Ahoy, Tasties!

Melville should be required reading in Japan. I spied this on the newsfeed, but has anybody seen coverage of the renewed whale hunt in the Japanese press? Would be good for comparison.

Statecraft 101: Sanctions

A Waseda University professor makes an interesting but light call for Japan to wake up to the reality of its current relation with Burma and stop sending mixed signals. I'm curious where you guys fall on the utility of sanctions question. Many nowadays are siding with the soft power argument for continued engagement—the slow play that hopefully leads to openness and reform in repressive regimes. Still others are throwing the divestment and shareholder activism card pretty confidently.

Letter to Bush on Israel-Palestine

It's non sequitur, but I thought westbank et al might be interested in this letter and its signatories.

Robotics

What do you make of the conclusion to this article?

Mr. 10 Percent

on the political dynasties in south asia from japan's point of view


As Jemima Khan commented in Britain's Sunday Telegraph: "It's all totally bogus. Benazir may speak the language of liberalism and look good on Larry King's sofa, but both her terms in office were marked by incompetence, extrajudicial killings and brazen looting of the treasury." She ended by warning, "Make no mistake, Benazir may look the part, but she's as ruthless and conniving as they come--a kleptocrat in a Hermes headscarf."

kleptocrat - i think ms word is going to draw a red squiggly line about 10-15 times throughout my thesis - i fuckin love it.

Tips on English

From the Asahi Times.

Yes, Chairman... MEOW!!!

My, the times they are a-changin' in China. Little Red Book meet little black book. Further reading: Chinese Sexual Culture. Somebody please keep me away from the Mainichi Daily News from now on.

Say THAT five times fast

Bonus if swallow okara same time.

"Chicks dig guys with skills."

I can't tell whether this is beautiful or baffling. The Asahi newspaper is encouraging young people to kick butt in the World Skills Competition and consider careers in manufacturing because it's "what the nation's economy stands on." When will robots demand entry to this contest I wonder.

Edible Tofu Byproduct is "Industrial Waste"

A fertilizer producer got nabbed for dumping 18,000 cubic meters of okara, an edible tofu byproduct, on his company's property. Tofu producers were paying him on the cheap to cart it away. 1. Why is the guy arrested instead of a fine simply levied against the company? 2. The fact that something edible is labeled industrial waste when people are starving seems criminal in and of itself. Thank you Supreme Court of Japan. 3. 18,000 cubic meters of okara would make A LOT of sweet and sour meatballs. [Chef's recommendation: Add black cumin to taste. It cures everything except death.]

The Theme May Be a Challenging One

Good ol' teeth.

US-Japan Relations

This article by a colleague in Tokyo asserts that Japan's importance for the U.S. is waning.

The Emperor as Culture

this is a rather long but facinating article, part historical commentary, part cultural studies, alot of bullshit. you do get a rather interesting perspective on the conservative nationalist right in japan though. im curious as to what you guys make of it.

Mainichi Daily News

This paper is a total tabloid! Check out the rest of the most popular articles in culture/lifestyle.

You can't beat this headline

Diplomacy is a tough game

This in relation to the failure to reauthorize the Indian Ocean refueling mission: "Learning from past experience, the U.S. government apparently decided that high-handed pressure on Japan would produce a contrary result."

The hits just keep rolling in

I don't know what to say.

Unwilling Organ Donations

The really interesting thing about this article is that it is not dealing with people who are "forced" to donate organs for financial reasons, but rather with those who feel obligated to do so because of kinship ties.

Who Was Responsible?

Gosh, you know, I find myself wondering the same thing day after day. I wonder what all of these dessicated American professors will conclude?

Daily Yomiuri

So there is a video up in the world section entitled 'AP Video Window on the World'. It is a two-minute recording in Gaza City of an Hamas shooting. Why is this here, who filmed it, and why do you think that it is only in the English version of the newspaper? It is not given such a prominent position in the Japanese text.

a different moral topography

so everybody flinched when we heard bush talk about the axis of evil - yet few of us have problems with the 'free world' or carving up the world based on the ethics of human rights. so what do you make of Iran's global epistemology?

From the point of view of the lamp...

Evan O'Neil said...
Letting the GINI out of the bottle again, eh? So you've been to this transplendently egalitarian country. Is it paradise on ice? A little koan: If you cite one statistic in a vacuum, is it significant? What about unemployment, alcoholism, suicide, STD pervalence, energy expended per unit of economic output, patent applications per annum? Sorry to be rubbing the lamp so hard on this one, but sometimes the gilt comes off in your hands.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

yeah the GINI's out and it has but one wish - to be taken as a fuckin fragment. its sick of watching livecams of supermarkets and photoblogs be digested as acceptable pieces in the montage that is Iran and wonders why it needs a voodoo ensemble of economic data to validate itself.

you want koan:
if you stare at the GINI long enough, the GINI stares back

A New Idea - Redux

Evan O'Neil said...
I'm all in favor of expanding membership to keep things bubbling. How about we each elect one person?

I love that plan. how about two each since im sure one out of two of our nnominees will bail?

Life Goes On In Tehran

Here's a vivid photo blog from Tehran. Maybe not as voyeuristically compelling as the Bucharest supermarket webcam, but a good look behind the [WARNING: Orientalism impending] veil.

Mehmet's Monthly GINI Report

USA 45
Iran 43

sweeden, the lowest has a rating of 25 - Zimbabwe has one of the worst at 52.

goes to show you that the only people who really suffer when two powers go at it is the poor.

For a definition of the GINI Index - Click on the link.

Satanic Sports? Apparently Not.

Ive been watching this for awhile and can difinitively say that official demonization of the US does not extend to its basketball league. I can also say that the guy nipping articles from the AP also seems to love to Lakers.

Opposition press

Has anyone found any evidence of an opposition press? Iran Daily is my favorite source so far, but it's nothing but a digest of world news sources, with the occasional US critique.

This is beyond scary

Birth Defects Linked to Pollution
Birth defects in Chinese infants have soared nearly 40 percent since 2001, a government report said, and officials linked the rise to China’s worsening environmental degradation.The rate of defects had risen from 104.9 per 10,000 births in 2001, to 145.5 in 2006, affecting nearly one in 10 families, China’s National Population and Family Planning Commission said in a report on its website, reported Reuters.Infants with birth defects now accounted for “about 4 to 6 percent of total births every year,“ the family planning agency said. Of these, 30 percent would die and 40 percent would be “disabled.“The World Health Organization estimates about 3 to 5 percent of children worldwide are born with birth defects.China’s coal-rich northern province of Shanxi, a centre of noxious emissions from large-scale coke and chemical industries, had the highest rate of defects.

Tehran Avenue

Am I the only one who finds this publication baffling? Any article I read, I feel like I'm watching the Matrix on the upside of an acid trip.

A new idea

Hello,

So Mehmet and I were talking last night about the blog, and wanted to throw an idea out. As it is a given that everyone's level of participation will vary throughout this project, it sometimes becomes a truncated conversation. Can we bring several (3 or 4) other people in to expand the range of opinions? We've thought of a few people but please feel free to bring in others. It wouldn't be too helpful to open the site up to as many people as possible; however, it might be more interesting to have 8-10 people involved.

Anyhow, comment away, please.

JT