The Blog From Another Dimension

Judgment and Character

You're at a bar on a warm Saturday evening in New England, and there is a group at the table next to you. At least one of the members, a 30-year-old man, is drinking several beers; the young woman next to him, only 17 years of age, is not old enough to drink yet.

They finish their drinks, and head for the exit; you note that the man who had been drinking several beers is fishing his car keys out of his pocket, and you wonder if anyone in his party will stop him from getting behind the wheel. After they leave, you may wonder if they get home in one piece, and wonder at the judgment of the driver--after all, he was not so drunk that he would lose the ability to understand that you don't drive while in that state. You might wonder what kind of person knowingly drives drunk, what kind of character it takes to do that.

You pay the bar tab, and your group's designated driver takes you home; on the way, you see a car pulled over by a policeman on the side of the road. You see that the driver is being given a sobriety test, and you recognize him: it's the guy from the bar. Perhaps there is some justice, you think, but wonder how many times that guy drove drunk before he finally got caught.

The night was Saturday, September 4, 1976, and the driver was a future president of the United States. Bush's passengers were tennis star John Newcombe and his wife, in addition to his underage sister, Dorothy. Bush had indeed, by his own admission, drunk "several beers" before getting behind the wheel. A police officer, Calvin Bridges, reported that Bush was swerving off the road when he pulled him over. Bush failed the sobriety test, and later tested a 1.0 on a blood-alcohol test, just exceeding the legal limit at the time. Maine's legal limit today is 0.8, and had he been arrested today, Bush would have spent two days in jail for having a minor in the vehicle.

Bush received a $150 fine, and his driver's license was suspended in Maine for no less than six months (several reports say two years). Bush, however, went to court to have his license reinstated about a month after his arrest, even though he did not take a rehabilitation course that is required for reinstatement. Although, by later confession, Bush was in his heavy-drinking period that would last until he was about 40, Bush testified in court that he drank only once a month, and had "an occasional beer." The court granted his request remove the suspension on his license.

What is just as questionable as Bush's decision to drive drunk that night with his underage sister in the car is how Bush related this event to the American people while trying to get himself elected to the nation's highest office.

At first, he did not relate this to the American people at all; in fact, he lied about it several times.

In 1998, Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater asked Bush if he had ever been arrested. Bush replied, "After 1968? No."

In November 1999, on Meet the Press with Tim Russert, Bush was asked, "If someone came to you and said, 'Governor, I'm sorry, I'm going to go public with some information.' What do you do?" Bush replied, "If someone was willing to go public with information that was damaging, you'd have heard about it by now. You've had heard about it now. My background has been scrutinized by all kinds of reporters. Tim, we can talk about this all morning."

Also in 1999, Bush told CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan that there was not any "smoking gun" about unrevealed incidents in his past.

In November 2000, Bush told a press conference that he did not go to court about the DUI, when he in fact did so.

And then there was the infamous 1996 juror incident. At that time, Bush was randomly selected for jury duty. Wanting to make a PR stunt out of it, Bush made a big deal about how he was just an ordinary guy, and of course, he would do his duty and serve on the jury. He claimed to the press that it is "a feeble excuse" to say he's too busy or important. When he was given the forms for jurors to fill out, there is a section where jurors are required to detail prior arrests and court proceedings they experienced. Bush left that section blank. Apparently, the court did not want to bother the governor with such legal niceties, so he was not required to fill it out as everyone else is. But then Bush ran into a bigger snag: by chance, he was assigned to a drunk driving case, and, as a potential juror, he would without doubt be asked, under oath, if he had ever been arrested for drunk driving before.

Time for a feeble excuse to come to the rescue. Bush asked to be dismissed from jury the night before the trial, and was helped by Alberto R. Gonzales, his legal counsel. (Bush later appointed Gonzales to the Texas Supreme Court, and later as a legal counsel in the White House.) The excuse? "It would be improper for a governor to sit on a criminal case in which he could later be asked to grant clemency." Huh? How often was Governor Bush asked to grant clemency for drunk driving? He was obviously taking positive action to hide his past from the public.

During the previous year, Bush had also taken another step to hide his past: On March 31, 1995, George and Laura Bush were given new driver's license numbers; Bush's was #000000005. Bush was born on July 6, 1946, and his license was not near expiration. The reason given for the change was "security," but there was no precedent for Texas governors doing this. The change destroyed the records of his previous license, which would have detailed any arrests. This bears on the many rumors that Bush was also caught DUI in Texas, which would in turn explain why Bush mysteriously performed community service, for Project P.U.L.L., an inner city Houston program for troubled youths, from 1972. There may yet be other arrests we still do not know about.

And when the arrest came out in public, did Bush take full personal responsibility, as he likes to claim that he does?

Heck, no. He lied some more, of course. He started by claiming, "I have always been honest with the American people." Uh, yeah, right. He then turned on the person who released the information, calling it a "dirty trick." The timing of the announcement may have been (albeit a very clumsy "dirty trick"), but the DUI arrest was not. And he even tried a bit of revisionism, claiming that he was not pulled over because of his erratic driving, but rather because he "was driving too slowly." Makes it sound less damaging that way--but nonetheless is just still another lie.

And how did Bush take full personal responsibility for lying to the American people about it for so long? He used his daughters as a publicity shield. He said he wanted "to be a good role model for his daughters." Which, of course, is bogus, because any good parent, especially when it comes to alcoholism, knows that the best way to deal with such things with your children is to be honest and up-front. Of course, this course of action might explain why these same daughters have been repeatedly arrested for underage drinking. It might give Bush an excuse for lying to the people, but it also makes him a bad father.

This is the person we have leading our country, sending our young men and women to die in battle, making decisions that will affect this nation's prosperity and security for decades to come.

Another Sham of a Press Conference

At least this time the reporters seem to have the guts to ask hard questions, but Bush is still reading the names from a carefully chosen list, and he is not allowing follow-ups--he even shut down a reporter a few minutes ago, telling him, "you're finished!"

And Bush's answers are still as lame, if not more so. One he just answered was on the rather embarrassing fact that despite two major tax cuts and a third coming through now, the economy is still in the basement and deficits are soaring. He started out by saying that the economy started to turn in March 2000--then paused, with a smirk, expressing the smug, unspoken thought that it was all Clinton's fault--then went on to list things that depressed the economy, including corporate scandals, and ending with an accusation of the news networks for broadcasting, "road to war, road to war," which brought the whole store down.

Of course, let us not forget that Bush himself talked down the economy a great deal for a year before he took office (to help him win the election), and for some time after that (to help him sell his tax cut), during which time, he stressed that the economy was in trouble and we were entering a recession--hardly conducive to bringing the economy up. The corporate scandals were to a great degree due to his own party's policies on corporate self-regulation, not to mention the biggest crooks (still not under arrest) were Bush's biggest backers. And the "road to war" chant was being pushed by no one more than Bush himself. For him to use these points to excuse himself is ludicrous.

All of that aside from the point that Bush did not answer the question--why his tax cuts were not working. Most have taken place after the events he said were causing the economy to dip--indeed, some were reasons he used to sell the tax cuts--but nonetheless, his tax cuts were supposed to power us out of and above these issues.

Another reporter asked about the "16 words," and if he took responsibility for it. Bush, clearly prepared for this question, replied that he takes "personal responsibility" for all the statements he made. Which I suppose is why he blames the CIA and George Tenet, why he blamed the British, and why he blamed Stephen Hadley--anyone but himself. So if he is personally responsible, and everyone else had profusely apologized, then where is Bush's apology? He says he is taking responsibility, but like so much else he says and does for the cameras, it is only for show. It means nothing and carries no weight; such "personal responsibility" is empty.

At least twice in the conference, when defending the Iraq war and the lack of any evidence Bush pushed the war with, he cited the 12 resolutions from the U.N. against Iraq, as if he greatly respected the U.N. and considered them experts on what to do about Iraq. Then he trotted out, for the umpteenth time, the stale rationale that Saddam gassed his own people, saying this time that it was proof that Hussein did have a weapons program. But that was 15 years ago, when Saddam was still our pal. Bush knows full well that the point is whether or not Hussein had a program this year, when Bush claimed he had massive stockpiles.

(By the way, check out this rather interesting article by a former CIA senior analyst on Iraq, which not only clarifies that the villagers were killed in the crossfire between Iraq and Iran, and were not simply murdered by Hussein as Bush asserts, but that it may well have been Iran, and not Iraq, who gassed them. Of course, I would fully expect Bush to shamelessly take advantage of this, and, ignoring the hypocrisy, use it as an excuse to invade Iran.)

So much more--his answer to the question on homosexuality, starting his answer by saying "we're all sinners," clearly stating that he believes just being gay a moral crime, followed by his expected stance that homosexual couples must be barred from marrying. As if a gay couple taking the vows will harm the sanctity of marriage, while apparently heterosexual abuse of marriage, such as sky-high divorce rates, spousal and child abuse, and marriages of convenience are of no consequence and need no special action.

The whole process was sickening, right up to his final whimper of an answer at the end about the California recall vote being funded by a right-winger who wanted to take the governorship for himself; among other things, Bush was thankful that Texas had no recall vote, tried to claim that the recall was because of the people's choice, then said he had no comment.

Like I said, at least there were some hard questions here, but it was still less than a real press conference--and Bush's replies predictably vacillated between dishonest and lame, too much to comment on fully in one go. Which means, of course, that the press should announce it to be a complete success.

Diet Fracas

--photo from AP

Quite the scene in the Upper House of the Japanese parliament last Friday. The scuffle was set off when the majority party decided to send Japanese troops into Iraq, a live-fire region. The protesting lawmakers hold that this violates the pacifist Japanese constitution. Now if only we could get this kind of action in the Senate in Washington, D.C.

More (or Less) Character

In order to know a person, you have to look at their defining moments, not their publicity or their hype. Here is another glance at the life of George W. Bush. The idea here is to get a true glimpse of his character; when reading, imagine you know this man, and then consider what you think of his morality, his actions, and his personality.

It is the late 60's, and you are in college, at Yale. One of your schoolmates is a young man from a wealthy family, a frat man, a bit of a jock. His grades are far less than stellar, and the only reason he got into such a prestigious school is because his father went there--a legacy student. (Remember that Bush is opposed to quotas, yet depended on them himself.) In fact, legacy is pretty much how he got into everything at the college, including a highly secretive organization called "Skull and Bones." He is so unimpressive as a student that one teacher, Yale History professor James Hutson, years later, is amazed to hear that Bush had been in one of his seminars, which only had 15 students.

While at school, he is often drunk and rowdy--not too far off the mark for an average low-scoring jock, but he seems to push the limit at times. He is arrested twice--once for helping pull down the goal posts at a football game, and again when he steals a Christmas wreath off a department store window. One evening you see him so inebriated, he lays down in the middle of the street and then literally rolls himself all the way back to his dorm.

As a frat man, his attitudes are not exactly glowing. In an interview with the New York Times, he defends the practice of taking a red-hot coat hanger and using it to "brand" pledges, young men who desperately want to gain entrance. He says that such painful mutilation is acceptable because it was no worse than "only a cigarette burn." (It is not known if Bush himself bears such a scar.)

On the Vietnam War, he is so blind to what people are doing and saying that he does not notice any anti-war activity on campus, despite the fact that it is quite ubiquitous. But he is strongly in support of the war, and believes it is the right thing to do; he also feels that it is important for young American men to do their duty and go to the war.

One schoolmate, Robert Birge, tells him he was thinking about going to Canada. Bush replies, "That's [expletive], that's irresponsible." According to Birge, Bush believe that young men should "back up the country and stop whining."

Soon after that, however, on May 27, 1968, 12 days before Bush's own college deferment runs out, he does not do the "responsible" thing. Instead, he, his family and their business associates lobby to have Bush placed in a "celebrity" unit of the Texas National Guard. Despite a year-and-a-half waiting list, Bush applies and on the same day is accepted into the 147th unit of the Texas N.G. Also in the 147th are the sons of federal and state politicians, sons of wealthy businessmen, and sons of professional sports players (by coincidence, of course). Bush scores only 25% on the piloting aptitude test, but is instantly promoted to 2nd Lieutenant, despite not going through officer candidate school. Bush is trained to fly the F-102 Delta Dagger, a plane that is slated for the scrap heap, reassuring Bush even further that he will not be called to duty in Vietnam.

Bush claims that he signed up for the NG because he wanted to fly for his country, and has repeatedly claimed he was not avoiding the draft. However, this does not explain why he did not sign up for service in the Air Force or the Navy (as his father did), nor why he actively requested not to be sent overseas while in the NG.

And Bush does not even complete his tour of duty. Apparently, he is well into his drug habit as well as being an alcoholic. When the U.S. military institutes universal drug testing to be carried out at the annual physical exam on each soldier's birthday, Bush fails to appear. (Ironically, the Guard used his name in a press release about drug use: "George Walker Bush is one member of the younger generation who doesn't get his kicks from pot or hashish or speed," the release said. Make up your own "...but alcohol and cocaine, on the other hand..." joke here.) From this point on, he goes missing from his duty and continues to be absent until he asks for, and of course is granted, permission to leave the Guard early so he can go to Harvard Business School. (Here are images of documents detailing Bush's absences from the NG post.)

What would you think if you knew someone like this? A privileged kid, family pulling strings to get him into and out of everything, admonishing others for shirking duties and then shirking his own in a far less honest way. The criminal record, the hazings, the hypocrisy. Knowing someone like this personally, would you think he would ever be capable of holding a position of great responsibility? How about being the leader of the free world?

Bush, by the way, is the first President of the United States to enter office with a criminal record. Quite a distinction. But more on his non-"youthful indiscretion" years later.

Sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bushmain072599.htm

Bush to Blacks: Vote For Me Anyway

Well, George is out stumping for black votes. Hard to tell why, it's kind of like Lieberman appealing to KKK voters. After all, Bush got only 9% of the black vote in 2000, and that's not including the fact that a disproportionate number of black ballots were thrown out. Bush's allies had tens of thousands of upstanding black voters indiscriminately trashed from voting lists in Florida, identifying them as felons, and many more felt they were intimidated by police on election day. 650,000 black Americans have lost their jobs in the U.S. since Bush took office, the black unemployment rate is now nearly double the national rate (it was only about 30% higher when Bush took office), and Bush has refused to speak to the NAACP in his 2 1/2 years in office, instead trying to reach out to other black political groups which are less critical of him. Bush touted his AIDS package to Africa, though that is far slower in coming than previously indicated, is being loaded up with an extremist conservative agenda (such as pushing for abstinence over condom use), and, in the end, doesn't really help African-Americans in the U.S. And it hardly shows that Bush is concerned about African issues, seeing as how he is wimping out of Liberia, causing untold thousands to die there who could easily have been saved had he acted when Kofi Annan asked him to.

Bush's pitch for overcoming these problems? He "stressed his initiatives to increase minority home ownership, to create re-employment aid accounts and to provide federal support for religious charities." Oooooo. Sweeeet. That oughta do it. And if it doesn't, he can have another photo op with Condi and Colin. They're some of his best friends, after all.

That's Difficult

Soon after I first came to live and work in Japan, I ran into an interesting social and linguistic difference between Japan and my native country: the ability to say "no."

It was when I visited a store to purchase a large item, and I wanted to see if they could deliver it to my apartment. I asked the clerk, in Japanese, if they could do that. The clerk gave me a bit of a puzzled expression, you know, the neck-tilting head-scratching gesture, and said, "Mmmm, muzukashii ne." "It'd be difficult."

So of course, I ask him, "but is it possible?"

"Hehhhh... sa, hmmmm, muzukashii."

"Yes, I know it might be difficult. But can you do it?"

"Ano ne, ... aahhhh ... ya, Muzukashii."

It took several of these exchanges for me to realize that the clerk was not trying to be obstinate, but rather was simply, out of reflex, trying to avoid saying the word "no." Neither of us could break through this wall, and so we had the rather amusing feedback loop. Just so when you hear someone in a service position telling you that it will be "difficult" to do something, you'll know what it means.

Internet Pet Peeve #274

You know how sometimes you have to write letters or requests for information using forms on web pages? For example, you want to submit a ticket to technical support; they lead you to a "ticket" web page, where you input your name, email address, and often your password as well--and then type your message.

Here's my question: why is it that every danged form like that has a "message" field about the size of a large postage stamp??? I hate that. Do the people who make these pages enjoy typing in text boxes only large enough to contain a half dozen words? It makes it impossible to write any message of length. I know that some sites want you to keep it brief, but dammit, just tell us, don't squeeze us into some ridiculously tiny box. I have even seen these micro-boxes on pages where you are expected to write long messages. What are people thinking?

In designing this site, one of the things I did was to redesign the comments pop-up window so the message box was comfortably large. I wish more people would do that...

Another pet peeve: forms demanding that you include all sorts of useless information, especially email addresses. I hate spam, and I am fully aware that if my email address is accessible anywhere on a page, even if only in the HTML code, spambots can and will find it and I will be inundated with the junk before long. Unless it's absolutely necessary, please don't require that kind of stuff.

Book Recommendation

If you haven't read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card yet, then do so. It is an excellent book, and perhaps the one science fiction book with the broadest appeal of any that I know. When I first read it, I did so straight through--started on a Friday afternoon, did not finish until Saturday afternoon, no sleep in between.

I personally like the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, almost as much, though many people I know have less enthusiasm for it. However, you might want to stay away from Xenocide and Children of the Mind, the third and fourth novels in the series; although there have interesting characters and concepts, the quality of the story and one's ability to suspend disbelief take serious blows. Somewhat better, though still not as magnificent as that first novel, are the "Shadow" series of books, focusing on the character of Bean from Ender's Game; the first novel, Ender's Shadow, takes place concurrent with the original novel, but from the perspective of a different character. The following novels, Shadow of the Hegemon and Shadow Puppets, continue the (still unfinished) story.

If I had to choose a second-best book by Card, it would have to be Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. An excellent read, well-researched historically. It regards a group of historians in the future who possess machines capable of viewing events in the past. The novel has many extremely interesting and sympathetic characters, and has at least two startling plot twists. One thing about Orson Scott Card, you know that any story he writes will at least be good. He has an incredible talent for describing his characters' thought processes, why they do things, what their motivations are. His greatest weakness in characters is a recurring theme in several novels of an abusive older brother whom the main character lets walk all over him; aside from that, it is hard to ever criticize his fiction writing. His non-fiction journaling can be found at his web site Hatrack.com; I find his movie reviews to be quite good, though I personally cannot sympathize with his political views (he is somewhat of a knee-jerk conservative).

What I'm reading now: Phantoms in the Brain, by V. S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakeslee, an excellent study of the workings of the human brain. The book examines the functioning of our minds primarily through patients with injuries or forms of brain damage that highlight how the brain processes information. A few examples are a variety of phantom limb sensations and the brain's methods of 'filling in' blind spots in one's field of vision. So far up to page 125, and it's holding up very well.

End of the Rainy Season

Finally!

This has been one of the longest rainy seasons for quite some time, and good riddance now that it's over. Yesterday, we got patchy sunshine here in Tokyo, and today, we have nice, sunny weather.

OK, Now They're Gone

They stayed on for several days after they first left the balcony, but eventually the young pigeons did not come back. So now all that remains is a rather messy cleanup job on the balcony, and to proof it so that pigeons don't nest there again... Still, it was a nice experience to see the birds hatch, grow up and leave the nest.

    taken the day before they left for good.

Got Character?

You're in a Mexican diner in Dallas, Texas. You're sitting at a table, eating your dinner quietly. At the next table, there is a a couple eating with their four-year-old son at the table.

Suddenly, another man storms up to the small family. He is apparently drunk, and furious. "You fucking son of a bitch!" he shouts at the father. Everyone stops eating and stares at the man. You cringe when you see the young boy.

"I saw what you wrote," he rants on. "We're not going to forget this." You feel shock at this kind of drunken behavior in a public restaurant. You feel sympathetic fear for the man and his wife, being threatened in such an ominous way, as if the man were a member of organized crime and the family could expect thugs to visit them in the night with baseball bats or something.

You might fear the man who stormed in and raved, you might feel disgusted, angry, or perhaps, if you are more compassionate, you might feel pity.

But would you elect him president?

The above incident did in fact happen. It was early April, 1986. The drunk was George W. Bush, and the man and woman with the child were Wall Street Journal editor Al Hunt and his wife, Judy Woodruff. Hunt had written an editorial in which he predicted that Jack Kemp, not George Bush Sr., would win the GOP presidential nomination in 1988.

Think about this person, think about what he did. Drunk or not, could you ever respect a person who did this kind of thing? If someone you knew did something like that, wouldn't you feel like just not talking to them again? I mean, what kind of person does that kind of thing?

Apologists for Bush try to brush it off as another "youthful indiscretion," because he had a drinking problem then, and has since turned his life around. But his behavior did not really change.

Consider when bush was governor of Texas, long after he quit drinking.

The case concerned a woman named Carla Faye Tucker. Tucker was a convicted killer on death row, but she was also, like George W. Bush himself, a reformed drug addict and a born-again Christian. She plead for clemency, begged for forgiveness.

Bush, however, was not sympathetic. According to Talk magazine writer Tucker Carlson, Bush mimicked Tucker's plea for her life. "'Please,' Bush whimpers, his lips pursed in mock desperation, 'Don't kill me.'" (quote from Time Magazine) During the same interview, then-governor Bush reportedly used the word "fuck" repeatedly throughout the conversation.

Again, would you respect a person who did this kind of thing?

Remember when "character" was the issue in politics, according to Republicans and conservatives in general? It was all about character... but not, apparently, now. The Republican Party shut up about character the moment Bush walked in the door, and for a very good reason. He doesn't have any. Most people don't pay attention to what Bush did in his past--but these are not rumors, not fake smear attempts. They are documented facts, and these two are just a small sampling. If most Americans knew exactly who they had allowed take the presidency, they would recoil in disgust.

Which Religion Was That?

News story from the Associated Press:

"An increasing number of Americans believe that Islam is more likely than other religions to promote violence among its followers, according to a new survey...."

From a month ago:

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East." -- George W. Bush (actual quote)

Bush Stays Bought

Media adoration heaped on Bush is still paying off, apparently. Despite the strong, non-partisan outcry against the recent FCC move to allow fewer rich and powerful people to control more of the media, Bush has promised to veto an important appropriations bill if it threatens to overrule the FCC.

The Four-Visit Teeth Cleaning

For foreigners living in Japan, visiting the doctor or the dentist can be a stressful experience. Frankly, the quality of medical services seems substandard, especially for such an advanced nation. This is not all due to the insurance system--the fact is, many doctors, and especially dentists, seem to lack sufficient training, or are far too overworked, or perhaps just don't really care too much about what level of service they provide.

A dentist I visited in my neighborhood is a prime example. I went to that office simply because it was close and convenient. Boy, do I regret that. I lost my second molar on my lower left side, and had to get a bridge because I was not discerning enough. I had gone to that office for minor treatment before and things went fine enough, so when I needed more important work done, I trusted them. But the doctor screwed up, and how. He was supposed to just replace a crown. While removing the prior dental work, he exerted a startling amount of force on the tooth, pushing, pulling, yanking and so forth; but I took it in stride, trusting he knew what he was doing. Some doctors and dentists will do that kind of thing, in my experience. Then he told me to come back after the weekend for the second visit, and gave me a temporary crown, and warned me not to bite down on that tooth.

Over that weekend, I took extreme care to not exert pressure on the tooth. I say this not in pride but in admission to being somewhat neurotic about such things. I chewed only on my right side, and would stop whenever any food migrated to the left side. I did not touch that tooth with anything. But when I visited the dentist on Monday, he told me that the tooth was broken, and scolded me for biting with it. I was rather upset, considering (a) the care I had taken with it, and (b) the violence he had exerted on it the previous Friday. But there was nothing to do about it--he showed me with a mirror, and lo, the tooth was split. I had no choice but to let him yank it.

He asked me when I would make an appointment for him to make a bridge to cover the tooth. I gave him a look, left, and never went back. I got the bridge at a different, reputable dentist (one who speaks English well, by the way).

Dentists in Japan have a bad rep with most foreigners for reasons more than just this. I hardly know anyone who doesn't have a bad-dentist story or two to tell. An Australian woman I worked with in the countryside told me of a dentist who filled a cavity so badly, the filling actually fell out, and she had to come back to get it refilled. When we visited a restaurant later that week, the proprietor, who enjoyed chatting with customers, sat down at our table and told us the story of a dentist who had come in earlier and told a lamentable story. Apparently, he had done poor dental work on this Australian woman, and had told the restaurant owner that it was because during the first visit, he was so preoccupied looking down the woman's shirt, he did not do a good job on her teeth. Predictably, my friend was not amused.

I had another nightmare experience of my own a few years back. I went to an office that I had visited during a previous stay in Japan, as it had dentists who spoke English and did a good job. It was a modern office in a Shinjuku high-rise. When I visited again later, however, the dentists were different and did not speak English well, but I decided to give them a try.

I should have been tipped off when the dentist, trying to explain what he would do to me, pointed at my ailing tooth and said loudly, "TOOTH... NERVE... DESTRUCTION!" Knowing the language difficulties many Japanese have, I again took it in stride. But this one, apparently, did not know how to anesthetize very well. Although I insisted to him that I could still feel in the tooth he was trying to do root canal on, he pooh-poohed my objections and carried on. A few moments later, I experienced pain like I had never experienced it before. It was so intense that I literally could not stop screaming for more than a minute. Luckily for them, I had a late appointment and no other patients were in the office. Naturally, I never went there again, either.

One of the more annoying (but far less painful) idiosyncrasies of dental work in Japan is the multiple-visit syndrome. This is also true for doctors sometimes, but dentists are renowned for it. Most patients who come in will have the Kokumin Hoken (National Health Insurance), which has a somewhat convoluted payment system. One way for medical practitioners to milk the insurance system is to require patients to make multiple visits; the more visits you make, the more money they can collect.

In the past, this has resulted in my having to visit the dentist a rather obscene number of times. Root canal, which can be dealt with in three or four visits maximum back home, takes as many as a dozen separate visits here in Japan. Once I just wanted to get my teeth cleaned, and they scheduled me for no less than four separate visits--one for each quadrant of my teeth.

Some sound advice: ask your dentist, in advance, how many visits the work will require. If they tell you it will take any more visits than are necessary (in your past experience), then leave and see another dentist.

But this is not limited to dentists. Recently I had a small bump on my finger and went to a recommended dermatologist in Shinjuku to have it taken care of. They did an excellent job in removing it, but the biopsy results they got back from the lab they used were less than conclusive. So I asked to get the biopsy sample, so I could take it to Keio Hospital, where I trusted their results on that kind of thing better. The dermatologist's office called me and told me the biopsy sample was ready, so I went over to pick it up--and was annoyed to find that I would have to wait half an hour to see the doctor. I insisted that I was just picking up an envelope, I did not need to see the doctor--but they insisted. Fuming, I sat down and waited. As I expected, when my name was called, I went to the doctor's office, and all he did was hand me the envelope. As I left, they stopped me, and told me to wait for the calculation of the bill. Well, that was a bit too much for me. It was clear that there was absolutely no reason for me to have waited, and all they were doing was trying to get a consultation fee out of me when no consultation was required--it was a package pickup, fer cryin' out loud! It wouldn't have costed me much--410 yen I think it was--but I was already indignant and refused. I told them that I got no medical treatment, and was made to wait for half an hour needlessly, and I was damned if I was going to pay them for that! The receptionist, probably aware that I had them to rights, let up and told me that they would let me go "this time." Well, they're not going to get away with it next time, either.

In case you were wondering, the dentist I use now is Dr. Nishibori, 1-30-8 Sendagaya, Shibuya-ku, phone number (03) 3403-8885 / 8886. They're practically right across the street from Sendagaya Station on the Sobu Line, and they take National Insurance. I got a full checkup and a bridge made there, with only a few small blips; they seem like a good outfit. For example, when it came to doing some root canal work, they referred me to another dentist when they easily could have done it themselves; it was a slightly unusual job, though, and needed special care.

No Oil? Go Fish

As more and more American service people and Iraqi civilians are gunned down and blown to pieces in the "liberated" Iraq, where the war is supposedly "over" according to Bush, death is being delivered on an even more accelerated level in Liberia, thus underlining yet another foreign policy debacle of the Bush administration.

Had Bush (currently on yet another vacation in Crawford, Texas after a trip to raise more millions for his re-election) sent in troops when the "ineffective" U.N.'s Secretary General Kofi Annan pleaded with him to do, peace could have been achieved far more bloodlessly. But here we see exemplified the fact that liberation and humanitarian assistance are far from important in the Bush agenda, despite the fact that Bush & Co. now claim that was their goal all along in Iraq. Liberia, after all, has no oil, so as far as Bush is concerned, they can go rot.

Seeing how his inaction has led to such carnage, Bush, in his now well-established fashion, has found someone else to blame: ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States), which he claims he has been "waiting on," though there is no real reason why that should have stopped the humanitarian action from being enacted weeks ago. Alternately, he is blaming it on Liberian dictator Charles Taylor (who has business dealings with Bush ally and evangelist Pat Robertson in the form of gold mine exploitation in that country), claiming that U.S. troops moving in depends upon Taylor first leaving the country, another rather idiotic condition--Taylor, after all, is the prime reason the peacekeepers are needed in the first place.

It's a sorry mess, compounded by a growing morass of conservative extremist agenda pouring into the promised African AIDS relief; not a good month on the continent.

Fireworks Weekend

Unfortunately, I am not able to blog much this weekend--despite the long holiday weekend, I have been engaged in a pile of homework to correct, not to mention holding a party where we observed the Chofu City fireworks (quite a display) from my dining room window. All of that is over, but still a lot of work to do. I'll be back in a day or two when relative calm reasserts itself....

Out of the Loop Jr. (Or: From "Dubya" to "Dubious")

After trying to dismiss it as trivial, and then trying unsuccessfully to pin it on George Tenet, the new White House angle on trying to weasel out of the fact that George W. Bush knowingly presented false evidence to prosecute the Iraq war is quite interesting: Bush, they now claim, did not read "the most authoritative prewar assessment of U.S. intelligence on Iraq." In other words, like his dad as vice president, he was somehow out of the loop.

In what appears to be the best attempt the Bush administration can make to clear themselves of an obvious lie to the people, it declassified excerpts from an intelligence report that presented the opinion that Iraq was rebuilding its nuclear weapons program. However, the 90-page report also expressed doubts about the veracity of that same information, calling the claims it made "dubious." The White House spin? Neither Bush nor Condoleezza Rice read the whole report; "They did not read footnotes" of the document, an anonymous WH official said. They were, however, briefed on the document. Now, maybe I'm naive, but I would think that if the report contained serious doubts about its own truthfulness, that this would at least be involved in a brief.

What this appears to be: Bush and Co. knew that eventually this report would become public, so they are engaging in preventative damage control. Instead of waiting for the document to leak in a far more damaging way, they are releasing it on their own. Instead of allowing the impression to get out that Bush knew the evidence was questionable, and therefore lied to the American people, they can come out first with the story that some aide somewhere forgot to brief Bush and Rice.

This would be a very good move on their part--releasing damaging evidence in a controlled way--but nevertheless, it is still damaging. The president decides to go to war and is never told of serious objections in a report he had in his possession? Sorry, no aides can be blamed here. It was Bush's and Rice's job to know that information. And if they want to blame everyone else around them, let us then not forget Bush's proclamation during the elections, when his intelligence and ability to do the job were being questioned: the president, he and his people said, does not have to be knowledgeable. All he has to do is surround himself with smart and knowledgeable people, and then make the important decisions based on what they give him.

He sold his presidency not just based on his own abilities, but also on the reliability of those around him. Therefore, the abilities of those around him are, essentially, an extension of his judgment and, therefore, his responsibility. Either way, Bush was responsible.

Not, of course, that I buy even for a second the idea that Bush really didn't know he was selling a con job. I mean, please.

Back After a Jaunt

The young pigeons apparently went out only for a jaunt--since this afternoon, they have been back on the balcony, with mama pigeon still feeding them. Apparently, they only left for the morning and early afternoon; I had not guessed that they could fly so well. I'm also interested that they do not show any signs of flying when I come out onto the balcony, though they do edge away a bit--and mama pigeon bolts at any hint that I'm even watching from a window. I guess the squabs are more use to me....

Empty Nest

Well, the balcony, for the first time in two months, is finally empty of birds. Went out this morning to check on things, and found no babies--although mama bird was perched on a ledge nearby. I looked around at her field of view, and couldn't see anything... Hopefully, she was just hanging out, and not watching over a patch of ground where the babies were marooned or something.

It was about time for the more well-developed squab to leave, but his sister (I'm guessing at gender here) still was not fully feathered out, having baby feathers all about (see photo at right); I hope they both were able to fly well enough. I couldn't find any information on the web about whether or not they return to the nest; I guess I'll find out. If not, then this is the last Pigeon Update.

Although I got mostly negative comments about the pigeon thing from the beginning, and even had to move the photos to a separate page at the request of friends who felt they were too ugly to keep on the main page, the separate "Pigeon Page" has been the most-visited page on my site (more than 60 hits) aside from the main pages.

Purikura

Something which has been all the rage with many young girls in Japan are the "Purikura" (short for "Print Club")--photos taken of usually two or more people at a special photo booth, decorated with visual baubles and printed out on photo or sticker stock. I mention it now because, eating my Double Burger here at McDonald's, I have just spotted a gaggle of schoolgirls who not only have some of these pictures (a grid of them, usually 16, printed out on postcard-sized paper, then cut up into smaller-than-postage-stamp sizes), they have tons of them. Books full of them, each page filled with dozens of them. Granted, these are the typical faddish schoolgirls with the ridiculously large loose-sock styles, but the sheer number of stickers each had, representing a great deal of time and money to generate, was rather astounding to me.

I had seen these portraits many times before, but had never seen or heard of where or how they were produced. After dining out in Kichijoji recently, Hiromi took me into one of the places that made them and we took a few. The shop she took me to had perhaps a dozen of the booths, each with different mechanisms and themes. The newest were ones that allowed a great deal of pre-made stamps and photo embellishments to be added.

Although considerably cheaper than a passport-photo booth, it was quite a bit larger and well-designed. It was easy to see what photograph would be produced, and after posing for several photos and choosing the best ones, one is given a few minutes in which to 'paint' the photos. There are touch-sheet binders filled with frames, shapes, photos and frills; tap the image you want applied, and then paint it onto your photo where and however many times you want. You are given what seems like quite a short time to make the additions, but I suppose they have to clear out the booth for the next people.

Finally, you choose the size and layout, then wait for the photos to be printed. I was a bit surprised at the complexity of the process, and a bit taken aback that I had paid perhaps twice as much for some boring passport photos not too long ago--you'd think the passport photos, simple by comparison, could be priced quite a bit cheaper.

But then, not quite so many schoolgirls buy quite so many passport photos, pasting them into collector's albums....

Pretty Darn Bald-Faced

Bush, answering a few questions during a photo-op with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on July 14th, said the following:

"The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region."

Talk about science fiction... (a), Hussein apparently did not have a weapons program when we came into Iraq, as evidenced by the complete lack of evidence, which should have been uncovered long before now; (b), he did in fact let inspectors in, and although there was some lack of cooperation, the inspectors said that they were making more headway than ever before; Bush, on the other hand, chomping at the bit to invade no matter what the inspectors found (his original call for the inspectors to go in was little more than a political sham), repeatedly dismissed the inspectors' findings and sent troops in anyway; and (c), well, everything else he said, really--"reasonable request"? "...a threat to the United States"? Hasn't Bush been paying attention? Or does he think that most Americans haven't?

Sadly, if the latter is the case, then Bush may be right.

More Pigeon Photos

A few more photos are available on the Pigeon Page. They've lost almost all their yellow fluff now, and are developing the iridescent plumage around the neck, very pretty. One of them has a few splashes of white on the head, making it easy to identify in the future should they come back to visit.

Chaos and 16 Words

Ever since the beginning, it has been clear to a great many people that George W. Bush was not just stretching the truth in his campaign to the American people for a war with Iraq; we knew that he was lying outright. The problem was that there was no "smoking gun," and Bush could squirm out of whatever wasn't smoking.

Now, far too late to do much good, we have the smoking gun, in the form of the now-famous "16 Words" Bush spoke in his State of the Union address before the Iraq war. Naturally, the Bush administration is trying to play down the matter, trying to claim that the matter is settled, that the claim was "technically correct," that it "has been blown out of proportion," and that it "in no way has any effect on the president's larger case."

This strategy, blowing off the story, acting like it's no big deal, then waiting for the press to play along and move on to the next story, isn't working this time. It seems like the Bush administration was so used to being able to dismiss anything they wanted, now they're genuinely puzzled as to why this particular thing is not going away. But it will not; you can feel it in the air, the press has already invested too much time on it, and the smoking gun has too much weight behind it.

The central argument of the administration is that the 16 Words were the fault of the CIA, and that Bush was an unwitting victim, but this has already been proven untrue. Yes, British Intelligence did indeed report that Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger, but that makes no difference: the CIA, with Joseph Wilson's testimony, had told the administration that the Niger claims were false. So even if CIA chief George Tenet failed to object strongly enough to the administration's choice to include the faulty British intelligence in the State of the Union, it does not change the fact that the Bush administration, against CIA advice and knowing full well that the evidence was false, nonetheless actively decided to include the "16 Words" in the speech, and thus knowingly deceived the American people.

In her many efforts to kill the story, Condi Rice tried to say that it was irrelevant because it didn't change the larger argument. Even if we go along with her and ignore the fact that the president knowingly lied to America about the Niger story, does that end the whole matter? The answer, of course, is no--because it was not just Niger that he lied about.

A way to understand this can be found in Chaos Theory. There is a concept in Chaos Theory called "Self-Similarity." It says that patterns, similarities, can be found at various levels of magnitude; the same patterns that can be observed at small size appear again at larger sizes. Take a snowflake, for example: if you look at the snowflake as a whole and then look at a tiny part of the snowflake, one sees the same patterns emerge, the same basic shapes reasserting themselves.

This same recursive pattern can be found in the Bush administration's push for the Iraq war. The Niger lie is significant not just because of the 16 Words, but because those 16 Words represent a pattern of deception at a number of levels, from the small details to the whole argument. The Niger lie epitomizes the entire campaign, and gives life and body to what was always clear but never came to the point of proving it beyond any doubt--the usual leeway politicians are granted.

The Niger lie was the Bush administration's stepping over the line. Bush had been dancing, cavorting, thumbing his nose at us, and we accepted it because he stayed behind the Line of the Smoking Gun. But with Niger, he stepped over the line, and now all the other lies come flooding through the breach, carrying the story onward, past the objections of Rice, Rumsfeld, and others. That's why Rice might say it seems "out of proportion" and believe it, because she's just talking about the 16 Words.

But it's more than that, and woe to the Bush administration if it fails to recognize the fact.

Yum

Hiromi and I went to see a movie last night ("Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle"). Thinking that "Terminator 3" would draw most of the business, we came half an hour before showtime, but enough people had come so that we could not get good tickets for the late afternoon show. No problem, we just switched our plans, bought tickets for the later show, and had dinner before the movie instead of after.

The place we went to for dinner was an "Aussie" joint called the "Outback Steakhouse," though I'm fairly certain it's American faux-Aussie style. Wherever they're from, they have good food. To the right is Hiromi enjoying the onion bloom, a very nice fried onion dish with a dressing dip in the middle. The main other dish we enjoyed were the ribs, very good at this place--the sauce is good , and the meat is tender and practically falls off the bones. Very delicious, if rather unhealthy!

The Outback Steakhouse is located literally next door to the Virgin Cinema complex in Minami Osawa, very close to the Keio Sagamihara Line station of the same name. (The same shopping area has a Cinnabon, a big albeit fattening plus in my opinion.) So right after dinner, we just walked next door and went to the theater, walked in and sat in our reserved seats and enjoyed the film.

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle is enjoyable so long as you take it for what it is: a live-action cartoon. Best to suspend disbelief, set your intellect on neutral and just go along with it. Enjoy the Matrix-style stunts and whatever good gags you can find, including some see-if-you-can-catch-them insider jokes. A cute moment was Lucy Liu's ferret imitation for her father (John Cleese, surprisingly). The IMDb web page linked to above, as always, provides interesting background information, some of it rumored--for example, the reason Bill Murray decided not to return for this film because he could not stand to work with Lucy Liu, according to the trivia section of the IMDb page.

After the film, we had drinks at Starbucks until they closed down and ushered us out, then went to wait for the bus. We must have waited twenty minutes before we realized that we had just missed the last bus, and so headed back for the train station--a circuitous trip for Hiromi back home, but at the time, the only ride available for a reasonable price. Still, it was a great night out.

Full-Tilt Press Bias

"Has the criticism of CIA Director George Tenet been unfairly politicized?"

That's the question CNN put to its viewers. How biased can you get? During the 8 years of Republicans politicizing each and every rumor, allegation and bald-faced lie about Clinton with the press gleefully tailing along, I do not recall any issue during that time which was characterized by the press in that light, especially so early in the life of the story.

And yet just a few days after the story gets into the spotlight, the story is not centered, as it should be, on the fact that the government ignored clear evidence and decided to lie to the American people in order to drag us into a war we didn't want. Instead, it is being framed by the press as a story about Democrats unfairly criticizing the president for political gain.

No greater ally could President Bush ask for than the one the press is continuing to provide him with.

Another Costco Haul

As you can see, I've been shopping again at the Tama Sakai Costco, near Hashimoto Station on the Yokohama and Keio Sagamihara lines.

This time much of it is fixings for a fireworks party next Sunday (if the rain will give us a break!). The fireworks display is nicely viewable out my dining room window; last year a half-dozen folks came for the party (though it was in October then).

Got some four-cheese ravioli (yum), walnuts (should be for cooking, but they're great for snacking), limes, mints, Picante Sauce (like a thin salsa), some wine and liqueur, buns (for some polish dogs I got previously), and an apple pie (much better than the rather lame pecan pies they had a year ago, not surprisingly discontinued).

And you probably noticed the DVD player--region-free (you can play both U.S. and Japanese DVDs in it), and cheap--just about 10,000 yen.

The problem in that store is not buying stuff.

Getting it home can be problematic... They have delivery service, but it is based in Kanagawa and serves people in that prefecture best. It's OK for really big hauls, but for ones like this--just bring your own bags, backpacks, and other goods for schlepping stuff around.

Anybody But George

The excuses are flying again, this time in response to the revelation concerning Bush's State of the Union address. Turns out that Bush's claim that Hussein was trying to buy uranium from Niger was not just false, but knowingly false. The CIA knew it was wrong. A government representative sent to Niger reported it was impossible. And yet with this knowledge, wanting to fuel the war against Iraq, it was decided that the CIA's information be ignored and a report from British intelligence be used instead. the question is, who decided to lie? Well, you can guess what the Bush administration is saying:

Anybody but George.

Apparently, a George Bush was out of the loop yet again in the White House. Despite the fact that we should have known that Iraq had no nuclear program and a severely diminished bio- and chemical weapons program, despite the knowledge that there was no tie between Hussein and Al-Qaeda or 9-11, despite the intelligence that said Iraq was no threat to us at all, and now despite the fact that the administration knew the Niger story was a complete lie--despite all these things, George W. Bush made statements completely to the contrary in his State of the Union speech, and in countless speeches before and after, and yet somehow, he never lied.

Really, there are only a few possibilities. One is that Bush knowingly lied to us. The other is that everyone lied to Bush. Neither possibility is good, but you can guess which one the administration is playing.

George Tenet, director of the CIA, is now in the process of falling on his sword. George W. Bush, Condaleeza Rice and Senator Pat Roberts are helping him, making sure the sword is guided directly to his heart and not faked into his armpit. Tenet is the only one who has to fall right now, as the Niger story is the only one with the definitive smoking gun.

But the question should become, who's responsible for all the other lies? Who's going to fall on his or her sword when WMD are never found? Who lied to Bush about that? Who's taking the fall for deceiving bush about Al Qaeda and 9-11 ties?

The "anybody but George" strategy has a flaw in it: used too often, it will give the impression that Bush is surrounded by deceitful liars who keep him in the dark, and/or he is an unwitting, gullible fool. But we know, in our heart of hearts, that neither is true. We know that Bush has been lying. It's simply that a majority of Americans either don't want to believe it (for personal, political or other reasons), or they know it and don't care because it relieves them of being responsible for doing things they want but know are wrong.

Subtlety in Media Bias

To note yet another stroke against the myth of a liberal media, take a look at CNN's latest front-page headline: "Democrats grow bolder in criticism of Bush on Iraq" (story here). Underneath that headline is the note that "Republicans say Democrats are playing politics, trying to make some headway in the upcoming 2004 election."

I do not recall, in the uncountable times that Republicans accused Clinton of everything and anything to score political points, that the media characterized the political assault and its motives as the chief story; rather, they focused on the charges and whether or not they were true. It was never "Republicans strengthen their attacks: Democrats say Republicans are playing politics"; rather, it was "Clinton accused of [insert accusation here]," followed by details and analysis of the accusation. See examples here and here.

By representing the story as shown above, CNN is effectively putting the actual criticism in the back seat, and is instead highlighting the story as a political move. This may well be, but, as noted, it is inconsistent with reporting styles under Clinton, and ignores very real and well-deserved criticism of the administration. This spin put on the different stories makes the difference between supporting and attacking a political party.

Leaving the Nest But Not Flying

The pigeon babies are nearly grown now. It's been three weeks, maybe a week left before they leave. They're running around the balcony, sleeping where they feel comfortable now. Not ready to fly, not just yet...

Poza Consulting Services

Here is a link to my father's site and a reprint of the text there:

Poza Consulting Services

Areas of Expertise:
Audio Tape Authentication (Audio Tape Analysis)
Voice Identification (Voiceprint Analysis)
Acoustic Identification (Analysis of non-speech recorded events, e.g. gunshots)
Enhancement and Transcription of Noisy Audio Tape Recordings

Tito Poza, who is bi-lingual in English and Spanish, has been active in
Voice Identification technology for over 30 years. He has co-authored
encyclopedic articles in both Voice Identification and Tape Authentication
and has testified extensively as an Expert Witness in all areas of
Audio Forensic Analysis.

Poza Consulting Services provides
Consultation, Analysis and
Expert Testimony in the following areas:

Audio Tape Verification and Authentication (Audio tape analysis)

Voice Identification and Elimination (Voiceprint Identification)

Acoustic Identification (Analysis of non-speech recorded events, e.g. gunshots)

Enhancement and Transcription of Noisy Audio Tape Recordings

PCS has been serving the legal and law enforcement communities for over 25 years. Tito Poza has testified as an expert witness over 60 times in state and federal courts in both criminal and civil cases. He has co-authored two encyclopedic articles that provide attorneys with valuable information and insights in the areas of Voice Identification and Tape Authentication in particular and more generally in the broader areas of Forensic Communications and Forensic Acoustics.

To contact Poza Consulting Services:

Voice Phone: 650-325-6242
Fax Phone: 650-328-7904
e-mail poza@poza-consulting.com

Privacy

I am by no means the first person to comment on the fact that in the 21st Century and the Information Age, one of the major issues that we will face is that of privacy. As it becomes more and more possible to collect information and monitor any given person via electronic means, keeping a database of where they live, where they work, where they go, what they buy, and so forth and so on--it will be more and more possible to almost passively allow computers to build databases detailing our activities on a daily basis, records to be accessed whenever someone with access (read: government and industry) so desires.

Think about it: records are kept on where you live (city records), where you work and how much you make (IRS), where you go (trail of credit card receipts, hotel registrations, airplane ticket purchases, gas purchases), what you buy (receipts connected to your credit, debit, and bank cards; records from "membership cards" at supermarkets, rental stores, etc. which keep close track of every purchase), what information you access on the Internet (cookies and other tracking information), email you send, whom you talk to and what you talk about (if your email is unencrypted, it can be legally read at many points along its path), medical records, bank records, credit histories, work records, and much, much more.

Computers, able to collate this data by keeping a record of all references to you, will be able to sift through the gargantuan heaps of data on the Internet and other sources and compile data which can be smoothed out manually to build an incredibly detailed record of all your activities--more than you can even recall yourself. That database will be available to be used against you (can you even imagine how that kind of information could or would ever possibly be used for you? Not likely). It will be available to find you, pigeonhole you, persuade you, perhaps control you in subtle ways. Or to blackmail you threaten you, expose you, embarrass you, catch you doing things you should be able to do in private without hindrance, but that others may not approve of.

The right to privacy against this is under concerted attack. Laws are being drafted (thankfully, against the tide of the courts) that can tell you what kind of person you can be, what activities you can take part in between consenting adults in private places, deciding what you are allowed to watch, read, do or speak about, and with whom. Some of it is not legislated; some is simply discouraged with the force of law or popular public pressure. What places in the world you are allowed to go to, what kind of persons you can associate with, what opinions you can hold, what statements you can make even semi-privately. In the building atmosphere of fear, simply speaking out publicly on your rights as an American citizen can get you branded as unpatriotic, making people less liable to talk to you, meet you, hire you, do business with you. We see it around us, with so many Americans getting angry at those who would question the government, shouting others down even with the threat of violence for doing no more than stating a peaceful, rational opinion. Take, as one example, the man who runs the baseball hall of fame canceling a Hall of Fame event because he didn't like the political views of one actor who had spoken out against the war. Here, an event that should belong to all of us, the celebration of our national pastime, was hijacked by one or a small number of people to do harm to a person who was simply exercising his constitutional rights and asking the country not to go to war. Turning against people for their views takes place every day at the personal level, and so we do not often hear about it widely and publicly, ergo the celebrity example; but this drama does play out all over our country. The point is that by doing things which harm no one and which are our right as Americans, we can be hurt in real ways, denied opportunities, have things dear to us taken away. A lack of privacy is the means to widen what we can be criticized for, penalized for, and threatened concerning; the less privacy we have, the more control others have over us.

Privacy is part of our birthright. Neo-conservatives, claiming to want government out of our lives but in truth hoping they will interfere deeply but selectively, tell us that there is no express right to privacy in the Constitution; Thom Hartmann, however, said it very well in his column at commondreams.org:

In his dissent in the Texas sodomy case, Thomas wrote, "just like Justice Stewart, I 'can find [neither in the Bill of Rights nor any other part of the Constitution a] general right of privacy,' or as the Court terms it today, the 'liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions.'"

Echoing Thomas' so-called conservative perspective, Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program on June 27, 2003, "There is no right to privacy specifically enumerated in the Constitution." Jerry Falwell similarly agreed on Fox News.

Limbaugh and Thomas may soon also point out to us that the Constitution doesn't specifically grant a right to marry, and thus license that function exclusively to, say, Falwell. The Constitution doesn't grant a right to eat, or to read, or to have children. Yet do we doubt these are rights we hold?

And he equally well commented on how that right indeed exists, in so many different ways, in the constitution:

[T]the Constitution wasn't written as a vehicle to grant us rights. We don't derive our rights from the constitution.

Rather, in the minds of the Founders, human rights are inalienable - inseparable - from humans themselves. We are born with rights by simple fact of existence, as defined by John Locke and written by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," the Founders wrote. Humans are "endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights...." These rights are clear and obvious, the Founders repeatedly said. They belong to us from birth, as opposed to something the Constitution must hand to us, and are more ancient than any government.

The job of the Constitution was to define a legal framework within which government and business could operate in a manner least intrusive to "We, The People," who are the holders of the rights. In its first draft it didn't even have a Bill of Rights, because the Framers felt it wasn't necessary to state out loud that human rights came from something greater, larger, and older than government. They all knew this; it was simply obvious.

Thomas Jefferson, however, foreseeing a time when the concepts fundamental to the founding of America were forgotten, strongly argued that the Constitution must contain at least a rudimentary statement of rights, laying out those main areas where government could, at the minimum, never intrude into our lives.

We have the right to privacy; there is no question. At minimum, we have the right to do what we please, as consenting adults, in the privacy of our own homes, if it does not infringe on the rights or safety of others. We have the right not to be tracked, databased and kept close tabs on without our knowledge or consent. We have the right to say and do as we please as long as it does not reasonably infringe the rights and freedoms of others, and we have the right not to be constrained by small people who would absurdly abuse the definition of "reasonable." (The Baseball Hall of Fame president would likely deem it "reasonable" to cancel a popular public event because an actor lobbied against war on the grounds that any dissent "harms" our troops and is "unpatriotic." All that proved was just how the meaning of "reasonable" can be distorted by someone with an agenda).

Science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein, who often speculated on the shape of society in the future, once wrote:

"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere."

Perhaps Heinlein was much more prophetic on this point than many people gave him credit for. Unfortunately, we don't have many places to move on to from here, so instead we have to try to turn things around here and now, or at least fight the oncoming tide.

Discount Don Quixote

You might already know about it, but there is a chain of stores named "Don Quixote" which specialize in discount items. Not like Costco--you don't buy in bulk, and the store is far from being a big warehouse. The shop might actually be large, but it is so crammed with stuff you might feel claustrophobic. The aisles are not regular, nor are they always straight. The stores look like they were designed by a pack rat--hardly any space to move, items crammed into every nook and cranny.

But that's not a mistake--it's a sales strategy. The stores are designed so you feel like there's no end to the items there. Things are divided into 'departments' of a sort, but you will, by necessity, have to move through various areas before you get to where you want to go--and you'll probably see some unexpected stuff you want to buy along the way.

If you want to locate a branch of the store near you, or see what they have on sale, you might want to check out their web site, which includes an English-language version.

Onaka ga Ippai... or Whatever

Another language story: during the same homestay I mentioned in the Batman story, I was having lunch with my host mother and several of her friends--four middle-aged, kindly mothers living in a small, countryside town.

Upon finishing lunch, I wanted to say "onaka ga ippai," or "my stomach is full," a traditional statement indicating that the meal was enjoyable.

But I mistakenly transposed the initial vowels for the two main words in that sentence, and said "inaka ga oppai." That roughly translates to "the countryside has breasts."

Everyone started laughing aloud, and I had to ask someone to explain to me what I had said. At least I learned new vocabulary from it. I had never heard the word "inaka" (countryside) before.

Side note: my host mother had a pot holder in her kitchen that read "Joy Joy Cock." (In Japanese, for some reason, the word "cook" is borrowed from English, but is pronounced closer to "cock" than "cook." Why, I have no idea.)

New Gaijin Card

Every five years, you have to renew your Alien Registration Card (aka Gaijin Card, or Gaikokujin Torokusho); I just got mine renewed today. (Image at left--sorry for all the distortion, too much personal info there.) For those of you not in the know, all non-Japanese are required to carry these gaijin cards at all times; if a policeman stops you and you don't have it on you, then by rights he can take you in to the police station, where you must write a "gomen nasai" letter. You also have to get someone to bring in your gaijin card before you can go. If there is no one to bring your card in for you, you must give the police the keys to your place, and they will get it for you--unless they are kind enough to escort you home while you get your card out for them (happened to me once). Foreigners don't get stopped just for being foreigners as much as we used to, but it still happens from time to time.

Another infamous point about these cards is the fingerprint. Now it is no longer required (it was done away with chiefly due to protests by the sizable Korean-Japanese community), but it was necessary until just a few years ago. A lot of people did not like this, not only because it made people feel like they were being treated like criminals, but also because the print was prominently displayed on the card. In an early attempt to appease card holders, they provided a plastic slip case with a Ministry of Justice logo positioned to cover the print. Rather lame, really...

They fixed a few other things over time, as well. One was the size of the thing--it used to be an actual booklet, many pages long, too big to fit into most wallets. A huge pain, that was...

Smokin' Crean

After getting my new gaijin card, I left the shiyakusho (city hall) and saw a group of people dressed just like the illustration at right. These are the Japan Tobacco "Smokin' Clean" clean-up team. Japan is getting better and better about smoking, but is still a relative smoker's paradise. Many restaurants have no-smoking sections, but the smoking sections prevail, and are in nicer areas. Most workplaces, banks, rest areas and other public places are still smoking havens; the major exception is train platforms, which recently became entirely smoke-free.

The whole "Smokin' Clean" campaign (when you hear it on television, it sounds like "Smo-kin', CREEEN!"), aside from being a rather glaring oxymoron, is supposed to address the bad manners smokers are often famed for here, particularly littering. Japanese streets, of course, are far less tidy than is commonly believed overseas, and the major component of that street trash is from cigarettes. I long ago formed, tested and proved (well, to myself anyway) the theory that you could go to any place on any street in Japan at random, stop, and when you look around, see at least half a dozen cigarette butts laying there, often many more.

When you observe smokers here, it is not too surprising. Too often used to tossing butts on the street (and rarely even bothering to stomp them out), many seem to have gotten into the tossing habit. On more than one occasion, I have observed a smoker finishing a pack and approaching a vending machine to buy a new one--and instead of using the trash receptacle in or next to the machine, they crumple up and toss the empty pack on the street just a few feet away. Of course, this is nothing compared to the middle-aged businessman smoker, the guy who hawks loudly and spits disgustingly smack in the middle of the sidewalk or train station hallway. Yechh.

Seem like Japan Tobacco has a ways to go to reform the Japanese smoker....

Shinjuku Nishiguchi Monk

This fellow is often seen standing by a pillar on the very busy basement-level area outside the West Exit of Shinjuku Station. A monk in traditional garb, holding a begging (alms) bowl, with the trademark monk's hat ("Takuhatsu gasa"). Whenever someone drops some money into his bowl, he rings a bell.

The following text, from the Matsuyama Mokurai web site (a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism), describes this act in detail:

Despite attempting to be self-sufficient, most monasteries would practice alms rounds. Collecting alms was a symbolic act as well as a practical one and, thus, even if the monastery's warehouse was full, the monks would go beg. ... Monks might also stand silently on a street corner holding out their bowls for people to drop alms in. Sometimes ringing a small bell. This was typical of monks on pilgrimage. It is a practice you can still see today. Communication with lay people was usually limited. Monks kept their hats on and did not engage in conversation. Such interaction would cause the alms gift to become an act of favoritism. If kept anonymous, the begging is thus ennobling for both parties.

If you are interested in getting your hands on this kind of garb, or attire for various types of historical Japanese characters, go to this page of Shop Japan.

Mega-GigaHertz

One of the best rumor sites for upcoming Apple Computer products is MacRumors. And what they're saying about the future Apple CPUs is rather surprising.

For the past couple of years, the Mac has drifted rather listlessly in the Motorola doldrums, getting no faster than 1.4 GHz. Now, with the G5, we get an immediate bump up to 2 GHz, though that chip may max out at about 2.8 GHz. In a year, IBM's PPC 980 chip will be running at 3 GHz, and will max out at about 5 GHz.

If that sounds like a lot, wait till you hear about the following two generations: the 990 (2005-6), which is supposed to range from 6 GHz to 10 GHz, and then the 9900 (2007-8) which, if you can believe it, will run somewhere around 20 to 25 GHz.

Yikes!

But that kind of follows Moore's Law fairly well, and let's remember that the features of the G5 were pretty damned surprising to many of us, and yet were indeed true. Still, 25 GHz. Man.

Pigeon Relocation

To lessen the clutter, consolidate the thread, and relieve those who don't really like pigeons very much, all the pigeon photos have now been collected on one page. The prior stories will remain, but with a link to the image page instead of the photo.

Batman Is on the Subway

Old story time. It was my first trip to Japan, way back in '83, and I was having a homestay in the countryside town of Iwata, in Shizuoka Prefecture (now the home of the Jubilo Iwata soccer team). After a month's homestay, I was headed back to Tokyo for a week, and then home. My host father wanted to warn me of the dangers of the big city before I went. Well, compared to major U.S. cities, Tokyo is safe as houses, but to a countryside dweller in Japan, it's a dangerous jungle.

So he sat me down, and as I could not speak Japanese very well, and he did speak English fairly well, he explained it to me in my language--albeit with a heavy accent.

"Luis," he started (it sounded more like "Ruisu"), "when you go tsu Tokyo, you musto be bery, bery careful ("kerufuru"). In Tokyo, on za sabuway, zere is... Batman."

A little taken aback, I reply, "Batman?"

And with a strictly serious expression, he confirmed: "Yes. Batman."

I could not think of anything to say, so I just repeated: "umm... Batman? Is, uh, on the subway? In Tokyo?"

He nodded vigorously, happy that I understood. "Yes! Batman is on za sabuway, Batman is on za streeto. Batman is everywhea in Tokyo!!"

I then struggled to comprehend as he told me about how Batman would steal my money and attack me. More and more, I felt on the verge of breaking into a giggling attack, until finally I understood that he was trying to tell me about criminals, pickpockets, in other words, bad men, not "Batman."

Though to this day, while on the subway, I still keep an eye out for someone with a cape.

Careful What You Ask For

An evangelist preaching at a church in Ohio asked God for a sign.

He was then struck by lightning, and the church set on fire.

No kidding.

1st Amendment Covers Us Bloggers--At Least to a Degree

The 9th Circuit court decided on Tuesday that bloggers have 1st amendment protection when it comes to republishing information. The same protection that covers ISPs, email providers or Internet content providers covers us as well.

What does that mean? Well, you can still be sued for libel if you intentionally post untrue information which causes damages to another party, but you cannot be sued if information you republish is libelous. However, if someone posts a comment to your blog and that comment is libelous, then, under this new decision, you cannot be held liable for it, even if you "take some affirmative steps to edit the material posted."

Now, a pertinent question becomes, what about information that you repost from another source? What if, say, you see information on another web site, and you repost it on yours (presumably citing your source and showing quotes or denoting paraphrasing), and the information turns out to be libelous? Are you culpable then?

Not being a legal scholar, I cannot say for certain, but I would presume the answer is "no." The decision speaks to the definition of being an "information content provider," which is to say, did you "create or develop" the information? This was addressed in the context of having received an email from someone else and then posting it, and did not speak of actively clipping the information and bringing it to your site yourself. Still, it would seem to be an act of "republishing" rather than "creating or developing." Or, if you are simply reporting that someone else said this, then you are merely commenting on a fact--unless, of course, you chime in a say that you believe it to be true.

A sticky issue, and not really addressed by this decision by the 9th.

Anyone out there have any opinions on this? Or, better yet, legal knowledge? Can you be sued for libel by reprinting information that was published elsewhere?

Comments are invited.

They Were Actually Serious

I read a story a few days back stating that video game producer Activision was suing Paramount for not making enough Star Trek movies. I figured it was just a joke. But no, it seems that the story is true. Do they make James Bond games, too? If so, they may have a case against MGM--after all, they've only made 20 of the movies.

Democrats Finally Begin to Criticize Bush

Or at least in a way that gets carried by the media. Maybe this is more a shift in the media's bias (now that the FCC ruling is done with and looks to be struck down by Congress) than in Democratic rhetoric, but whatever the cause, at least finally some criticism is getting disseminated. It's all about the "Bring them on" quote he made a few days ago, daring Iraqis to kill U.S. soldiers:

Dick Gephardt: "We're losing soldiers every day, and he is not putting together the international help and the international coalition to deal with this problem. He doesn't deal with other countries well, and there's an arrogance, there's a state of mind in thinking that drives people away rather than bringing them in to help us.... He's president, you don't taunt the enemy.... You try to keep our troops safe, you try to help them in what they're doing .... This phony, macho business is not getting us where we need to be."

Sen. John Kerry: [The comment was] "unwise, unworthy of the office and his role as commander in chief, and unhelpful to American soldiers under fire."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg: [The comment was] "irresponsible and inciteful.... When I served in the Army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander -- let along the commander in chief -- invite enemies to attack U.S. troops."

Howard Dean: [The comment was] "incredibly reckless rhetoric.... These men and women are risking their lives every day, and the president who sent them on this mission showed tremendous insensitivity to the dangers they face."

I still haven't heard anyone paying attention to Bush's comment on how "God instructed" him to invade Iraq.

Secondhand Shopping

I don't use the secondhand shops today nearly as much as I used to, but they can be a real boon to those of us starting out in Japan, or here for the relative short term. It's sometimes hard to find any shops like that worth visiting, though.

One fairly major shop I saw recently is part of a chain of secondhand shops. The branch I visited is called "News," and is on Koshu Kaido (Route 20) just west of Chitose Karasuyama Station on the Keio line, in the outer area of Setagaya Ward (Minami Karasuyama 6-18-4). You can call the company toll-free at (0120) 666-801. They sell all the usual stuff, plus large furniture, western-style beds, scooters and so forth. Prices seemed OK as far as these shops go.

The entire chain seems to have shops all around Tokyo, in places like Itabashi, Sasazuka, Okubo, Suginami and a few other locales. You can visit their main page and get a listing of shops; the site also seems to list some of the items they have for sale, though I would expect these are of better quality and lower-priced than you could expect to actually find in the shops.

Or, if you're up for a walk from the station, try visiting the weekly Salvation Army sale on Saturday from 9 am to noon at the "Kyuseigun Danshi Shakai Hoshi Center," located at 2-21-2 Wada, Suginami-ku. Telephone number is (03) 3384-9114. Directions are on this page. The closest station is Nakano-Fujimi on the Marunouchi line (you have to transfer at Nakano Sakaue), though some people take the longer walk from Higashi-Koenji Station.

"Bring Them On," He Said from 10,000 Miles Away

"Let me finish. There are some who feel like the conditions [in Iraq] are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on."
--George W. Bush, July 2, 2003

So says the man who chickened out of Vietnam service by getting into a celebrity unit of the National Guard, then went AWOL while having drunken binges. I am sure that the families of the service men and women in Iraq are all very comforted by the fact that the president is daring the Iraqis to attack their loved ones so that he can sound macho.

Feathered Out and Home Alone

The feathers are finally coming out, and if anything, these birds are ahead of schedule. The eggs seemed to hatch much faster than the web sites I looked at indicated they would, and the growth of these chicks (or "squabs," as they're apparently called) is almost alarming. Another concern was that mama and papa pigeon seemed to have deserted them--no one has been sitting on the nest for two days now, leaving the squabs unprotected almost all of that time. Apparently, however, pigeons do this--the hen will make a second nest somewhere with another clutch of eggs. The folks must still be somewhere nearby, though; once in a while I catch them coming in to feed. It's only been ten days since hatching, though, and the sites on the web say 18 days before they get left alone.

Must be fast pigeons.

False Intelligence

Here's an excellent article called "The First Casualty" in The New Republic. It details how the Bush Administration shaped, shaded, influenced and tainted the intelligence community's data and analysis on Iraq in order to justify a war. A few snippets:

"Yet there was no consensus within the American intelligence community that Saddam represented such a grave and imminent threat. Rather, interviews with current and former intelligence officials and other experts reveal that the Bush administration culled from U.S. intelligence those assessments that supported its position and omitted those that did not. The administration ignored, and even suppressed, disagreement within the intelligence agencies and pressured the CIA to reaffirm its preferred version of the Iraqi threat. Similarly, it stonewalled, and sought to discredit, international weapons inspectors when their findings threatened to undermine the case for war. ...

"Had the administration accurately depicted the consensus within the intelligence community in 2002--that Iraq's ties with Al Qaeda were inconsequential; that its nuclear weapons program was minimal at best; and that its chemical and biological weapons programs, which had yielded significant stocks of dangerous weapons in the past, may or may not have been ongoing--it would have had a very difficult time convincing Congress and the American public to support a war to disarm Saddam. But the Bush administration painted a very different, and far more frightening, picture."

Hilarious Translations

Check out the translations of this web site in Redneck, Jive, Cockney, and Moron. Not quite politically correct, but nonetheless quite a hoot. Courtesy of The Dialectizer.