Beautiful Japan 美しい日本

This is an interesting read on the justice system here:

“Judiciary’s ’snake legs’ exposed: Everyone looks like a winner in wake of ASDF ruling - but it means nothing”

What I am waiting for is the verdict on Takemasa Moriya. I am sure you remember the details but I’ll just refresh your memory care of this Japan Times article:

“Former Vice Defense Minister Takemasa Moriya pleaded guilty Monday to charges of bribery and perjury and acknowledged taking part in bribes-for-contracts schemes with executives of defense equipment traders between 2003 and 2007.”

Ordinarily I’d expect a bureaucrat to be tapped on the wrist with a light suspended sentence, with the judge saying something about the defendant regretting his bad judgement and being truly sorry. But, in this case, I am curious to know whether the media coverage has just been too great (and too recently reported - usually the ruling comes ages after the arrest so that everyone has forgotten the details) and Moriya’s crimes just too vast and self-serving to support much leniency. In the context of Japanese justice it must be a hard one for the judges to make. How will they keep him out of prison yet be seen to be strict (they’ve long abandoned “fairness” as a criterion for their sentencing)? Usually I can call their decisions to within months
but this is hard. He has all the right contacts so I’ll go for a “stiff” - 3 years, suspended for 5 - with him failing to appeal. The media will concentrate on the severity and the mushrooms (I mean, the people) will be swayed.

I found a very intersting high school activity here.

The students in the high school are learning how to cook there and get a cooking certificate when they finish it.
And they are managing a restaurant as a school activity.
They are using local food around the school at the restaurant and local support them for it.
They are trying to improve 地産地消(eating local food in local) system there as same as how to manage a restaurant.
It seems to be very effective for thinking of local food, supporting local farmers and educating young generation about food as well.
And their list of menu sounds really lovely!

This is an enlightening interview with Keith Harmon Snow, who has recently become my most reliable journalistic source on what’s really going on in Africa. Snow really cuts through the media bullshit - from left, right, and centre - about the much-abused continent. His website is worth a look too.

I’ve closed the website to new members. We were getting too many spam-type registrations. Anyone can join still, it will have to be done manually though. Please let me know when there is anybody who wants to join the discussion.

-admin

Now that the Tibet issue has moved on to its next stage, with Bush and Brown likely to Boycott the Olympics and all the hoopla over the torch, I’m wondering if there’s something I’m missing that everyone else seems to get.

I know the fact that the UK and the US, instigators of the largest, most violent and most blatantly unjust war of recent times, are hypcocrits in their condemnantion of China’s human rights record does not excuse the faults of the latter.

I know the fact that the Tibetan monks were brutal rulers, and that modern education, health care, land ownership and women’s rights have resulted only from China’s intervention does not excuse the supression of Tibetan culture.

I realise that the culture there is distinct from those of the indigneous residents of Taiwan and Xianjing, though I’m not sure if those campaigning for Tibet freedom also support Taiwanese independence and the establishment of an Eastern Turkistan. Maybe they’re hoping for a complete breakdown of the Chinese state and the worldwide chaos that would bring.

I also realise that the Dalai Lama, political figurehead of the former Tibetan elite, is a much admired figure for deep wisdom such as “compassion is not religious business, it is human business” or his brave moral stance on the invasion of Iraq…..(please God you recognise the sarcasm lacing those last comments). For the life of me I cannot understand what anyone sees of admirable quality in a man who has lived a life of luxury, being feted from one country to the next, mouthing empty platitudes as he campaigns his personal return to polical power while refusing to take any stand in defense of peace or humanity that might compromise support for his own selfish goals….oh, I forgot, he looks like a friendly old man and reminds people of the insufficient recognition Ghandhi received from the West before his death. Well, that explains it.

What I don’t understand is how anyone sees anything in the constant China-bashing of the last couple of years other than a desire by the US (and allies) to destabilize its major potential competitor.

From the food and toy health scares of last year (in which everything from toothpaste, noodles and Thmas the tank engine became deadly threats to he world), last months “unrest” (instigated by the supposedly passive monks who campaign not for independence but a return to the power they once personally wielded) and the current Olympic fiasco, the constant, unending and hopelessly one-sided coverage of China’s flaws is beginning to grate and, as the US economy continues its freefall, it only seems likely to increase as the Western media do what they can to turn people away from the Renminbi and Chinese trade.

Can someone tell me what it is I’m missing that has suddenly made Tibet of such major importance?

If you want to do your little bit to protect freedom of speech from right wing goons and their LDP confederates then get out and see this film.

While Japan considers requiring higher Japanese language requirements for foreigners who work in the country the idea that Britain might require higher English standards for them is opposed.

Not untypical of the hypocrisy that characterises our world in general and the Japanese government in particular.

Another question, of course, is why the hell can’t they make an education system that, after at least 8 years of learning English, actually turns out kids who can speak English anyway. Really and truly, to be brutally honest, the level of English here is pathetic. And you have to take the level of English as a sure indication of the general level of education, which has to be one of the poorest in the world for an ellegedly developed country. Two weeks away from re-entering the mill, after my spring vacation, I can’t say I am relishing the prospect of dealing with the same, systematic mistakes that “learning English” in school invariably produces (all capital letters for Japanese words, anyone? Where the hell do they learn that? It must be taught because 90% do it).

After reading this Japan might not seem like a good place to be in 10 or 20 years time but perhaps it is an exaggeration. Can we surmise where the country is going to end up given these condition? Or are there any other indicators that can allow us to predict the future?

The debate advanced here is that single events or figures in history have not made much difference to the overall outcomes versus the opposite; that single events and figures have been decisive. Of course, the problem is, how do we define “overall outcome.”? So, if anyone would like to join in this debate it would probably be best to define the outcome. That way we might also home in on what outcomes are relevant or important or not. I mean it is fatuous to debate whether Cortez’s victory over the Aztecs made any difference to the breakfast cereal you ate as a kid. We might instead wonder whether some event decisively advanced or retarded a civilisation or even “Civilisation” itself. This whole post derives from a conversation begun in: “History meets Psychology: Yummy”
It begins with a broad discussion of whether the Greeks under Alexander advanced things that much, and whether the Athenians under the Golden Age of Pericles were that much superior to their perennial rivals, the Persians, and if so, would a Persian victory in, say, 490BC have been curtains for Greek thought.

In the rather short thread entitled “Economics 101” I mentioned the O’Jays and their song, “The rich get richer”, in which they sing of a conspiracy to rule the world by just 16 families. Since this song is over 30 years old, it encouraged me to think about the history of such ideas. A search on the ‘net turned up this interesting piece called “The Paranoid Style in American Politics“, written in 1964 by a well-known historian, Richard Hofstadter.

Hofstadter not only documents a paranoid thread through American history but also stabs at a psychology behind it. Ayton does likewise in his analysis of the conspiracy theories and evidence behind the assassinations of the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King. There is a part one and a part two. Since history and psychology are two of my favourite subjects and part of my academic background I find this doubly fascinating.

This led me to further thought about the psychology behind conspiracy theory and theorists. The BBC provided a puff piece to get started. And they also provided a nice little test to see how conspiratorial you are. My results are, for the record: “26-50 Your responses indicate that you have a medium level of belief in conspiracy theories. You may well be quite trusting of your close friends, partners, those you work with and others but sometimes cannot be sure of all of them all of the time. You may also feel that your voice in terms of wider political decisions is rarely heard or acted upon, perhaps because government and big business is more concerned with their own interests than with those of the average person.”

I don’t know if it goes too far or outside the scope for our purposes but there is an interesting piece here too on dopamine and looking for patterns.

Apparently conspiracy theory is quite a thriving industry too, so there is money in it.

Now, I have no agenda here other than to provide some other background to some of the challenging stuff I’ve been reading or listening to around here lately.