovenly-bachelor stuff, and no putting his stuff out of sight so it's not "in the way"--I try to keep the sense of a shared life. And no junk all over the place. Sure, I'm normally pretty persnickety anyway, but when things are busy--and they have been lately--even I can get to letting things go.

Today was catch-up. Since I like to eat a lot of vegetables and they tend to go bad if not used quickly, I made my week's worth of vegetable scramble. Kind of like ratatouille, but kind of not--spring onions, broccoli, mushrooms, red and yellow peppers, eggplant, a can of tomatoes, whatever herbs strike my fancy. Darkened apartment, task lighting over the cutting board, glass of whiskey, humming along with 10000 Maniacs. It makes me smile a little that I still like Our Time in Eden so much. It came out my sophomore year, my most uncomplicatedly happy time at college--my best grades, starting a few upper-level classes, fun with friends all the time. Not much later, the shakeup that ended with my coming out and leaving the church I'd been reared in would start for real, after which being my friend was not much fun for a while. And Our Time in Eden, populated as it is with characters who feel weak-willed and are faced with sticky moral decisions--well, it was so much of that time for me that I thought I might end up sealing it off there and not wanting to return to it. But it's okay. (What's not okay is what happened to Natalie Merchant when she went solo. Gawd, what a grim little finger-wagging schoolmarm she turned into. She used to have such empathy for people who were having trouble doing the right thing without talking down to them--you could hear it, even if you didn't agree with the "right thing" according to her lefty politics. Tigerlily just killed that dead.)

Oh, speaking of plants, I was making vegetables a few minutes ago, wasn't I? Yeah. That way I can nuke a frozen portion and dump it over pasta or alongside a poached egg on toast or what have you. Not as fresh as the things just picked from the garden like we had when I was little, but a lot better than Birdseye. As I said, no slovenly-bachelor stuff.

BTW, I think my favorite passage about vegetables ever is Miss Manners's on artichokes:

Dear Miss Manners:
What is the most efficient way of eating artichokes?

Gentle Reader:
For those who want to eat efficiently, God made the banana, complete with its own color-coordinated carrying case. The artichoke is a miracle of sensuality, and one should try to prolong such treats, rather than dispatch them speedily. An important part of sensuality is contrast. First pull off a leaf with a cruel, quick flick of the wrist, dip it in the sauce, and then slowly and lovingly pull the leaf through the teeth, with the chin tilted heavenward and the eyes half-closed in ecstasy. If the sauch drips, a long tongue, if you have one, may be sent down to get it. When the leaves are gone, the true subtlety of the artichoke reveals itself: a tender heart, covered with nasty bristles. To contrast with the fingering, there should be a sudden switch to cool formality. The fuzzy choke should be removed with dignified precision and a knife and fork, so that the heart may be consumed in ceremonial pleasure.

The most wonderful of many wonderful things about Judith Martin is the way she makes life seem Alice in Wonderland-ish. You know, inanimate objects have personalities, people are strange, and unexpected things happen all the time, and you just have to roll with it.

Of course, people do what you do expect sometimes. I actually did go out and pick up some Royal Copenhagen the other week; the whole "Buy Danish!" thing seemed kind of hokey, but I've felt better and better about it as the reaction has unfolded since. Anyway, Atsushi already had some Royal Copenhagen stuff that he didn't take with him to Kyushu. You know how I've mentioned that he doesn't wear any colors except navy blue and the occasional so-dark-it's-almost-black forest green? Well, he's the same with furniture and housewares. This is what you get when Atsushi goes shopping for dishes:





No, don't adjust the color on your monitor. See? The placemat's green. It's just the dishes that have no color. All Atsushi's are like that. Well, he has a donburi or two with a pattern, but I think they were presents or something. The insides of the kitchen cabinets looked like a Walker Evans photograph until I arrived on the scene.

They don't anymore, because this is what you get when Sean goes shopping for dishes:





Unlike, presumably, the Queen of Denmark, I'm not really into the chalky pastels. But given that my tea and coffee things are already a million colors and patterns, having a few restrained, solid things kicking around is probably a good thing.

He comes home this coming weekend.

The H2A Rocket launch today was successful--good. Reuters also has a report up already here. Japan's aerospace programs have still had their problems this year, but since last year's first successful H2A launch, things have seemed to be improving nicely.

I lost sight of this a few weeks ago without posting about it, but the Casey senatorial campaign is getting into gear in my home state (via Gay News):

In a Senate race that is looking to be the most closely watched and most expensive showdown in the nation, Pennsylvania State Treasurer Robert P. Casey Jr. is looking to win the gay vote.

Casey, who said he is gearing for nine more months of hard campaigning, will introduce himself to the region’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community Feb. 18 at the Human Rights Campaign Philadelphia Region Steering Committee’s annual gala.

If he gets on the Democratic ticket, Casey is running, of course, against Rick Santorum, one of the least gay-friendly major politicians in America. (And yes, I know he has a gay communications director. I'm speaking in terms of ideas and policies.)

Already he has the backing of the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organization; HRC’s political action committee endorsed Casey in October.

Ken Oakes, chair of the HRC Philadelphia Region Steering Committee, said an early endorsement like this is quite rare, but warranted.

“They [HRC] believe, and we agree, this is the race of the nation,” Oakes said. “Whatever happens here with Rick Santorum and Bob Casey is really a bellwether for the nation.”

...

Casey supports civil unions and domestic partner benefits, but stops short of supporting marriage equality.

But, compared to Santorum — who has equated gay sex with bestiality, and said there is nothing wrong with intolerance — Oakes said Casey is a fair-minded candidate with a proven record of respecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals and working on their behalf.

Many members of the sexual and gender minority communities probably cannot understand HRC's endorsement of Casey, Oakes said.

The HRC's early commitment in this case is a much more sensible unusual move than its idiotic endorsement of Joseph Whowasthatagain against gay-friendly (and very powerful) senior Senator Arlen Specter two years ago. Of course, the fact that Casey is a Democrat means everything falls cleanly along pre-conceived party lines this time, thus sparing most people involved from asking uncomfortable questions about, you know, principles and stuff.

Of course, as the PGN notes, this year's race is, for a lot of gay voters, as much about giving Santorum the heave as it is about getting a friendly candidate elected. Suppose you're a gay Pennsylvanian who occasionally thinks about the economy, or education, or the WOT? The Casey campaign's website is still on the thin side, but here's its issues page:

Bob Casey is running for the U.S. Senate because he wants to help bring change to Washington.

ZZZZZZZZ...wha? Oh, sorry.

As your Senator, Bob Casey will fight to put the needs and concerns of Pennsylvania's middle-class families first.

Bob Casey has stood up for our seniors as Auditor General and successfully fought to improve the Health Department's response to complaints about life-threatening abuse and neglect in nursing homes. He will continue to fight for our seniors in Washington.

Bob Casey has led the fight to improve the quality of child care in Pennsylvania and make it more affordable for low-income working mothers. And his performance audits helped save money for our schools. He will continue to fight for our children and for public education as a U.S. Senator.

Bob Casey also successfully fought to protect children from sex offenders. His investigation into compliance with Pennsylvania's Megan's Law led to passage of tough new legislation in 2004 that requires information about all convicted sex offenders to be posted on the Internet. In Washington, Bob Casey will continue to protect our children and to give law enforcement the tools they need to fight crime.

So he likes the usual array of entitlements--not surprising, if you're worried about such trivialities as whether you can get elected. Casting himself as an opponent of excessive spending--using his work as auditor general and state treasurer to give the image dimension--while supporting all the spending programs that are dear to the middle class is a good strategy. (He also wants you to sign a petition to save--of all things--Amtrak. Some fiscal watchdogging there, eh?)

So I'm not sure, at this early date, what change Casey will be bringing to Washington, besides the fact that there would be one senator fewer from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who doesn't go to gay advocacy fundraisers.

Casey's Democratic rivals, perhaps because they recognize that they have a lot less name recognition than the son of a former governor, have much more fleshed-out policy pages. Assuming gay issues are your first priority, Chuck Pennacchio clearly supports civil unions and appears--though the relevant paragraph understandably kind of hedges--to support gay marriage. He also likes the assault weapons ban, calls the Iraq invasion "reckless and deceptive" in origin, wants all campaigns for federal office to be publicly funded, and (as if you couldn't guess) thinks we're not dumping enough tax money into the public school system and Medicare. Alan Sandals has his soundbites in handy chart form. He supports gay marriage and thinks we should begin withdrawing from Iraq. Otherwise, the same: more money for senior citizens, end the K Street Project as one in the eye for Santorum and the GOP.

New word: 非姉歯 (hi-aneha, presumably: "non-Aneha"), to designate buildings with falsified earthquake resistance certifications that were not produced by Hidetsugu Aneha:

On 18 February, the City of Yokohama held an information session for residents of Tsurumi Ward, revealing of an apartment building in that district, the earthquake resistance of which had been found to be deficient [though] its structural calculations had been contracted to another architect than former first-class architect Hideji Aneha, that its level of earthquake resistance was 64% of the minimum standard mandated by the Building Standards Law. In an earthquake with an intensity of a strong 5 on the JMA scale, there is a risk that its quake-resistance walls could crack.

The city explained, "This doesn't bear the marks of willful falsification; there were errors in the structural calculations and inspection procedures."

Wow. Well, that makes it all better. There may be more to the story, though.

According to the city's statement, the building is the St. Regis Tsurumi (10 floors, 37 units). The building is managed by Huser Corp. (Oota Ward, Tokyo; in bankruptcy proceedings) and built by Kimura Construction (Yashiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture; also in bankruptcy proceedings). The building was designed by Shimokawabe Architecture and Design (Oota Ward, Tokyo), and the structural calculations performed by a design firm in Suginami Ward, Tokyo. Japan- ERI (Minato Ward, Tokyo), a private inspection organization, performed the building certification in 2002.

With Huser and Kimura involved, it is not, shall we say, the easiest thing in the world to believe that there was no purposeful falsification. We'll see, though.

The big news today is that there's been another child murder. This time there's no question of having watched out more carefully for a suspicious stranger:

A woman was arrested Friday on suspicion of fatally stabbing two 5-year-old schoolmates of her daughter while driving them to kindergarten, police said.

Mie Taniguchi, 34, has admitted she stabbed the children, police said, but she has been unable to respond to questioning.

A passerby called police around 9 a.m. Friday after coming across a boy and a girl lying and bleeding in an area filled with rice paddies.

Each child had been stabbed about 20 times, police said.

...

The woman said Taniguchi was originally from China and apparently had trouble with the Japanese language.

About a year ago, the woman said, Taniguchi complained that she could not mingle with the mothers of other children at the kindergarten.

Obviously, there was more going on there than simple trouble with Japanese; foreign women marry Japanese men and adjust to life here--the initial distant reception for both them and their children, the difficulties communicating--without stabbing anyone. You have to feel sorry for the parents of the dead children, of course, but I'm most sad for Taniguchi's own daughter.

If lack of earthquake safety in your house doesn't bother you, perhaps I could interest you in this bridge?

A construction company is being blamed for covering up shoddy construction work on an expressway bridge in Toyama Prefecture to pass a government inspection, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Thursday.

Matsumoto Construction Co., headquartered in Tonami in the prefecture, constructed smaller-than-normal piles built to support two piers of the expressway bridge while preparing foundations for the four-pier elevated structure at Awara in Himi, also in the prefecture, in 2004.

In August of the same year, the company found the diameter of some piles was up to 10 percent short of the 120-centimeter standard set by the Construction and Transport Ministry.

To clear a ministry inspection confirming the construction work conformed to standards, Matsumoto Construction secretly cast concrete into each faulty pile's head--which remained above the ground and was examined in the official check--to make them appear up to the diameter standard.

...

As construction of the four piers has already been completed, the extent to which the piles fall short of minimum standards is impossible to confirm. The ministry's Hokuriku Regional Development Bureau, which has already excavated holes at the site to conduct sample checks on the piles, said the two piers were not in danger of collapse.

The bureau, however, has not yet carried out a similar check on a third pier to verify its strength. It plans to look into the matter as soon as possible, officials said.

Once again, I know this stuff happens everywhere--but it's exactly the sort of profit-driven hanky-panky on the part of private businesses that we were told for decades didn't happen in Japan because of the omnipresence of careful civil servants and everyone's prioritization of group benefits.

The new Madonna video is out.

Enh.

The Kylie hair is pretty flattering, actually. But it's Kylie hair. That's not a slam on Kylie (who didn't really invent it herself, anyway). We love Kylie. But Madonna is not Kylie. Sure, she's done revivals and rip-offs before, but she always seemed to be enjoying herself, and they served some kind of expressive point. Remaking the "Fever" video minus the metallic body paint? No point to that that I can see. And kind of grim actually.

Oh, and speaking of which--one more thing.

Mads? Listening? Here it is:

UNCLENCH.

YOUR.

JAW.

Seriously, it can't be just whatever your aesthetic-body-maintenance people are doing, unless they've gone and wired your mouth shut. Part of it's age, probably, but most of it is clearly posture and attitude. Your lips no longer look pliant and inviting, so your trademark brazen stare has no tease to it. It just looks scary. I mean, scary-scary, not thrilling-scary.

Seriously, have you relaxed a single muscle--at all, ever--since the obstetrician dilated you so you could pass that last kid? Girlfriend, you have enough money to finance ten Methuselah-length lifetimes. You've been the most famous woman on the planet for the better part of two decades. Rock critics capitulated to you as far back as Like a Prayer. Contemporary music videos, for both better and worse, would be inconceivable without you. You used to be an overachiever because you had a million ideas; now you work hard to make videos for disco songs that show people, you know, dancing around. A real flight of imagination, that.

Let's just hope you come up with something better for "Jump," which is supposed to be the third single, yeah? It's the best song on the album and doesn't deserve the see-me-do-Dance-Dance-Revolution-with-a-bunch-of-teenagers treatment.

This is the kind of malarkey that always yanks my chain (via Ex-Gay Watch). People have religious convictions against homosexuality--fine, they have a right to air them. There's self-destructive behavior in sectors of gay life--it's only honest to point that out, too. It's when people's post-Enlightenment guilt consciences start getting the better of them--and they start making inane, pseudo-rigorous statements that mime the use of reliable scientific backing--that they become insufferable:

Can a society create more homosexuals? The answer quite clearly is yes. That is how current homosexuals, in fact, came to be.

People, especially the young, can be seduced into homosexual behavior and have their identities molded around the homosexual lifestyle through a combination of persuasion and circumstances that may include the following:

• being convinced homosexuality is acceptable;
  
• reading or viewing explicit homosexual pornography;
  
• having a close relationship with a peer who is practicing homosexuality;
  
• admiring an older teacher or mentor who is homosexual;
  
• attending homosexual social venues (a "gay" club, bar, church youth group);
  
• being homosexually molested;
  
• having parents who espouse homosexuality or engage in homosexual activism;
  
• lacking strong ties to a church that remains faithful to the historic Christian faith, and hostility toward traditional views.

...

Strong religious faith, especially traditional Christian morality, often acts as a protective barrier to the development of homosexual desire. When children grow up trusting God as the Designer of masculinity and femininity, and if they are not sexually molested or have their innocence assaulted by other traumatic events, their feelings will be channeled normally toward heterosexual sex within marriage as an obvious and desirable goal.

Madam, not to put too fine a point on it, but you are an idiot.

My own upbringing, point by point against Ms. Harvey's imaginings:

• Not a week went by at church when the threat homosexuality posed to society was not held up as a reason America was in deep trouble. From the moment AIDS was first identified in the early '80's, my parents reacted to news stories about it by saying that it was God's punishment for sinful behavior;
  
• Yeah, right;
  
• My parents wouldn't have stood for that for a second;
  
• The only teacher known to be gay at my high school was the kind of shriveled-up, mean, trollish guy who made Charles Nelson Reilly look benevolent. I did not, I can assure you, look up to him. Otherwise, I grew up around churchgoing manual laborers and their wives;
  
• The idea of a gay social venue for teenagers in Emmaus, PA, in the 1980s is the funniest thing I've heard all day. My parents believed in fun, but they monitored our access to artifacts of popular culture very closely;
  
• No--I realize that a lot of virulently anti-gay types cling to this explanation like a security blanket, but no;
  
• By telling fag and dyke jokes when activists were featured on television, maybe?
  
• I was brought up in the Worldwide Church of God, a church so utterly off-the-deep-end fundie we weren't invited to the rest of the Christian right's play dates. My father was the teacher for our highest level of youth Bible lessons (like Sunday school). He read to my brother and me from the Bible nightly before tucking us in until I was sixteen or so. After that, I was expected to study the Bible, also nightly, myself. We had two-hour services every week. You took notes.

So "That is how current homosexuals, in fact, came to be"? Sorry. Try again.

I don't mind opposition. Two or three of the earliest friends I made through commenting on blogs frequently commented on what they believed was the sinfulness of homosexuality.

I do very much mind having my biography rewritten by ignoramuses--or rather, people can think whatever insulting things they like about me, but I mind the implications for the people I grew up around. You can't say that irresponsible parenting leads to homosexuality in the abstract without, necessarily, saying that the individual parents of individual homosexuals fell down on the job. Well, my parents did not. They pushed me firmly toward traditionally working-class boyish activities. They set an example of a great marriage. I think some of what they did was misguided--specifically, the anti-gay stuff and the constant playing of Ringo Starr solo albums on the stereo--but nobody's perfect. They managed to turn out resilient kids with fully-functioning bullshit detectors and a can-do approach to tackling life's problems.

None of this is to say that sex ed bureaucrats with intrusive condom-on-banana programs can't confuse and screw up children, or that some people who are unhappily homosexual can't learn to function in a straight relationship, or that child-rearing is currently in the greatest shape in America, or that pop culture isn't increasingly hard for parents to play gatekeeper with. It's just that single-issue explanations that--how convenient!--just happen to support people's preconceived ideas about how the universe works are of little help to people who believe in individuality and the disinterested pursuit of truth. (And yes, it's just as annoying when gay activists do their "we were OBVIOUSLY BORN GAY" routine.) They do, however, cause harm to parents who are thus haunted by the thought that there must have been something they Could Have Done.

Gaijin Biker links to a Japan Times interview with the Egyptian ambassador here, in which he does that oily I'm-not-making-threats-I'm-just-stating-a-fact thing:

Attacks like the ones on the Danish embassies in Syria and Lebanon last weekend could take place in Japan if the media here insult Muslims by reprinting cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad, Egyptian Ambassador to Japan Hisham Badr warned Friday.

"This is not a question of freedom of expression.... This is a question of blaspheme of religion," Badr said in an interview with The Japan Times. "It touches a very raw nerve" with Muslims worldwide.

So it's not a question of freedom of expression; it's just a question of whether expressing certain things will get your life, liberty, or property threatened.

I'm glad that's cleared up.

This whole thing is frustrating because I'm always happy to see calls for civilized behavior and wish there were more of them. I was brought up by and among fervently religious people, and despite being an atheist homo, I try to be respectful of their beliefs. Of course, you can't debate some points of spirituality without telling people directly that you think they're full of baloney, but that's why you don't introduce religion as a topic socially unless you're sure everyone's game for a pretty rousing discussion. I meet some religious people who are just interested in a neighborly manner in my current convictions; I meet others who are pretty clearly more interested in seeing whether they can try to draw me into their congregation. But never have I encountered anyone who's acted as if I were somehow obliged, even as a non-believer, to follow the strictures of his faith or risk reprisal.

Most of us in the West are not part of the ummah. We are not. We don't feel the need to act as if we were. I don't think these sorts of discussions can really get anywhere until a critical mass of Muslim public figures and opinion-makers make it very clear that they get that. I would think it discourteous if a group of Christians (and Jews and New Age types and atheists) decided to eat in a pointed fashion in front of a Muslim friend or corworker during daylight hours in Ramadan. But what if some Muslims had started things off by demanding that the cafeteria be closed so that no one could buy food on the premises during their holy month? Well, that would change things, wouldn't it? You might still recognize the public eating of Egg McMuffins with exaggerated relish as an affront, but you'd recognize that it was an affront with a point: we can be friendly and accommodating after you recognize that we are not bound as adherents by your religious rules.

After all, if we're going to criticize hostility to foreign religions, we could get quite a long discussion going about Saudi Arabia, where policy actively interferes with the religious practices of non-Muslims (indeed, even Muslims who don't belong to the official sect) who want to wear crucifixes or see clergy regularly or bring in copies of their sacred books. But I guess it's more important that liberal democracies be lectured about cartoons.

Added at 0:06: Speaking of Saudi Arabia, Al Gore is... cheese and crackers.

[Chuckle]:

The government is expected to reject an application by a dance club operator in Roppongi, Minato Ward, Tokyo, to make the district a government special zone to allow clubs to stay open all night.

It is expected to be rejected on the ground that the special designation would lead to a deterioration of public order.

...

In November, Velfarre asked the government to make Roppongi a special zone for structural reform and allow its clubs to be open all night like those in London and Paris. The company argued that the proposed easing of regulations would attract tourists to Roppongi, revitalizing the district.

However, the Metropolitan Police Department opposed the request, saying foreigners committed many crimes in that part of the capital [SRK rolls eyes], and an all-night club in an area full of drunk people would make Roppongi a hotbed of criminality.

Anyone who thinks something has to change for Roppongi to contribute to a deterioration of public order and become a hotbed of criminality has clearly never been there.

Let the lawsuits begin:

[A] business hotel operator filed a lawsuit Tuesday demanding 721 million yen ($6.15 million) from a consulting company and Aichi Prefecture over falsified strength reports that forced the hotel to close down.

...

Handa Denka Kogyo Co., an electric works company that operates the Centre One Hotel Handa in Handa, said the prefectural government failed to detect glaring flaws in Aneha's reports and gave its approval for the construction of the building.

Handa Denka also blamed Tokyo-based consultant company Sogo Keiei Kenkyujo (Soken), and its director, Takeshi Uchikawa, over their instructions on how to build and manage the business hotel.

The lawsuit, filed with the Nagoya District Court, is the first time in the widening Aneha scandal for a business hotel operator to hold administrative authorities responsible for the falsified reports.

"The prefectural government's fault is serious," the lawsuit said.

...

An official of the Aichi prefectural government denied the prefecture was responsible.

"Aneha's falsification was skilful and beyond our imagination. We did not commit any faults under the laws," the official said.

Possibly. Or possibly, the bureaucrats in Aichi Prefecture just lack imagination. Remember this gem from a few months ago? (No, I'm not calling my own post a gem; I'm referring to the cited Yomiuri article, which is no longer on-line):

The analysis was provided by a first-class architect asked by The Yomiuri Shimbun to evaluate the plans of Aneha, who has admitted falsifying structural strength certificates for 22 buildings in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The expert said the structural data were an outright falsification, with various data combined to reduce material costs, and it was hard to imagine how the inspection agency involved failed to notice.

Concerning the structural integrity data for Sun Chuo Home No. 15, an apartment building in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture, the architect said, "I had an uncomfortable feeling looking at it at first glance."

Those were in Chiba, not Aichi, but there seems little reason to believe that Aneha took extra care to cover his tracks outside Tokyo. He was quoted multiple times as saying that he didn't work too hard at being crafty.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the prefectural government actually is liable; if everyone down the line did all the rubber-stamping and paper pushing right, it may not be.

Like most very fascinating people, Oriana Fallaci can be infuriating; but she's been decrying Islamofascism for years. (She's the journalist who, during an audience with Khomeini, yanked off the hood of her chador and called it a "filthy medieval rag.") And it says something that there's an Italian curator who thinks that this is a meaningful piece of art to offer audiences.

One doesn't want art to be making pat points that can be summarized in a single sentence--for that, you can just, like, write a single sentence--but a certain coherence, even if it's at the dream level, would be nice. Does Fallaci symbolize American decadence because she now lives in New York? Does the painter think she's done things to deserve beheading? Or are we just being [yawn] transgressive again, throwing grapeshot around and hoping that some of it strikes a target that people will find worth talking about? What Fallaci's fierce, knowing gaze--which the artist has at least depicted with a simple immediacy that shows he's not an empty set technically--has to do with weakness and perversity, I'm afraid I cannot imagine. Of course, it's redundant to point out that Americans are not being given instructions to demonstrate outside the nearest Italian diplomatic building (unless my latest e-mail from the US embassy has been held up--you know, watch it when traveling, no update on threats of terrorism in Japan, don't forget to do your taxes, here's how to renew your passport by mail, bring Italian flags to Mita for burning on Sunday).

This weekend I wrote to another blogger that I was going to try to put a lid on the fifteen-paragraph posts slamming friends who needed to complain sometimes--you know, as if it were an earth-shaking deal.

I'd just like to note here that I made it at least a good forty-eight hours. Maybe it would have been longer had I stayed home all weekend.

There seems to be a certain type of person who arrives at the coming out phase and thinks, Hmmm....Lots of affectionate pity from friends...extra lenience for bad behavior [overdrinking, overspending, screwing over friends, screwing over boyfriends, screwing over friends with their boyfriends]...a ready excuse for not dealing well with my parents...I could learn to like this, and decides to camp there indefinitely.

I doubt that that's a conscious decision for the most part, you understand; it's just this whole self-fulfilling prophecy thing. Nearly everyone starts out in gay life wondering whether he'll make any friends and whether any guys will go for him at all, let alone whether he'll ever find love. It's kind of scary at first. No shame in that. Reasonable people figure that, hey, a little open rejection every now and then is way better than a lot of being closed off and closeted and borderline-suicidal all the time...and besides, if a few million other guys and girls can do it, so can they. And they're right.

By contrast, the determined whiners are the boys who in five years go from a tentative Will anyone ever be interested in me for real? to the confidently crabby I hate the bar scene--everyone's so shallow! without ever stopping at Maybe it's MY behavior that's flawed and I should GET OVER MYSELF and try modifying it in between.

When one of these characters starts getting wound up--here as at home, you generally know you've got trouble when the words "bar scene" are uttered--it is, I have learned, a mistake to try to head him off at the pass by suggesting that he might want to try other possible ways to circulate. Guys have a bizarre way of objecting to Internet classifieds as "kinda pathetic" immediately after complaining that they're dateless and friendless at bars. And recommending that someone join a sports or activities group is useless when his whole problem is that he thinks happiness should bestir itself to come and find him.

Well, all right, you don't like bars, but you don't like the other options any more, so you're stuck here unless you decide to go into a monastery. How about doing what everybody else does? You talk to people. Some of them won't be interested, and some of them won't be very nice about the fact that they're not interested. That stings, but it won't kill you. And talking to guys who don't seem likely to become boyfriends or best buddies reminds you that you're not the center of the universe and everyone has problems. You'll eventually have a relationship that doesn't really go anywhere, or that lasts a year or so before you realize it isn't good for you. You call it a learning experience and move on. That's one of the things that happen when you choose for yourself rather than letting family elders and other matchmakers filter out possible partners. If liberty's not working out for you, maybe you'd prefer to go back to the older system and get your parents to pick. You probably won't be any happier, but at least with you and your wife sharing the same loveless marriage, she might have some empathy to draw on while listening to you mewl.

Okay, I'm willing to go after critics of Japan's whaling industry research program when they get opportunistic and start slinging around WWII analogies, but come on here:

The government wants the public to eat more whale meat to reduce the bloated stockpile and to prevent a rise in international criticism against Japan's "research whaling" program.

The excess stock stems from Japan's expanded catch of whales in the name of research, coupled with sluggish demand among consumers for the meat.

Fisheries Agency officials say the mounting stockpile could fuel anti-whaling nations' arguments that Japan should reduce the number of whales it hunts or terminate the whaling program altogether.

The Fisheries Agency, which does not want to cut back on its research whaling, will develop new sales channels and reduce prices to lift consumption of whale meat, the officials said.

"There are still a large number of consumers who want to eat whale meat," said an agency official. "If we only improve how to sell the product, the stock will rapidly decrease."

According to agency officials, whale meat is difficult to sell at major supermarket chains because those stores deal only with products of a certain quantity.

The whale meat supply, although growing, is still smaller than those of other marine products.

If Japan wants to argue that the IWC has been taken over by hard-core environmentalists who will find ways to keep the moratorium on commercial whaling in place even if whales overrun the planet, fine. That wouldn't be hard to believe. If it's going to exploit some loophole that allows whales to be culled for research, and do so in order to make a point by being perfectly upfront about the fact that it's hunting whales, also...well, not fine, perhaps, but possibly a gesture that makes a point that can't be made any other way.

However, the idea that it's Japanese consumers' job to eat more whale meat to cover the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries's ass when it overhunts is just nuts. If all those whales were necessary for research, then the fact that people aren't eating them may be kind of too bad, but it's incidental. If the idea is to keep the Japanese from being deprived of a traditional marine product, then it's clearly working, but there's no point in oversupply. And there's no reason Japan shouldn't take criticism for misusing a natural resource that isn't obtained within its own territory.

The proposal to elevate the Japan Defense Agency to ministry level will not be presented to the Diet during this session:

Within the government and the ruling coalition, there is a growing perception that it is necessary to conduct more extensive inquiries into the collusion scandal revolving around procurement at the Defense Facilities Administration Agency and to see the matter through to discussion in the Diet.

Prime Minister Jun'ichiro Koizumi made a statement about the bill to elevate the JDA to ministerial status at noon on 13 February: "We're cooperating in the LDP and the Komeito and want to keep an eye on the situation. It's not a discussion to have in haste or in a panic." He indicated that he is not adamant about submitting the bill during this Diet session. He was responding to a question from the press corp at the Prime Minister's residence. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe also related at a morning press conference that "we want to continue to examine, as the government, how the collaboration between the ruling parties should be organized."

Defense certainly warrants a body at the highest level of government operations, but I can see the point that the last thing Japan needs is yet another ministry that engages in bid-rigging and revolving-door shenanigans.

Despite the best efforts of his dumb-ass of a boyfriend, Atsushi managed to receive an early box of cookies for Valentine's Day today. They were, to hear him tell, very good. Glad to hear it. Still not sure why he keeps that idiot guy around, though.

Madonna, darling, you really need to listen to Heather at Go Fug Yourself. She's only looking after your best interests.

I mean, I gotta hand it to you--photo comparisons show you've had work done, but you clearly haven't had your eyebrows jerked up two inches or gotten your doctor to immobilize your entire face with botox or collagened your lips to dirigible proportions. Good on you for that.

But from the looks of things, that bod of yours has the same fat content as a Snackwells cookie. It's just about as appetizing, too. Middle-aged beauty just isn't the same as 20s beauty, and you (and quite a few of your gay fans around your age) really could stand to remember that every now and then. Guys in their late 40s who want to maintain the granite six-pack they've had for the last two decades can often do it with martial discipline and a little lipo; but the grain of their skin is different, and it no longer hugs their muscles the same way. When they relax into being a little fleshier and more substantive, middle-aged guys stay yummy and touchable-looking. When they avoid adipose cells like the Plague, they look as if they'd starved themselves to vanishing point and been reupholstered in easy-care vinyl. It's depressing to see.

Oops, imagine that. I got derailed into talking about male sexiness. Anyway, back to the issue at hand: Madge, that last video proved to us that you can still fold yourself up like a contortionist and dance around frantically without losing your breath. The point is made. You've impressed your fans once again. Now, if you actually want to make us happy, you might consider going back to making videos that are actually beautiful to look at. Maybe you could come up with a few ideas if you took a day off from the gym and kicked back a little.

What I learned from The Independent today:

Apparently, Tracey Emin's fifteen minutes aren't blessedly over as I'd thought. Sheesh.

There's also this (via Gay News and leading to an interview that's summarized in the original publication here) a piece on a former minister under the conservative UK administrations in the '80s:

Francis Maude, the chairman of the Conservative Party, has said that the homophobic attitude of the Thatcher government contributed to the death of his brother from Aids.

Mr Maude, who served as a minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, said he regretted voting for the now-repealed Section 28, which banned councils from promoting homosexuality. [He explains a little further later on: "Some local authorities were actively promoting homosexuality to school children at a time when gay sex under the age of 21 was illegal."--SRK] "In hindsight a mistake, I voted for it, I was a minister," he said.

...

"The gay scene in London in the 1980s was quite aggressively promiscuous and I think if society generally and the government I served in had been more willing to recognise gay people then there would have been less of that problem."

He added: "A lot of people like my brother would not have succumbed to HIV and lost their lives."

I'm always of two minds when people say stuff like this. On the one hand, yes, people whose moral code says that gays should be outcasts have to behave as they believe, but then they're not exactly in a position to point to statistics about self-destructive behavior and trumpet that they show something inherently screwed-up about homosexuality. Cutting people off from civilizing institutions and social structures is hardly a way to find out whether they're capable of civilized behavior.

On the other...Maude is a powerful politician, not just a prominent private citizen who misses his brother, and I wish politicians were able to display more of a sense of context about these things. We're talking about the aftermath of the Sexual Revolution, the promiscuity of which caused plenty of problems for straight people, too, despite their being accepted by society. Besides which, immoderate behavior is hardly an inevitable response to being reviled--whatever happened to "living well is the best revenge"? I want more acceptance of gays, obviously, and I find Maude's change of heart on the topic very moving. It's just that using AIDS to argue for it always seems to have, hovering in there somwhere, an implication that straight people need to be especially nurturing and gentle toward us because, you know, look what we went and did when they weren't the last time. That's not the way you talk about people you regard as adults and equals.

Another Gay Republican is back to blogging interestingly about politics and, more importantly, has a clean-lined new site design. (Why are the boys in the back snickering about my priorities? Think about it: Two hundred years from now, will people still care whether some stadium was built in DC? Will they still care which shades of red and blue make the most pleasing combination against a dead-white background? Exactly. See how easy rational thought is when you just give it a little effort? Now stop with the sassing; you're distracting me.)

Not every gay guy who's returning to modified versions of old behaviors is getting on my good side by doing it, unfortunately. I ran into a casual friend for the first time in months a few nights ago. As I always do when I meet guys who were single the last time I saw them and have had time to do something about it, I gave him the smirk and the question: "So, anything good to report?"

When will I ever learn? Kaz is not, after all, an unknown hazard. He's still getting over a man he was dating who ultimately decided that he was serious about someone else. The relationship lasted three-ish months and was broken off a year and a half ago.

No, I didn't accidentally reverse those numbers. Dude is now, with a shameless get-down-in-it moroseness that would embarrass Eeyore, into his eighteenth month of self-pity over a dating relationship that barely survived a financial quarter. So there I was last night, once again looking on in sympathy as eyes teared up and lines of the "I just still...you know?" variety were huskily uttered. What made it especially trying was that this week, a dear friend suffered the rather brutal break-up of a live-in relationship of several years. While he's carrying it like a gentleman, he's still in the very early raw stage when you lean on your buddies. Therefore, the weapons in my Gay Big Bro arsenal are kind of in use right now and not really available for people whose major problem is that they failed to notice that they flew over the International Get a Grip Line several months ago.

But even without that unfortunate contrast, I mean, hello? You can't help how hard and fast you fall. We all get the chance to be humiliated by unrequited desire. You give yourself time to regain your self-discipline. Then you exercise it, by faking sociability and an interest in flirting until the real thing comes back. It never works perfectly, at least at first, but it has to be better than spending 600% longer mourning a relationship than you did enjoying it. Better for yourself and, for the love of Cole Porter, those around you.

Added on 12 February: Now that I think about it, I believe Deborah Harry sings that second line in the conditional mood.

Discussion in the Diet is beginning over how to reform the health-care system. Japanese society, in case you've just emerged from two decades in a cave and haven't seen this topic beaten to death yet, is aging. The cost structures of the social welfare programs need to be changed, but as with everything else, there are a lot of people who make out well by the current system and will resist changing it. Many of them are powerful middle-aged bureaucrats who are themselves approaching old age rapidly.

The [Koizumi] government, in a cabinet session on the morning of 10 February, approved a health care system reform bill the primary goal of which is to hold down health care costs, which have been increasing as society ages. The bill will be submitted to the Diet within the day. The bill incorporates such proposals as a phased-in increase, to begin in October, in the health care fees paid by the elderly and the restructuring of [national] health insurance.

If the bill is enacted, cash register payments [that is, the amount you pay on the way out of the doctor's office, assessed as a percentage of the total tab] for high-income persons of at least 70 years of age will increase. You're designated high-income if your annual household income is over about US $55000. Of course, the bill doesn't seem to address systemic inefficiencies that encourage over-subscription--notably the practice of drawing out treatment for a relatively simple problem over several visits, after the fashion of a novel published serially. Or the effects of overweening bureaucracy.

If you tend to approach the tasks of daily life with a normal degree of competence, the steps below may not make any sense unless you get a trusted friend to whack you in the head real good with a 2X4. If they still don't make sense, you may need another whack. If you try a third whack and end up brain dead, be sure to contact me, because we will then clearly be able to communicate as equals.

1. Decide under the influence of no-mercy Japanese commercialism that, even though you don't give a fig about Valentine's Day, it would be nice to surprise your Darling Longsuffering Boyfriend with a treat.
   
2. Order early enough not to rouse suspicions of possibly nosy concierge at DLB's apartment building that package is connected with Valentine's Day.
   
3. Go to Dean and Deluca website and locate suitable cookies.
   
4. Carefully type in your address for billing.
   
5. Carefully type in DLB's address for shipping.
   
6. Submit information.
   
7. Get error message telling you that you ignored (clearly visible) instructions to make all characters in addresses full-width and not half-width characters.
   
8. Correct numbers.
   
9. Resubmit information, having failed to notice that radio button for recipient and shipping address is still set to default of "Same as billing."
   
10. Receive notice that order has been shipped.
    
11. Reward self for thinking ahead, for once, with slice of lemon poppyseed cake.
    
12. Receive notice from delivery service that package is waiting in parcel locker of your own apartment complex.
    
13. Retrieve package to find cookies intended for DLB.
    
14. Idly wish there were a way to punish oneself for stupidity by uneating cake.
    
15. Put cookies on counter and figure you can express mail them to DLB yourself next day.
    
16. Look thoughtfully at cookies each time you pass counter on way to bathroom or kitchen.
    
17. No, make that covetously. Look covetously at cookies each time you pass counter.
    
18. Figure the hell with it and open cookies. Eat four with Murder, She Wrote.
    
19. Vaguely think about repackaging rest of cookies in order to disguise half-goneness before sending to DLB. Rationalize that he wouldn't have liked all the girly-girl packaging stuff anyway and might not have been able to finish cookies by expiration date.
    
20. Figure the double-hell with it and eat rest of cookies with blogreading, resolving to order another package next day.
    
21. Congratulate self for having chosen cookies that turned out to be seriously yummy.
    
22. Order another package of cookies next day, this time taking precaution of reading all directions as you go.
    
23. Well, except for the part about making all characters full width before submitting information.
    
24. Punch self in chest as punishment for not being able to remember, after nine years in Japan, that you need to read whether full-width or half-width characters are called for on an on-line form.
    
25. Strip off T-shirt and look in panic at chest to make sure self-punishment has not produced unattractive bruise.
    
26. Submit information by jamming finger into Enter key, which has served you faithfully while you told it to do dumb things.
    
27. Apologize to Enter key.
    
28. Be grateful you have blog that's read faithfully by DLB so that you can tell him you've done something idiotic again without actually having to, you know, tell him.
    
29. Look forlornly at tea and wish you'd saved one or two cookies.

A case of earthquake resistance fakery not perpetrated by Aneha (story so far as I've kept track) has surfaced:

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport disclosed on 8 February that it had confirmed a case of fraud related to structural calculations for three apartment complexes in Fukuoka City; the calculations had been contracted out to a design firm that was not part of Aneha Architecture and Design. The firm in question is Something (Fukuoka Prefecture; closed for business in 2002), and the construction firm for all affected buildings was Kimura Construction (Yashiro City, Kumamoto Prefecture; now in bankruptcy proceedings). This is the first case of such fraud that has come to light that did not involve former first-class architect Hideji Aneha.

*******

Princess Kiko, the wife of the current Emperor and Empress's second son Fumihito, is pregnant with her third child. The Nikkei seems to think it newsworthy that the British press is going bananas over the news--maybe there's some sort of constitutional monarchy kinship thing going here? Anyway, the news feeds into the controversy over possible female succession that's been percolating here:

News of a new member of the imperial family comes as the government is moving to revise the Imperial House Law to allow females and their descendants to ascend the Chrysanthemum throne.

However, conservative Diet members, especially those in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, oppose Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's stated intention to pass the revision during the current Diet session.

No boy has been born in the imperial family since Fumihito in 1965.

If the emperor's next grandchild is a boy, he would be third in line to the throne under the current Imperial House Law.

The English Asahi has another article specifically about the move to change the rules of successsion here. Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako, his much put-upon wife, have managed to produce a daughter, but she's ineligible to become empress.

*******

I was hoping there would be something deliciously inflammatory to report from the Japan-DPRK summit this week. (Well, stopping short of "We're sending missiles to Tokyo, Insular Devils!") No such luck. The talks ended today. The result? Negotiations must continue. Oh, okay:

Japan and North Korea concluded their five-day schedule of talks on 8 February with a general meeting at a hotel in Beijing. Japan once again conveyed that its fundamental approach is that "until the issues of the 1970s abductions of Japanese citizens and of the DPRK's nuclear program and long-range missiles are resolved, there will be no normalization of relations." There was no progress in concrete terms. Both parties affirmed that parallel talks will continue on three major themes: normalization of relations, Japanese abductees, and North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

Japan doubts the DPRK's sincerity. The DPRK returns the compliment.

*******

As always, they may (or may not) be contemplating increasing the consumption tax (or at least changing it in what might possibly be deemed a non-negative, non-zero direction). Yeah, I know--blah, blah, blah. What's semi-interesting is that the DPJ seems to have wheeled Katsuya Okada out of the morgue to comment:

The Prime Minister indicated that he is of the opinion that continuing reforms will be necessary even after [current] goals will have been achieved, stating, "It cannot be said that once the primary balance is in the black, financial restructuring is finished." Okada proposed corrections, stating, "We must [first] think about what our next goals will be," and ending with, "Those in positions of authority at that point in time will have to think about them."

That part of the back-and-forth, while not very interesting in and of itself, is important because Koizumi has made it clear that he expects his followers (called the "Post-Koizumi" government, in what has become a tediously over-repeated locution) to continue his program of reforms, by implication, to his liking. No one, either within the ruling coalition or in the opposition, is certain right now how well Koizumi will actually be able to use his present power to exert influence on future administrations.

Rondi Adamson has seen Guess Which Movie and offers this:

But...what struck me--and admittedly, I'm seeing this from the narrow and exasperated point of view of a single woman in the midst of dating horrors--was that this movie showed how men are big, fat f*&^wits even in gay relationships!

It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is for even smart straight people to be hoodwinked into believing that gay male relationships must be easier to navigate because two men are somehow on the same wavelength in ways that men and women are not. One hates to disabuse people of fantasies in which they're clearly deeply invested, but...well, no. Sorry. How representative I am I cannot tell, but face-offs over the course of my own relationship history have frequently centered around the following lines (and no, I'm not going to tell you in which cases I was the deliverer vs. the deliveree):

• "Dammit, GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME! Every time we start having a discussion about something that I think MATTERS, you think you can avoid the subject by coming on to me."
  
  
• "Why are you so afraid to express your feelings?"
  
  
• "I just vacuumed the floor on Friday, and it's clean enough for me. If YOU want it kept in a constant state of perfect dustlessness, why don't you vacuum it yourself?"
  
  
• "Are you going out of your way to humiliate me in public? ... Oh, don't give me that! You were flirting with that waiter and the whole table knew it!"
  
  
• "I don't think you're the kind of guy who's ready for commitment yet."
  
  
• "Do you think I'm getting fat?"
  
  
• "Okay, look--here is a pen, and here is a piece of paper, and here is what you are going to do for me: You are going to write down all these little rules--I have to kiss you goodbye every time you leave the house, I have to call you if I'm going to be more than 13.5 minutes later than usual getting home, and I have to say "I love you" in three different major ancient and modern world languages at breakfast every freaking third Thursday. Write them all down. I will memorize them. I will follow them. But stop getting all pissy at me for not doing what you want when I can't figure it out and you won't TELL ME what the hell it is!"

Now, does that mean the dynamic is the same as in straight relationships? Certainly not. We don't have to factor in the possibility of pregnancy or, in most places, marriage. And while in straight relationships I gather that the person who wants everything clean is also statistically more likely to be the one who wants to talk about feelings, things don't cluster that way for gay guys. (The biggest crybaby I ever dated was a dockworker who appeared to be wholly innocent of the knowledge that it was possible to put things on any horizontal surface other than the floor.)

Anyway, my point is that in just about any relationship, one partner is more demonstrative than the other, or wants to have sex more often than the other, or is less inclined to talk through problems than to think through them silently, or what have you. Who's being the big, fat f*&^wit usually varies by situation; it's not always the one who's acting more stereotypically male.

Added on 9 February: Okay, there seems to be some unwritten rule that commenters named John have to make remarks about the vacuuming thing. It's slightly OT, I guess, but let me just note two things.

One is--and I know no one's going to be inclined to believe this, but I hope everyone here trusts my honesty--that my partner at the time was the one who was spazzing about the floors. Yes, I'm serious. I clean scrupulously, but not even in particulate-matter-rich Tokyo does the floor of a childless, petless household need to be vacuumed once every three days. I mean sure, do some spot-cleaning with the dustpan or one of those sticky roller things--I do that myself. But mewl at me that it's my turn to do the full-on move-the-furniture-and-get-out-the-big-vacu-suck-machine maneuver when one of the two or three television shows I actually like to watch is on? No.

The other is, John M. poignantly says, "I try and I try but I just can't see the dirt...." Much as I appreciate the fact that this soul cry represents the sincere desire to reform, I feel obliged to point out that it gets things exactly backwards. You don't notice the dirt. You notice the absence of clean. Once you can actually see dirt, you've reached the point at which getting everything ship-shape is going to be a major project. What you need to look for is the slightly peaked look that the tabletops and upholstery get when they have an invisible layer of dust dulling them up. When things are at that point, you can get them back in order--lovely sparkling, candid order--by going over every surface once and relatively lightly.

Joanne Jacobs writes that Queer Studies is spreading. And a good thing, too. There's no more difficult project than getting spoiled 20-year-old gay men and women at elite private colleges to obsess over themselves and feel disadvantaged. It can only be hoped that giving them academic credit for it will help.

She also links FIRE's website. I should know not to click through to FIRE by this point. It's not that the organization isn't doing wonderful, necessary work; it's just that the cases it documents are so infuriating that reading about them makes me want to flee to another planet.

Of course, you have to wonder which planet the good folks at Jacksonville State University think we're living on already. They feature in a post on FIRE's blog-like "The Torch":

There must be something illiberal in the water in Alabama. [I blame Susanna.--SRK] In October of last year, FIRE Legal Network attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against Troy University in Alabama for violating the First Amendment by maintaining a restrictive speech code and censoring student artwork.

Now FIRE has learned that Jacksonville State University (JSU) in Jacksonville, Alabama, maintains one of the most illegally overbroad—not to mention simply inane—speech codes that we have ever seen. The student code of conduct at JSU provides that "No student shall threaten, offend, or degrade anyone on University owned or operated property." Got that? No student shall offend anyone on University property. The only way for students to ensure they are in compliance with this policy is to remain in complete silence. Otherwise, how could a student possibly know whether an opinion she wants to express might offend one of the 9,000 other students at JSU, each of whom has his or her own particular sensitivities?

I hate to break it to Samantha Harris (who wrote that on behalf of FIRE), but as a rather laconic guy myself, I can assure you that being quiet only invites Chatty Cathy types to be offended at one's perceived "unfriendliness," "aloofness," or even "elitism."

Personally, I cracked up with unrestrained offensive glee at the "degrade" part. I have this vision of some outraged, fresh-faced 19-year-old (of either sex) showing up in a huff at the Dean of Student Life's office and declaring, "That guy who lives two doors down in the dorm just totally degraded me!" Presumably then there would be a Threat/Offense/Degradation Incident Report to file?

Bonkers--just bonkers.

I'm afraid my best friend has ruined Brokeback Mountain for me. I'll try to watch it when I get the chance, but I'm pretty sure I'll end up disgracing myself and have to leave (or turn off the DVD player).

He's just seen it himself, and he was describing it to me the other night. To get the full picture, you need context: We were at GB, sitting right under the framed photograph of Bette Davis. Backs to the wall. Surveying the gay drama in action (as it very much was on Saturday). So A. is trying to explain what he thought of the movie without giving too much away, but we've both read the short story, so eventually he decided to give me his entire take: "Heath Ledger--the Australian? He was pretty clearly going overboard on the Wild Wild West of America thing. But...I guess something gets lost in the translation from the Outback, though. If Heath Ledger knows anything about the Outback. And Jake Gyllenhaal was trying for the rugged thing, too, but he came off like a total f**k-me Mary! You know, he batted his eyes in every scene. They were trying to set him up as all gruff and crap, but the whole time you were sitting there thinking, 'He's gonna be the one to take it.'" Now, at this point, I was guffawing so hard I had the dry heaves. I managed to get my drink in both hands and set it down on the counter before I really made a scene, but not before dumping a few mouthfuls of it down the leg of my jeans.

So it's going to be hard for me to appreciate the layers of love and intimacy and pain on-screen with A.'s clipped, educated British voice, slightly but perceptibly aghast, calling Jake Gyllenhaal "Mary" in my head. And while imagining I can see Heath Ledger's Method Acting cogs turning: Kinda like the Outback, just, like, no kangaroos...yeah.

Hope it gets some Oscars, though.

Grand Stand has a post up about the cartoons thing, and of course, it's good. I'd love to agree with it. I go on and on about civilized discourse myself all the time.

The reason I can't is that I think context matters. We accept that there are settings in which any political speech would be offensive--you don't take your aunt's funeral as an opportunity to decry her having voted for Dukakis two decades ago. Political cartoons are at the opposite end of the spectrum. They operate on caricature; they condense complex issues and actions into jolting pen-and-ink images. A public figure who's recently displayed greed will soon open the paper and see herself depicted as a very large pig with its snout in a very large trough.

Does that mean that there are no lines to be crossed? Of course not. But whether a drawing is mere childish provocation or a genuine contribution to the public debate that uses its shock value in a meaningful way is often going to be an issue that no one can settle. Perhaps the result would be unladylike and ungentlemanly either way, but that's why we look for context clues: Do the other cartoons this guy has drawn consistently jeer at a particular group? Does the rest of the editorial page at this publication take a balanced view of the issue being treated? One doesn't want to slide into easy defenses of caddish behavior, but one also doesn't want to stifle genuine free thought by demarcating some ideas as off-limits to criticism or extrapolating too much from a 9 in² drawing.

Maybe you could argue that if the hang-up is over iconography, the debate has to be conducted in words rather than images; but I think you could just as easily argue that if visual representation is the issue, images are the most direct and immediate way to get to the heart of the matter. You could also argue that there are some questions the free, skeptical mind can't ask without offending people. So fine--people are offended, and they respond with more speech. The minute newspapers that print controversial material start bleating that people are getting furious with them, I will be back at Grand Stand's side immediately. That's what's supposed to happen. What's not supposed to happen, when you dwell among the sane, is the torching of embassies and the issuing of death threats.

While you're on your way to the Ginza....

US research firm Risk Management Solutions (RMS) has compiled a report that predicts Japan could suffer large-scale damage, including the deaths of possibly around 290,000 people, in the event of a major terrorist attack using a compact bomb in downtown Tokyo.

The terrorist bombing in the projected scenario uses a small military nuclear device obtained on the black market from the former Soviet Union by a terrorist organization and is detonated around noon in the city center. The destructive power of the bomb is assumed to be about one third that unleashed by the A-bombing of Hiroshima. It is projected there would be 290,000 immediate deaths and up to 1,690,000 further casualties.

The probability that large-scale terrorism employing a weapon of mass destruction will occur in Japan within the next year is low, at 0.4%; however, the report cautions, "The risk cannot be ignored altogether."

In the event of a major epidemic of a particularly virulent new strain of influenza, the report also predicts that 24,000,000 people could be infected and 500,000 could die even if the government responded rapidly. It indicated that total insurance premiums would reach US $58,000,000,000 (around ¥6,700,000,000,000), and the economic losses and damage in human terms would be even greater than those from a downtown terrorist attack.

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, That psycho who attacked the gay bar in Massachusetts must have been egged on by the Religious Right, because...well, the Religious Right is responsible for all gay problems right down to that hangnail you got before your last blind date. And right correct you are (via IGF):

The hatred and loathing fueling this morning's vicious attack on gay men in New Bedford is not innate, it is learned. And who is teaching it? Leaders of the so-called Christian right, that's who. Individuals like James Dobson of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins, the Rev. Pat Robertson and their ilk are obsessed with homosexuality. They use their vast resources, media networks and affiliated pulpits to blame lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people for all the ills of society. They disguise their hatred as 'deeply held religious beliefs.' We have witnessed seven years of vicious anti-LGBT organizing in Massachusetts — and endured the hate-filled rantings of Brian Camenker of the Article 8 Alliance and Parents Rights Coalition and Ed Pawlick of MassNews. The blood spilled this morning is on their hands.

I wasn't aware that the NGLTF PR office was staffed by research psychologists--there appears to be no evidence presented for the claim that the teenaged suspect in this case was socialized into his psychopathic behavior, rather than being just a plain wrong-'un. I was also under the impression that genuine Nazi-sympathizing nut cases--as the suspect appears to be--thought Dobson and Robertson and their fellow-travelers were a bunch of pussies, in part precisely because they stop well short of recommending that faggots be shot.

Steve Miller also deadpans an appropriate response to the predictable call for more hate crimes legislation:

From HRC: Anti-gay hate crime in Massachusetts is enraging reminder of need to pass law. I agree; walking into a bar and shooting people really ought to be against the law. Glad to hear that HRC is on the case.

The suspect has been apprehended, having now added the murder of another woman and a traffic cop to his record of impishly charming little escapades. CNN also has, BTW, an interview with one of the original victims at the gay bar. (I don't know whether the link will work, but here it is.) The guy reacts with such equanimity and such sweetly self-effacing humor it breaks your heart. Some lunatic almost murdered him with a freaking hatchet and gun a few nights ago, for crying out loud. I'm glad he says he has friends and family to help him through, and I hope the other two victims are as lucky.

Unreal. Just unreal. I know this stuff shouldn't surprise me anymore, but I've gone back to Michelle Malkin's site and looked at those pictures several times over the last few days, and I find it hard even to get angry, exactly. (I'm sure that would be different if this were the aftermath of a suicide bombing or other sort of attack.) It's just so depressing: "[thesaurus word for kill] those who [thesaurus word for assail] Islam." These people can't even come up with stimulating, idiosyncratic thoughts on their protest posters.

This is probably going to sound ridiculously petty, but I wish our civilization were clashing with a force that at least gave us a run for our money when it came to imagination and...flair. Not that that would make the bloodthirstiness or illiberalism any better at all; but it would at least give the feeling of fighting a worthy, equal evil, as opposed to one that just happens to breed in such large numbers that its presence can't be ignored. As Steven Malcolm Anderson would have said, they have no style.

I hadn't really planned on doing the Buy Danish! thing, but if the enemy insists on being so incandescently lame, I figure I'll go the whole way and take the in-your-face gay approach: I will stop by Seibu on my way home and drop some money on Royal Copenhagen. Yeah, fine, I spend too much on housewares even when there's no moral message to be conveyed, but see, I hadn't planned on buying anything there TODAY, so I still get to feel all upright and socially responsible. So say I.

Great news: Kylie is in remission. (Via Ghost of a Flea, as if you had to ask)

Okay, I know I shouldn't be disrespectful, but I laughed aloud at this (via Rondi Adamson). Luckily, I didn't have a mouthful of tea and cake at the time:

A leading Islamic cleric called for an "international day of anger" today over publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, and a Danish activist predicted that deadly violence could break out in Europe "at any minute".

As more European newspapers reprinted the cartoons, what started off as a row between Denmark's press and its Muslim population grew into a full-blown "clash of civilisations".

As Rondi says, "But isn't every day an international day of anger for Islamofascists?" Yeah, seriously, what is that all about? We infidels are going to be glowered at especially hard today? The shrieky denunciations of Western culture and institutions will be ratcheted up a decibel or two?

The Danish cartoons thing is one of those stories that everyone with a blog had written about the moment it broke, so I wasn't going to say anything about it. If you believe in freedom of thought and freedom of speech, the political position you need to take is obvious. As Virginia Postrel says:

My response to this nonsense is to wonder why Muslims don't grow up. If your co-religionists are going to take political stands, and blow up innocent people in the name of Islam, political cartoonists are going to occasionally take satirical swipes at your religion. Those swipes may not be nuanced, but they're what you can expect when you live in a free society, where you, too, can hold views others find offensive. If you don't like it, move to Saudi Arabia. Or just try to peacefully convert people to Islam.

We all cherish the right to free speech, but of course we have to try and assess motives in order to be able to deal with each other, and there's no reason not to raise the question of whether the cartoons in question are merely coarsening the public discourse rather than contributing useful thoughts to it. That's the angle of the whole thing that pisses me off; there are legitimate issues about civilized behavior in a liberal society that this could be an opportunity to discuss. It's useful to ask where vigorous opposition shades off into unenlightening jeering and disrespect.

But, you know, you have to stop frothing at the mouth in order to get to the point at which you can contemplate such things, and that's something many Islamic activists seem incapable of doing. Not only that, but moderate Muslims haven't figured out how to grab the spotlight when these sorts of things happen and put a sensible, civilized public face on their faith. (Virginia's right about Kindly Inquisitors, BTW. Short but very good.)

Added after finishing tea: Trust me to get through an entire post about something I'd planned not to post about without posting about the thing that spurred me to post about it in the first place. (Don't bother rereading that sentence--you got the gist already, trust me.)

It was the State Department (via Michelle Malkin):

"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims," State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said when queried about the furore sparked by the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.

"We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility," Higgins told AFP.

"Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices."

"Not acceptable"? Give me a break. "Not acceptable" is, like, the locution I use when scolding an employee for being late or not filling out his paperwork properly. It would be "not acceptable" for Electrolux to refuse to make restitution if it sold you a defective vacuum cleaner. It's "not acceptable" for a commercial flight to take off an hour late with no apology from the crew.

Given that candid eye contact from a woman in public is enough to "[incite] religious or ethnic hatreds" in some of these people, going all extra-sensitivo when writing (of all things!) political cartoons seems a bit pointless. Especially if our standard is going to be wifty-ass PR-speak like "acceptable."

BTW, while I'm citing a series of beautiful, smart, fierce women, Samantha Burns hasn't yet posted about this whole ridiculous cartoon drama, but presumably she will. (A commenter has prodded her.) And when she does, you know it's going to be a corker.

Added still later: In the interest of diversity, here's a post that's not by a beautiful, smart, fierce woman. Since this is Beautiful Atrocities we're talking about, it goes without saying that it's not safe for work. Not safe for play, either. I'm a big proponent of civilized discourse, but there are times when targeted offensiveness makes a point that can't be made any other way.

Wow. Do you think this way of thinking could somehow be made to catch on elsewhere?

"We can only provide information on how to lead a healthy life," Health Ministry official Shigefumi Nakano said Friday, referring to a report on the ministry's Web site. "The rest is up to the individual."

There's a concept, huh? The context is that the Japanese are failing to meet health and fitness targets set by the Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare.

The ministry's 10-year plan also measures awareness about the health impact of activities such as smoking and alcohol consumption.

While Japanese are becoming more conscious about how lifestyle affects health, many still do not get enough exercise, the ministry report said.

Of course, Japan is a rich society, so people are taking in an increasing number of calories that are for pleasure rather than subsistence. Partially because everything is so expensive and partially because dainty portions are valued culturally (well, everywhere except ramen shops), you tend not to be served the great mountains of french fries or chocolate cake that you would be in the States, but it's not hard to believe that people are getting somewhat fatter and lazier. That said, there's no shortage of nutritional information available. The food labeling here is as good as it is in the States. And Japan has the same magazine articles, news and talk show segments, and advertisements extolling the benefits of fish and whole grains and green leafy vegetables that you'd see elsewhere in the First World, too.

Apparently, 2004 was a good year for bid rigging:

It now appears that every major civil engineering and construction project commissioned by the DFAA in fiscal 2004 was tarnished by bid-rigging, according to sources close to an investigation by Tokyo prosecutors.

Projects that were believed rigged include the relocation of a runway at the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture as well as quay and bank protection work at the U.S. Navy's Fleet Activities Sasebo and Yokose Fuel Terminal, both in Nagasaki Prefecture. Revelations about Iwakuni emerged Thursday.

...

Of particular interest to prosecutors is a retired DFAA official who held the post of technical councilor, the third-highest job in the agency, an arm of the Defense Agency that its chief has pledged to dissolve.

The construction project in Sasebo was contracted for 4.032 billion yen, while work on the Iwakuni project in fiscal 2004 cost 3.517 billion yen.

The Sasebo project was the most expensive commissioned by the Fukuoka Defense Facilities Administration Bureau in fiscal 2004.

The joint venture that won the project was headed by Penta Ocean Construction Co. and the bid price was 99.28 percent of what the agency was willing to spend. [Incompetents! They couldn't find a way to wring out the other 0.72%?--SRK]

The project at the Yokose Fuel Terminal cost about 1.575 billion yen and the contract was won by a joint venture led by Toa Corp. The bid price was 97.76 percent of what the agency had earmarked.

Experts said such high percentages are unheard of when bidding is open to all.

Three sitting or former DFAA high officials were arrested last week, but of course, you don't get dirty doings of this magnitude without help from another post-War institution: the revolving door, known in Japanese as 天下り (ama-kudari: lit., "descent from the heavens [of powerful government work into a private-sector position in which one can exploit one's accrued connections]").

Retired DFAA bureaucrats also played key coordinating roles in deciding which joint ventures got contracts.

Sources close to the investigation said a retired technical councilor who moved to an executive position at a construction company was a key individual in the bid-rigging for the Iwakuni project.

The individual, whose name was withheld, served as head of the DFAA's Construction Department as well as technical councilor from the 1980s until the 1990s.

A textbook case of amakudari at work.

One of the best things about having the blog has been knowing that Atsushi will read every post. I don't put in secret little messages to him or anything--if I were reading someone else's blog where that was going on, I think it would creep me out--but I know that it's one of the ways he finds out which news stories I'm paying attention to and what kinds of ups and downs friends are having, so when I press "Submit" on this or that entry, I always wonder whether it will turn out to be one that he has a sly comment on.

We talk every night, almost always between 11:15 and 11:45, but sometimes a little later if one of us is working overtime or out with friends or colleagues. I know people in long-distance relationships who only talk every few days, and I figure it must work for them, but I don't really sleep well if we haven't talked a little about our days and said our I-love-yous.

Circumstances do interfere sometimes, though. Atsushi's office is having its company trip this weekend. Those who've been forced to go on corporate retreats will be thinking, Oh, no, not one of those..., and they'll be half-right. There are no weird games where you try to identify whether your leadership style is better represented by a fig or an artichoke or any of that crap. But there's a great deal of enforced togetherness and drinking and singing karaoke. Employee awards and things are often given--things like that. Atsushi was one of the people in charge of planning this year's shindig, so tonight he probably won't be able to call me even though today is exactly the kind of stressful day each of us relies on the other to talk him down from. I'll e-mail his cell phone; he'll at least be able to sneak a few minutes away from his room (shared with coworkers) to read that. But I figure I can post this, too, so that when he gets back home Sunday he can see I was thinking about him.

The Diplomacy and Defense Committee of the House of Councillors is moving on JDA chief Fukujiro Nukaga's recommendation that the DFAA be disbanded:

On the morning of 3 February, the upper house Diplomacy and Defense Committee opened an intensive discussion related to the scandal over bid-rigging by the Defense Facilities Administration Agency.

...

By way of apology, Nukaga stated, "The form this conduct has taken is a betrayal of the citizenry; we are all truly and utterly ashamed." Concerning his own responsibility, he said, "The mission I have been given as the one with policy jurisdiction is to create a new system that the public can trust," emphasizing that while he accepts responsibility he has no thought of resigning.

The idea is to fold DFAA operations back into the JDA in the budget proposal for 2007 to be submitted this summer.

Jews are cool. I don't think I mention that often enough. Sure, they (and their institutions, such as the Israeli government) are fallible like the rest of us, but overall, they set quite a cultural example of resourceful and enterprising approaches to problems.

It's not that I have a problem with non-Jews, mind. Why, some of my best friends aren't Jewish. Hell, I'm not Jewish. It's just that, given that the Palestinians have just voted a party into power that has wiping Israel off the map as part of its platform, saying that Jews are cool seems somewhat more important than it might have last week.

I know, I know--Fatah was corrupt and disingenuous anyway. I also know that bitching about something Jimmy Carter said about the Middle East will have no practical result, though it brings back fond memories of the harangues Mom and Dad used to deliver at the TV news when I was little and might lower my blood pressure somewhat. Here he is. (BTW, Mr. Carter? If you turned up the heat, you wouldn't need that vest on indoors to be toasty warm. Just a thought.)

Hamas deserves to be recognized by the international community, and despite the group's militant history, there is a chance the soon-to-be Palestinian leaders could turn away from violence, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday.

Carter, who monitored last week's Palestinian elections in which Hamas handily toppled the ruling Fatah, added that the United States should not cut off aid to the Palestinian people, but rather funnel it through third parties like the U.N.

I'm bringing this up because I've heard the issue framed that way by a few people since the weekend, and I think it's predicated on a misunderstanding. Has anyone--Bush, Rice, Rove, anyone?--talked about not recognizing the Hamas government the way, say, the ROC was considered the real "China" at the UN until thirty-odd years ago? Perhaps so and I've missed it. What I read from the Secretary of State, though, was this:

"We're going to review all of our assistance programs, but the bedrock principle here is we can't have funding for an organization that holds those views just because it is in government," Rice said.

The U.S., Europe and Israel list Hamas as a terrorist organization; various Arab governments have contact with the group.

"It is important that Hamas now will have to confront the implications of its covenant if it wishes to govern," Rice said. "That becomes a primary consideration in anything that we do."

It is not clear that all European nations or the United Nations would cut off aid, let alone Arab governments that do not recognize Israel.

That sure sounds like a recognition of Hamas's legitimacy as the democratically elected majority party to me. That it simultaneously declares that Hamas needs to stop acting like scum if it expects our help in governing is a different consideration. (The "if it wishes to govern" part reads like a warning of practical consequences rather than a threat.)

Seriously, I'd like to be able to say I think Palestinians are cool, too. I don't hold it against them, in any fundamental way, that they don't like the Jews. Long-standing ethnic enmity is a fact of life all over the Earth, and while democratization has turned it into mostly good-natured mischief in some places, it still plays a major role in the love-your-goods-but-hate-you way that, say, Japan, China, and Korea interact (just to pull a region out of the air, you know).

But besides all that, when they're not getting misty-eyed over suicide bombers, the Palestinians have a reputation for being unusually hard-working and inventive. I was brought up in the sort of environment in which those qualities are valued and would just kind of like to know when--when on Earth--we're going to see them bear fruit there. The Palestinians have infrastructure and universities. They have internal and external markets to exploit. Yes, the Israelis have access to cooler guns, but that alone doesn't explain why it's Israel that has the First World standard of living and the breakthroughs in medical research that get global publicity. I've seen--I wish I remembered where--the results of the recent election as a signal that the Palestinian people are starting to look at how they themselves, though their government, are causing some of their own problems instead of blaming everyone else. It's nice to think so.

In the meantime, though, the less-corrupt party with the official position that Israel must be destroyed is still taking an official position that Israel must be destroyed. Recognizing it without rewarding it strikes me as good policy.

To me, the Livedoor scandal isn't all that sexy (and no, it's not just because of the notable lack of physical comeliness of the chief villain of the piece), but this adds a kind of racy-spy-novel element:

Takafumi Horie (33), former president of the Livedoor Group and a suspect in its violation of the Securities and Exchange Law, and multiple other senior managers were revealed on 1 January by another party in the scandal to have put money into and maintained accounts under assumed names in Hong Kong. Nagaya Nakamura (38), former president of the group's investment subsidiary Livedoor Finance, apparently gave instructions to the financial institutions' account managers. Thus the identity of one part of Livedoor's money laundering operation has come to the surface.

Okay, fine, a Swiss bank account would have been sexier. Maybe if we could have brought in a Swedish air hostess of icy demeanor under police interrogation, that would have been nice, too. Given the sheer appalling arrogance that's coming to light and the egregious hot-guy deficit involved, though, the Hong Kong connection at least adds some savory intrigue.

The corruption scandal at the JDA (the Japan Defense Agency this time, not the Japan Dental Association--keep those scandals straight!) is coming to a head:

Japan Defense Agency chief Fukushiro Nukaga announced on a TBS television program the morning of 1 February that he was planning to dissolve the Defense Facilities Administration Agency because of collusion scandals revolving around its procurement and construction practices. The new approach will be to review the DFAA's organizational structure with an eye for its integration with the [rest of] the JDA.

Nukaga stated, "The plan is to dissolve the body and make suitable adjustments. Given the extent of the goings-on, it has become clear that collusion is embedded in the structure of the organization. A dissolution is what the public expects, furthermore, it's the decision I want to make, too."

The JDA stuff has ranged from inflated aircraft repair/parts procurement costs to cagily jiggering payments for use of facilities in Okinawa to illegal tracking of personal information, but the most recent flap is over bid rigging for climate control installation and construction projects. At this late date, no one pretends to be too shocked at revelations of collusion. Actually getting rid of an entity that's not doing it's job, however, is a pretty novel proposition. It didn't help much in the Great Ministerial Chinese Fire Drill of 2001, but if Nukaga--who can be wonderfully stubborn when he wants to be--is serious, the administrative structure for Japan's defense could really see meaningful streamlining. Not a moment too soon, either.