Saturday, May 24, 2014

Chutzpah Redefined, Or Just Money To Burn?

My morning dead tree news delivery device, the Tokyo Shimbun, the alpha dog of the prefectural newspapers, is left wing. It holds court, in most analyses, in the space between left-leaning The Asahi Shimbun and the Communist Party's house organ Akahata ("Red Flag").

For me, the TS is an easy-to-read, localized Asahi with its head screwed on straight and blood in its veins -- the latter two qualities earning the paper the admiration of even my more the-time-to-return-Japan-to-normal-nation-status-was-yesterday-leaning friends. (Link)

Hence my amazement at this morning's front page.



See it? It is hard to miss.

But, just in case, here it is, the bottom-right hand corner, enlarged.



Yes, c'mon all you lefties. Here is what you need: Tamogami Senso Daigaku ("Tamogami"s University Studies of War"). Yes, the very latest tome from your very best friend, forcibly retired Air Self Defense Forces general and Tokyo gubernatorial candidate Tamogami Toshio. (Archive)

[Long pause for fulmination]

I know that advertising can be scattershot, sometimes lacking in aim at a target audience.

But having an ad for a Tamogami book on war, photo of the man lecturing the reader included, on the front page of the Tokyo Shimbun is beyond mere incompetence or laziness.

This is pure provocation.

2 comments:

Philippe said...

pure provocation ?

Or pure betrayal?

I hope their readers will be up in arms. I’m not holding my breath, though.

Anonymous said...

Shisaku,

Could it merely be a case of "money talks, bullsh*t walks"?

It seems like a virtue that Japan is a consensus-builder and not an ideologue, but Japan is a consensus-builder to the point of being morally empty sometimes, I think. The Money Gods prevail over all else.

ken elwood
adams guild™