Here we go again...
Once again, apologies to the dedicated few who've kept up with my decidedly intermittent postings. The current spate of inaction is due, as I suspect most of you know, to its defacto transfer to Facebook. A combination of laziness and user-friendly software means I can do in half an hour there what took me most of a day here, especially when it comes to the picture-intensive travelogues. Because of this, I've decided to stop pushing that rock up the hill. If you want to see the pretty piccies, come see me on Facebook. Most of you are there already, anyway, as are all my recent travel pics. As for this blog, so as not to render it completely defunct, I shall grace it with the occasional picture, but for the most part will confine myself to actual news, events and good old-fashioned rants about the state of things in my life and my current surroundings. It will be as blogs were meant to be - and perhaps those of you who miss my scattered musings will feel some measure of satisfaction at their resumption.
So, without further ado, on to the stuff...
Over the last two weeks, they've been flogging the debut of a movie adaptation of a popular manga series, "Twentieth Century Boys", in the lobby of the Nadya Park Building. After two weeks, I'm thoroughly fed up with hearing the theme song on an endless loop, and after several viewings, I'm afraid the movie looks like crap, but I still think it was really cool to have a giant inflatable mech at work, even if it is a rip-off of Robocop.
In other news, if you'd checked recently, you might have noticed that Japan's Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, resigned today. If you hadn't, here's the link. I'm sure deep down he's a really nice guy, and will probably be much better off for spending more time with the grandkids, and, after all, he did last much longer than the last guy, but in a month's time, people will be asking "Fukuda who?". He did his best, and some of his policies weren't too bad, but I guess he doesn't want to be remembered as the PM who faced his party's most humiliating defeat ever, and was the one who dug in his heels against Japan's first experiment with real democracy.
It's understandable, I guess, since most people here really have no idea of what democracy really is, possibly even resenting it as one more thing the Americans foisted onto them. They did a real good job of making it look like one, and even have all the things you'd expect - an upper and lower house, elections, opposition parties making lots of noise, polls in the newspaper, etc. But one simple statistic flies in the face of all that - since the party formed in 1955, it has held power. 53 years without a change of government!
OK, there was that one time years ago, when the opposition got lucky, and after seizing the chance to grab as much of the gravy train as they could, got hastily trounced out of office inside a year, but that hardly counts. Probably they'll do it again this time, too, because they, just like everyone else, don't honestly believe that any real change is possible or even desirable.
Japan is still authoritarian at its heart.
They plod along, and as long as they don't make waves, and keep all the institutional corruption quiet, and keep the trains running on time, people vote for them time after time after time. I have no doubt that Fukuda lasted as long as he did because he was a moderate, unlike the guy before, and probably the guy after him. But at the heart of it all, the real reason he gave up was because the opposition is in control of the upper house, and they keep sending his bills back to the lower house. After a lifetime in the LDP, he's just not used to having to bargain or negotiate, and he's upset that they're slowing the whole process down. It probably galls him just to have to listen to the opposition, even if it is mostly hot air.
It certainly won't come overnight - it might even take another generation of deadlocked parliaments before people realise that the upper house has a purpose beyond rubber-stamping bills and giving shiftless, nepotistic politicians a place to grow old and fat. And that the lower house might have to take account of the interests of someone other than themselves and their cronies. When it happens, they will look back and see that this is where it all began. Fukuda doesn't want to be around for that, and I can't blame him, but I won't be shedding any tears for him, either.
So, without further ado, on to the stuff...
Over the last two weeks, they've been flogging the debut of a movie adaptation of a popular manga series, "Twentieth Century Boys", in the lobby of the Nadya Park Building. After two weeks, I'm thoroughly fed up with hearing the theme song on an endless loop, and after several viewings, I'm afraid the movie looks like crap, but I still think it was really cool to have a giant inflatable mech at work, even if it is a rip-off of Robocop.
In other news, if you'd checked recently, you might have noticed that Japan's Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda, resigned today. If you hadn't, here's the link. I'm sure deep down he's a really nice guy, and will probably be much better off for spending more time with the grandkids, and, after all, he did last much longer than the last guy, but in a month's time, people will be asking "Fukuda who?". He did his best, and some of his policies weren't too bad, but I guess he doesn't want to be remembered as the PM who faced his party's most humiliating defeat ever, and was the one who dug in his heels against Japan's first experiment with real democracy.
It's understandable, I guess, since most people here really have no idea of what democracy really is, possibly even resenting it as one more thing the Americans foisted onto them. They did a real good job of making it look like one, and even have all the things you'd expect - an upper and lower house, elections, opposition parties making lots of noise, polls in the newspaper, etc. But one simple statistic flies in the face of all that - since the party formed in 1955, it has held power. 53 years without a change of government!
OK, there was that one time years ago, when the opposition got lucky, and after seizing the chance to grab as much of the gravy train as they could, got hastily trounced out of office inside a year, but that hardly counts. Probably they'll do it again this time, too, because they, just like everyone else, don't honestly believe that any real change is possible or even desirable.
Japan is still authoritarian at its heart.
They plod along, and as long as they don't make waves, and keep all the institutional corruption quiet, and keep the trains running on time, people vote for them time after time after time. I have no doubt that Fukuda lasted as long as he did because he was a moderate, unlike the guy before, and probably the guy after him. But at the heart of it all, the real reason he gave up was because the opposition is in control of the upper house, and they keep sending his bills back to the lower house. After a lifetime in the LDP, he's just not used to having to bargain or negotiate, and he's upset that they're slowing the whole process down. It probably galls him just to have to listen to the opposition, even if it is mostly hot air.
It certainly won't come overnight - it might even take another generation of deadlocked parliaments before people realise that the upper house has a purpose beyond rubber-stamping bills and giving shiftless, nepotistic politicians a place to grow old and fat. And that the lower house might have to take account of the interests of someone other than themselves and their cronies. When it happens, they will look back and see that this is where it all began. Fukuda doesn't want to be around for that, and I can't blame him, but I won't be shedding any tears for him, either.
posted by Ia Ftaghn at 10:45 pm
1 Comments:
Lucky I checked! Love the blow up thing, it would have been stolen in Australia by now.
Bec
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