Very Kind Of Her #62

Elaine Kurtenbach and I recently had a conversation about the Olympic logo and stadium belly flops. As a much appreciated courtesy, she inserted a snippet from our talk in her eventual article. (Link)

However, I take exception to the thesis announced in the title, that the succession of egg-on-the-face embarrassments is the result of a particular Japanese mode of behavior or set of behaviors.

No.

Indifference, laziness, buck-passing, box checking and blunt ignorance are not Japanese traits, nor are they the traits of Japanese bureaucracy and the Liberal Democratic Party. An insinuation that something essential about Japan has been exposed by this farce is poppycock.

Tokyo 2020 shows the world the weaknesses of one person: Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Effective recruitment and deployment of talented advisors and officers are the prerequisites of good administration. In naming the persons he did to the chairmanship and vice chairmanship of the organizing committee, Abe guaranteed the committee's inability to function.

What we are left to speculate upon is whether failure -- albeit failure down the line, not right at the git-go -- may indeed may have been Abe's intent.

Can Abe Save The Tokyo Olympics?

So the Yomiuri Shimbun is sycophantic. Tell me something I did not already know. (Link)

But beyond asking the reader to laugh at the Yomiuri articles's North Korea-like reverence for direct guidance from the Supreme Leader, some further, unbridled thoughts on the story of the search for a National Stadium:

1) These are the Abe Olympics

It is not clear from what springs Abe Shinzo's authority over matters as mundane (but crucial, given the current plan to hold the Olympics in August) as what kind of cooling system will be employed to keep spectators at the National Stadium feeling somewhat more comfortable. True Abe is the head of the government and the chairman of the government committee overseeing the Olympic effort.

However, a chairmanship is not an executive role. These are the decisions that need to be made by the director-general of a bureaucratic organization. The committee should be merely rubber stamping the decision of this as yet unnamed director-general.

So what is Abe doing here?

Guess: making sure that when he hands off the premiership in 2018 in a precedent-shattering transfer of power (to Inada Tomomi) parachuting in as the savior of the floundering Tokyo 2020 organization, that there still will be a Tokyo 2020 organization for him to save.

Abe decided to go all in in 2013, flying to Buenos Aires, delivering a speech in English in support of the Tokyo Olympic bid. At the time it seemed to many (including yours truly) that the Olympics were to be both an integral structural element and the capstone of the Abenomics economic revitalization program.

Hence the befuddlement of many (including yours truly) at Abe's inexplicable appointment of a leadership team of superannuated, serial losers and misfits to guide the Olympics effort.

What seems more likely now is that inevitable failure of the committee to guide the Olympics effort was not a bug but a feature, with the ages of the principals giving away the plot from the outset.

Under a not-at-all implausible scenario it was Abe's intention to descend from the Olympian heights of the PM's office; supplant an ineffective and insipid Mori Yoshiro-led program; electrify the staff, volunteers and partners with his new, dynamic, experienced leadership (all brimming vim and vigor); and with only seconds to spare, lead Tokyo to host an Olympics putting all previous and future Olympics to shame.

Only, of course, having put a band of self-important stuffed shirts whose only real daytime activity should be a round of golf in charge of a modern Olympics imploded far sooner than Abe could have dreamed. Perhaps he thought that his back would be covered by charter member of the Friends of Abe: Minister of Education, Culure, Sports, Science and Technology Shimomura Hakubun (seen musing above at the meeting of the steering committee for the new National Stadium). If so, Abe seriously misread his revisionist co-conspirator: Shimomura, who lifted himself out of dire poverty through academic scholarships, actually cares about education – and nothing else.

So bereft of direction was the structure Abe put into place that it had to be Abe, not the committee or Minister Shimomura, who had to pull the plug on the gargantuan Zara Hadid-designed Bicycle Helmet. It is Abe who is making changes to the design specifications for the next attempt.

2) They still do not know what the heck they are doing

One does not have to read the analysis of the new stadium plan, though there is a lot of juicy stuff coming out, to know that even with Abe's direct intervention, the Olympics effort is ensnared in a web of cross-purposes.

One only has to read the official government description of Friday's meeting of the National Stadium committee.

According to the Prime Minister's Residence website, those deciding on the new design for the new National Stadium will "undertake their investigation bending an ear to the voices of the citizens and the athletes."

Gee, what a concept.

As comedian Chris Rock would say, the Kantei wants the committee to get credit for activities any other committee knows it is just supposed to do.

Under the rubric of "putting the athletes first" the committee will, and I am not making this up, "as a principle limit the functions of the national stadium to what is necessary to put on the sporting events themselves."

Huh?

How is building a structure that does the least possible and still be called an Olympics venue become "putting the athletes first"? Was a design for a structure in which Olympic events cannot be held one of the alternatives?

Then there the little matter of the design itself. The committee promises, and again I am not making this up, to "simultaneously reflect international universal design, Japaneseness and other such attributes."

What?

How can anything have a goal of simultaneously reflecting "international universal design" and "Japaneseness" and qualities that are "like these things" – which is to say, "like" polar opposites (if something has "Japaneseness" that means by definition is it not "universal")-- qualities that are not even described? (Link – J)

Mark this still a catastrophe-in-progress.

What would save this situation would be an open, national competition, with a young unknown architect or designer offering a simple, spare and elegant design (with an impact the lines of Maya Lin's design for the Vietnam War memorial in Washington DC with its legion of imitators, including Okinawa's "Cornerstone of Peace") bailing out Abe and his cronies from the fiasco they have spawned. The narrative of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics being a citizen's Olympics could then be resurrected.

No, I am not hopeful.

Original image courtesy: Prime Minister's Residence.

Will Abe Take A Trip Down Yasukuni Lane This Day?

Yasukuni Shrine seen from Hosei University. 25 July 2015.

Will Abe Shinzo make the short trip to Yasukuni today? The smart money says, "No."

However, given

- that yesterday's Cabinet Statement contained all the magic words the international community wanted to hear, if without the tone or sense of agency the international community wanted,

- that the security legislation and the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have become embarrassments

- that Xi Jinping is not in a position to be open to chummy photo opportunities with Abe thanks to the tanking the Chinese markets and insecurity among the cadres engendered by the spreading anti-corruption campaign, meaning the loss or gain of a summit is not in play,

- that the construction plans for a Henoko replacement facility for USMC Air Base Futenma have come undone

- that Abe himself faces an LDP party leadership election next month,

I am willing to entertain the notion that the barriers preventing Abe from paying a surprise visit today are a lot lower than most analysts are willing to admit.

True, the chances of such a visit setting off serious anti-Japanese rioting in South Korea and China are not zero. Japanese companies, especially the big names, would likely suffer significant property damage and business losses. Given that Abe's second run for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party and second turn in the premiership are largely seen as having been framed as a quid pro quo with with the barons of Big Business, the chances for a provocative Yasukuni visit would seem slim.

And he said on August 12 that he won't go (Link - J).

Then again, despite many warnings not to, Abe paid his visit on December 26, 2013...


Yasukuni Shrine, 15 August 2014.

Monkey Business - A Senryu Commentary On The Stadium Controversy

二幕目
白紙決断
猿芝居

Nimakume
hakushi ketsudan
sarushibai

ACT TWO
"Decision To Go Back To The Drawing Board"
Lame monkey show

- Takase Kunio (Hachioji City)

Two Fridays ago, after weeks of wrangling over the ever-rising price and gargantuan dimensions of the new National Stadium, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo announced that the Tokyo Olympic effort would abandon the Zara Hadid "bicycle helmet" design in favor of...nothing.

Well not exactly nothing. Back to a blank sheet of paper (in J. - hakushi) upon which...someone will drawn up new plans answering...well, actually nobody knows what the criteria are that the new design for the new stadium must meet, only that it cannot cost as much as the Hadid design and has to fit 80,000 spectators, maybe. Oh, and it has to be ready in less than five years. And it might have to keep spectators and athletes from keeling over from heat stroke despite daily shade temperatures of 35 degrees...maybe.

That no one to date has taken a fall -- or even personal responsibility -- for the selection of the stadium design has wounded Prime Minister Abe Shinzo and exposed the emptiness of his and his party's promises of bringing professionalism back to Japanese government. The PM directly appointed two very close political allies -- his former faction boss Mori Yoshiro and Member of the House of Representatives Shimomura Hakubun -- to the private and ministerial posts with the greatest influence over the 2020 Olympics project. Push came to shove over the stadium's costs in the inconvenient person of Tokyo Metropolitan Governor Masuzoe Yoichi who balked at the size of Tokyo's share of the final bill. Rather than demonstrating the PM's wisdom in having picked archetypal conservative's conservative men's men, the pair of Abe Best Friends Forever Mori and Shimomura retreated to pre-adolescent pointing of fingers at each other as the one responsible for promoting an unwanted trophy stadium. Oh, yes, and at the looming, terrifying form of architect Ando Tadao, who had led the architectural subcommittee of the wise person's group overseeing the Olympic bid.

The unwillingness of anyone of authority to stop the juggernaut of the stadium plan even as project costs and public hatred of the design soared led several critics of the project, including Governor Masuzoe, to draw parallels between the increasingly hopeless stadium project and Japan's march to war in the 1930s and 40s (Link - J). To too many, the constant hot potato passing and failure to confront the situation squarely was like the ever-receding horizon of a final security perimenter toward which the Imperial armies kept marching, marching, marching... with automatic approvals at each step from men with fine titles but without a scintilla of a responsibility or remorse.

Not an image one can welcome, not in this 70th anniversary year of the firebombing of Tokyo, the destruction of Japan's cities, the Battle of Okinawa, the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan's surrender and the beginning of the Occupation. Not to mention right in the middle of the Diet's consideration of legislation ending a 50 year understanding that collective self defense -- the right to engage in military on behalf of another country anywhere in the world -- is unconstitutional.

The person ultimately responsible for this debacle? Prime Minister Abe of course. He appointed these gentlemen (and they are all men) to their posts. He has not to this point managed to eke a resignation out of a single one of them.

All of which stimulated Tokyo Shimbun reader Takase to compose the above bitter senryu. The author is seeing the scene as if it being played out upon stage, with the stage hand lifting up and flipping over the paper on which the name of the second act of the drama is written. The new scene has the impressive-sounding all-kanji name of Hakushi Ketsudan ("Decision of the White Sheet").

However, looking at the stage, all the author sees are monkeys dressed in kimono, pretending to do a play. It is saru shibai -- "monkey theater."

The twist comes in that latter phrase. Saru shibai has a second, derisive meaning of acts done incompetently, pathetically and with all the sense wrung out of them.

A proper English colloquialism for saru shibai would be "lame" -- and the performances of every supposed adult in this drama has indeed been lame.

And don't even get me started on the selection of the designs for the official logos of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics. I have elsewhere characterized these fine artistic statements as "Soviet Constructivism beats up Robert Indiana in a dark alleyway."

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The senryu by Takase Kunio can be found on page 5 of the Saturday, July 25 morning edition of the Tokyo Shimbun.

Live Blogging The FCCJ Press Conference OF Tokyo Governor Masuzoe Yoichi

Note the empty chairs on both sides...

15:30 Introductory remarks, laughing, explaining what he has been doing in regards the Chinese poaching fo jewelry coral, and then it hits you - Holy crap Governor Masuzoe is holding his press conference in English WITHOUT A TRANSLATOR PRESENT. It is just the governor and David McNeill up there on the rostrum.

15:40 Reading from prepared remarks - and surprisingly, or not so, his English pronunciation is better when extemporizing or riffing on the prepared remarks than when he is reading.

OK, enough of the incredible bravery of the governor of Tokyo giving a press conference in what is his third language.


15:42 Brings up the possibility of regulations banning smoking in restaurants.

15:44 Talks about his visits to London and Moscow in city-to-city diplomacy. Great times with London's Boris.

15:45 Now the biggie - turning Tokyo into a more important financial center.

- one stop, English-language subsidiary registration for foreign cos

- more international schools, hospitals

Talks about the importance of foreign workers, notes the incredibly high percentage of foreign workers in London (real London envy/admiration from the git-go of this press conference)

15:48 Supplementary Tokyo assembly budget will subsidize Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to the tune of 1 million yen per vehicle. Tokyo will subsidize the building of 80 fueling stations.

15:52 Wild rhetorical flourishes to wind up the prepared remarks, calling the Olympics the last best way of reviving Japan.

15:56 Fireworks as a Japanese blogger (?) accuses the Governor of shady political financial declarations. Re of Masuzoe's eyes stand out as he cuts the questioner off, saying that all the questions on this subject have been answered at his Japanese press conference. Young man continues to try but Mazuzoe cuts him down. McNeill has to ask the young man to sit down.

16:00 Asked about 24 hour ATMs, asks questioner to consider the possibility of cashless, Internet banking. (In truth, probably in 6 year's time, we may be using cash a longtime).

16:06 Woman asking about the expansion of the size of the road expansion and whether it is not budget busting? (in Japanese)

Mazuzoe taks of a political leader is prioritization. If one does not create packages of policies, rather than an item here, an item there.

(Moderator should have the right to check the intentions of the questioners. Some folks show up just to complain...)

16:12 Casinos? Masuzoe does not say he is against them but he wants a deepened, national discussion.

16:14 The cost of the Olympics, materials and labor costs have indeed gone up.

As regards Fukushima, he receives no special information from the government. However, Tokyo will go from 6% renewables to 20% renewables in X years. Damn, how many was it.

16:25 Governor enthusiastically answers my question on Tokyo's responsibilities to share its good fortune and enrich the other prefectures as well. He argues that the relationship between Tokyo and the other prefectures must not be zero sum but instead win-win. His caveat is that Tokyo cannot be the only engine: Osaka, Fukuoka, Osaka must pull together with Tokyo (interesting implications for the shu-sized administrative unit plan, which would tend to divide the major cities and set them to competing with one another).

From The Folks Who Gave You A World Cup In Qatar

I'm the Burning Bush
I'm the Burning Fire
I'm the Bleeding Volcano!

- Jagger & Richards, "She's So Cold" (1980)

Today is six years to the day of the proposed start of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The shade temperature at the site of the new main Olympic Stadium is at this hour a balmy 36ºC (97ºF for you of the U.S.A. persuasion). The temperature in the waterfront areas, where many of the Olympic venues are to be concentrated, is a brisk 35ºC (95ºF).

I put to you the proposition that the date of the opening of the 2020 Olympics may need to be pushed into October -- as it was in 1964.

Later - More on the heat from the good folks at JapanRealTime. (Link)

Image courtesy: NHK News

On Asada Mao And Mori Yoshiro - By Request

No question as to which country she hails from: Asada Mao's profile on the Japan Skating Federation website lists her blood type.

In comments I was asked my thoughts as regards Tokyo 2020 Olympics Organizing Committee Chair and former prime minister Mori Yoshiro's comments on skater Asada Mao’s performance in the short program half of the women's singles figure skating competition at the Sochi Olympics. (Link)

Mori Yoshiro has reputation of saying idiocies when he should know not to. I would argue that Mori is no more of an idiot than the average run of Japanese politician and is far more entertaining than most. He knows what he thinks and is willing to say what he thinks. This makes him a great guest on morning talk shows, as he ends up talking wonderful trash about the current prime minister, the Liberal Democratic Party, the nation's sports organizations...whatever.

Where Mori tends to get into trouble is when he tries to explain why he thinks what he thinks. He could take the easy route and simply excuse himself for following his instincts. Instead he tries to provide an explanation on the fly for opinions he himself has not, until that very moment, thought through. To add a layer of complexity (thereby guaranteeing failure) he tries to read the mood and intellectual level of the room and gear his ad hoc explanation to whatever audience he thinks is out there.

The results are not pretty.

The architecture of his controversial comments on Asada's collapse goes something like this.

a) Asada Mao fell down in the short program in the women's singles figure skating.
b) She fell down because she felt pressure.
c) She felt pressure because she felt responsible for the poor showing of Japan in the team competition.
d) Mao fell down in the team competition, skating the women's short program segment.

SKIP

x) The Reed siblings live in the United States.
y) The Reed siblings are mediocre ice dancers who had no chance at representing the United States.
y) The Reed siblings represent Japan because Japan has no ice dancers.

SKIP

Ergo: Asada Mao fell down in the singles competition because the Reed siblings are not really Japanese?

(Link - J)

Of course, Mori being Mori, the above was not bad enough. He had to go and make the whole thing personal:

"I was watching thinking, 'C'mon girl, give it your best shot for us.’ However, Mao, brilliantly, fell down. That girl, whenever it's really important, she falls down, doesn't she?"*

The tragedy in the complete train wreck of racism, sexism and misguided sports nationalism is that there was in it the germ of an idea, one that was indeed worthy of one whose responsibiilties include the goading of everyone into making an Olympian effort for 2020:

"Mao-chan tends to fall down and usually at the very worst moment. Everybody knows this. She should therefore have never competed in the team competition. When she fell in the team competition's short program segment she felt responsible for the team's finishing out of medal contention. That led her to overcompensate in the singles competition, leading to her breakdown in the short program.

Japan's real problem is that it has no ice dancers or pairs skaters worth a damn. If you look at the final team competition standings, Japan finishes in fifth place with 51 points. Mao finished third in her group, contributing a respectable 8 points to the final tally. Japan's pairs skaters and ice dancers both finished in eighth place in the preliminaries and dead last in the six-team finals. (Link)

How lousy is our domestic ice dancing program? We have to rely on the Reed siblings -- who are Japanese neither by residence nor upbringing and who have zero chance of ever making the U.S. Olympic team -- to fill out our roster."

Does anyone know -- did Mori saying anything about the pairs where Japan's representatives were young, inexperienced, shaky and also not Olympic caliber?

[Takahashi & Kihara finished 18th out of 20 pairs; the Reed siblings finished 21st out of 24 pairs.]

What complicates the story is that Mori's original, unadorned reaction to Asada falling down (and doubling a planned triple jump) in the short program -- “I was watching thinking, 'C'mon girl, give it your best shot for us.' However, Mao, brilliantly, fell down. That girl, whenever it's really important, she falls down, doesn't she?" -- is probably what at least half the country was thinking, and probably still thinks.

Asada is a ferociously talented and dedicated skater, one of the greats. She is also almost never able to put together two clean programs in one competition (I have seen it happen only once: her victory in the nationals in 2009). She is also a national emblem, her image used to sell a huge variety of products, her face the image of Japan’s winter sports programs. Feed those three items into a heady mix of an underperforming country (Link and Link - Gremo Slovenija!) looking for well-groomed sports heroes (Japan's X-sports stars being, for what are sadly obvious reasons, not seen as big corporate sponsorship material) to fight against a beautiful South Korean super villain -- and you get a huge, resentful reaction by half the nation to a young woman's losing her concentration at what future generations will mock as Vladimir Putin's Potemkin Village Festival.

In truth, Asada Mao's legend was best served by her short program collapse and her stunning long program skate. First, it was true to her longtime personal narrative of blowing the short program only to claw back into contention in the free skate -- the 2010 Vancouver Olympics being the one time her long program proved her downfall. Second, had she been in contention after the short program, her immaculate free skate performance, glorious in its pointlessness, would have been swallowed up in the grubby competition for the medals (Link). I have yet to see a commentator or announcer on television point out that Asada skated her program, technically the most difficult of all those competing in Sochi, as well as she possibly could, earning a personal best score-- and still managed to only finish third in the free skate . If she had skated two clean programs she might have won, yes -- but then again, she might have ended up in third or even fourth place.

Asada's plummeting to 16th place in the short program and the lackluster performances by Suzuki Aiko and Murakami Kanako kept Japanese well away from medal contention and thus a safe distance from South Korean anger over the final result. Given Japan's relations with both South Korea and Russia, being away from the fray is very definitely in the national interest. (Link - Nota bene: if you have to put "politely" in your message, your request ain't too polite.)

Asada seems destined to go down in history as the magnificently flawed hero, the skater who was at her best only when she was at her worst, driving her countrymen and countrywomen to distraction and despair.

So Mori-sensei, keep voicing amazed frustration. It is a feeling one can enjoy on its own terms, without explanation.


Later - To clarify what I mean by sexism, Asada Mao falls down once and earns demeaning commentary. Male singles Olympic champion Han'yu Yuzuru falls down twice and is a national hero.

---------

*「頑張ってくれと見ていましたけど（浅田）真央ちゃん、見事にひっくり返りました。あの子、大事なときには必ず転ぶんですね。」If anyone has a suggestion on how to translate this passage so as to better capture the semi-sarcasm of migoto ni please post it in comments.

Where's Shinzo? - The Snow's Fallin' Edition

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo on the telephone with Olympic gold medallist Han'yu Yuzuru on 15 February 2014. Image courtesy The Prime Minister's Residence.

The great snowstorm of this past weekend is becoming, albeit weakly so far, a Katrina moment for the Abe Administration. The damage is stunning, particularly to homes and Japan's winter food production infrastructure. An astonishing number of communities remain cut off five days after the snow began falling in earnest. The entire prefecture of Yamanashi entered Monday without a single surface transportation link to connect it with the outside world, this despite decades of loving attention from the Liberal Democratic Party's Road and Construction Tribes.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s whereabouts and actions during the storm and its aftermath have become a matter of controversy and criticism both in Diet sessions and on the Web. (Link)

For the record, here is my annotated translation of the prime minister's schedule as it appeared in my morning newspaper, detailing where the prime minister was and what he was doing the day the storm arrived and the two days afterward:

Friday, February 14
Morning
7:58 leaves Prime Minister's Residential Quarters for Prime Minister's Residence
8:02 Arrives Prime Minister's Residence.. Chairs meeting of the Headquarters for the Promotion of Social Security Reform (Link)
8:22 Cabinet meeting
8:36 meets with Minister of State for Gender Equality Mori Masako
10:46 meets with Paddy Burke, Chairperson of the Senate of the Republic of Ireland (Link)
Afternoon:
12:01 meets with Minister in charge of Trans Pacific Partnership Amari Akira
12:58 arrives Diet Building
13:02 arrives at plenary session of the House of Representatives
13:03 meets with Liberal Democratic Party Secretary-General Ishiba Shigeru
13:22 arrives Prime Minister's Residence
14:02 meets Saiki Akitaka, Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs
14:13 meets Kozuki Toyohisa, Director-General of the Division of European Affairs, MOFA
15:41 meets Thomas Enders, CEO of The Airbus Group
16:01 meets Kitamura Shigeru, Director of Cabinet Intelligence
16:31 meets Minister of Defense Onodera Itsunori and Administrative Vice Minister for Defense Nishi Masanori
17:12 chairs meeting of the Council for Science and Technology Policy (Link)
18:20 summit meeting with Christopher Loeak, president of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (Link)
18:49 joint press announcement with President Loeak
19:01 Arrives at Prime Minister's Residential Quarters. Formal dinner with President Loeak
20:24 Bid farewell to President Loeak. Returns to Prime Minister’s Residential Quarters.

Saturday, February 15
Morning:
Receives no visitors, stays at the Prime Minister’s Residential Quarters
Afternoon:
14:25 interview by members of the domestic broadcast media
14:31 telephone call with Han'yu Yuzuru, gold medallist, men's singles figure skating, Sochi Olympic Games (Link)
14:54 Arrives at personal residence in Tomigaya, Shibuya City, Tokyo

Sunday, February 16
Morning:
Receives no visitors, stays at his personal residence in Tomigaya
Evening:
17:49 Dinner with supporters (unnamed) at Akasaka tempura restaurant Rakutei.
20:05 Returns to personal residence in Tomigaya

If the Democratic Party of Japan had half a gram of political sense it would have its members hogging every microphone, preening before every camera and tying up Diet proceedings, demanding that the Prime Minister explain his and his administration’s dilatory response to the weather catastrophe -- no matter how petty, superficial, crass, exploitative and petulant it makes the DPJ look from afar.

Because as we know from what happened after 3/11 that is exactly what the LDP would be doing, if it were still the main opposition party.

Japan's Unfun Olympics

Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games members.
Source: Japan Olympic Commitee website

Japan seems on course for a horrid Olympics. Not the games in Sochi, which are progressing pretty much as can be reasonably expected, the only real negative surprise being World Cup sensation Takanashi Sara’s failure to medal on the normal hill.

No, the games that are shaping up to be a downer are the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. One does not have to be looking under rocks for yakuza, as Jake Adelstein would have us do (admittedly, it would take a huge rock to hide the oily bulk of International Sumo Federation chairman Tanaka Hidetoshi - Link). One just has to look at the membership of the Japan Olympic Committee's executive board (Link) and the announced lineup of the Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Tokyo Orinpikku Pararinpikku Soshinki Iinkai).

The JOC has 30 members, 2 of whom seem to be women of the female persuasion. The JOC is supposed to be face of Japan's Olympic movement and not even 7% of it is allowed to be feminine?

As for the Soshiki Iinkai, it currently has no women members.

Possibly worse than the exclusion of women is the exclusion of anyone with experience running events or in sports management or sports promotion. Instead, the non-automatic, appointed membership of the board is a collection of Abe Shinzo cronies from politics, the bureaucracy and megabusiness, only one of whom is under 70 years of age.

Tokyo Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games

Chairman - Former Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro (76)
[Prime Minister Abe Shinzo's former faction leader]

Honorary Chairman - Canon Chairman and President Mitarai Fujio (78)
[Former chairman of the Nippon Keidanren -- his term of service being a grand step backward for the organization]

Vice-Chairman - Former Vice Minister of Finance Muto Toshiro (70)

[Twice failed candidate for Governor of Bank of Japan, most recently suggested by Abe Shinzo]

Vice Chairman - Toyota Motors President Toyoda Akio (57)
[vocal and loyal supporter of Abenomics - see picture]



Executive-Director - JOC President Takeda Tsunekazu (66)
[automatic selection]

(Link - J)

Is anyone clear on the concept that we are in 2014 -- and that Tokyo will be hosting the Olympics in 2020? Mitarai will be 84 years old; Mori 82. I have nothing against experience and street cred with the nation's largest corporations -- but it is my understanding that the Olympics are sort of a celebration of vitality -- which, if it is going to be exhibited by the present members of the committee, will probably require intravenous drips.

As for "fun" -- or however much fun is left in hosting the Olympics after they are wrested from Vladimir Putin’s stainless steel grip -- the quintet so far? Not fun people (Well maybe Mori). Toyoda, the stripling, plays the "tense and defensive oyaji" role about as well as it can be played.

With the exception of Takeda, all of the members of the committee are folks to whom Abe Shinzo owes favors. It is true that one has to pay the piper and dance with thems that brung you. But do we all have to be condemned to a construction industry and zaikai hog fest, with the details probably assigned to Dentsu, just because Abe owes his current position to big business bosses?

From Russia With ?

Well, that sure was icky.

No, not the Frieze of Dictators views in the VIP section at the Opening Ceremonies of the Sochi Olympics (Aliev and Narzabayev and Lukashenko...whoa, Lukashenko!).

No, not the "Wow, Such A Lot of Countries Vladimir Putin Would Like To Conquer" parade of nations that escaped from the clutches of the Soviet Union two decades ago (Hmmm, Lithuania! So small, so...flat).

Not the poor Georgians, unable to decide what faces to wear as they trudged out onto the field of Putin's colossal Potemkadrome.

Not the reimagination of Soviet times as a march of red wheels (a reference to Solzhenitsyn?), red scarves, Constructivism and awesome red, white and black graphics (CCCP Cool - hey, every nation's leaders, except Japan's of course, have a right to remember their country's past in the manner they prefer, right?).

No, it was the sight of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, waving wanly, with, no, not his wife Akie standing by his side. No, with his too constant companion, the Second Stupidest Man to Ever Serve in the Kantei™ *, by his side.

On second thought, if you are attending an ex-KGB agent's propaganda extravaganza, best to bring your own administration's Trofim Lysenko with you.

On third thought, maybe it was a kind of protest against the Russia's LGBT laws.

Which, if that was what it was, is noble, bold, edgy and icky.

-------------------------

* "Second Stupidest Man to Ever Serve in the Kantei" is actually the nicer of my two set phrases describing Seko Hiroshige.

Image source: screen shot of NHK rebroadcast

Opening The Diet With Abe Shinzo's Magical Tobacco Container

In a few hours the 186th Session of the Diet begins. The session promises to be both busy (80 bills and 18 treaties are in the docket) and fiery. The Diet will be debating the merits of an expanded liberty of action for Self Defense Forces under the existing Constitution -- a shadow play, as the Abe government has more than enough votes to pass the relevant bills right now, including the votes of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan -- and the just-passed special secrets protection act, which all the opposition parties (there is no point in referring to the gutted and purified Your Party as an opposition party anymore) are united in seeing at least amended, if not rescinded. Midway through the Session, which is scheduled to end on June 22, the much ballyhooed and probably quite reasonably feared rise of the consumption tax kicks in -- an imposition which will empty the nation's stores and showrooms (be prepared for the video of clerks standing around waiting for customers in vain on April 1).

Despite the challenges, the Abe government is in a sweet spot in terms of running the Diet as it pleases. The next national elections are in July 2016, unless, of course the House of Representatives is dissolved -- which is NOT going to happen. While the government would like Masuzoe Yo'ichi to prevail in February 9 by-election for Tokyo Governor -- which Masuzoe will do unless Hosokawa Morihiro hurries up and hires a bloody-minded press secretary soon -- Mr. Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party do not have any pressing elections of any kind before the so-called unified local elections in April 2015.

The distribution of seats and the continuing stumbling about of the opposition parties make the distant elections almost irrelevant. The LDP is currently allied with the New Komeito, giving it a super-majority in the House of Representatives and a majority in the House of Councillors. Should the LDP and the New Komeito part ways over policy -- a remote but not entirely zero possiblity during the upcoming session -- the LDP could easily and quickly craft new and sturdy coalitions with the Your Party and the Japan Restoration Party, giving the LDP even larger majorities in both Houses (see slides 26 through 29 of my Temple University Japan presentation of January 9, available online here).

In general, anything the PM wants to pass into law will become law, if Abe-san remembers to preserve appearances by offering opposing voices a chance to put on at least a show of resistance.

That certain elements within the Prime Minister's own party think that Abe has been shirking his duties in that department was made manifest yesterday. At a meeting inside LDP headquarters of the members of the Machimura Faction, the prime minister's nominal faction (his membership being suspended during his time in office) leader Machimura Nobutaka took members of the government to task for their insufficient consultations with LDP parliamentarians regarding the content of pending bills. As regards the ministers's having shelved, temporarily, a move to close debate on the so-called Third Arrow structural reforms, he crowed:

「いいことだ。政府は、『この印籠が見えないか。マル安倍と書けば何でも通る』『これは安倍さんの意向だから』という傾向が少し目立っている」

It's a good thing. The government has been saying, "Can you not see this personal tobacco container? Anything with a circle and Abe in it on it will pass." "This is so because it is Mr. Abe's will!" It was all getting a bit too noticeable.

(Link - J)

A little too esoteric for the lay reader?

Machimura was alluding to, in a oddly direct and simplified way*, one of the classic and recurring bits of Japanese television.


Poster for Mito Komon, season 35.
Image courtesy TBS.

"Can you not see this personal tobacco container?" (Kono inro ga mienai ka) is Machimura paraphrasing the recurring climactic line of the long-running (43 seasons) TBS television samurai drama Mito Komon. In every episode, at the very height of a pitched and protracted battle between local ruffians and corrupt officials on one side, and simple, honest citizens and their mysterious protectors on the other, the sidekick of the protagonist, a disguised Tokugawa Mitsukuni, raises a personal tobacco container (inro) bearing the trefoil crest of the Tokugawa House on it and cries, "Kono mondokoro ga me ni hairanu ka?" ("Does not this family crest enter thine eyes?") -- at which point everyone, villains and would be victims, realizing they have been misbehaving before the uncle of the shogun, all fall to the ground motionless in awe and fear.

[A scene that has to be seen to be believed. Unfortunately, TBS scours the Internet for snippets, meaning I cannot provide a decent video illustration.]

Machimura's allusion can be understood as being:

1) a petulant complaining about an inconvenient truth: that Abe's control of the party and government is so great that even his nominal factional superior cannot do anything but fall to the ground paralyzed at the sight of Abe's seal of approval on a piece of legislation.

2) the chiding of Abe's aides and allies in the party and the government for presuming that Abe's signature precludes the need to conduct preliminary discussions (ne mawashi) of pending bills and directives

3) both these things simultaneously.

Machimura has reasons, petty ones, for feeling slighted. He is the leader of the PM's faction and nominally the PM's patron. Machimura also ran against Abe for the post of party president in September two years ago. Unlike the other rivals in the presidential election, all of whom received Cabinet or party posts, Machimura received...nothing.

That Machimura would be willing to vent his anger at function attended by journalists indicates

a) the depth of the petty resentment he feels and

b) his sense of not being the only one with gripes vis-a-vis Abe and his people.

One of the few risks that Abe runs in the course of the next few years is an efflorescence of such resentment, burst from seeds of dissension sown through high-handed action. Until recently, Abe and his government have been restrained in their stimulation of jealousy and mistrust, not that they have not been willing to cut some rather important allies -- the New Komeito over Abe's visit to Yasukuni, rice farmers over their acreage-suppression subsidies (Link) and the elderly over their health and eldercare payments (Link) -- off at the knees.

As long as the betrayals have been couched as being reluctant and for the national good, the backlash has been subdued.

There have, nevertheless, been some disturbing signs of hubris and political tone deafness in political appointments of late, possibly indicative of Abe and his lieutenants becoming incautious.

The first was the terrible decision to appoint Watanabe Tsuneo, the don of the Yomiuri media empire, chairman of the government's advisory commission on implementation of the special designated secrets act (mentioned, with a link, here). Watanabe already received the gift of People's Honor Awards for two former members of the Yomiuri Giants baseball team -- more than a reward enough for the Yomiuri Shimbun's slavish service in support of Abe's premiership and his domination of the LDP. To put a man who does not and probably cannot understand the role the Fourth Estate plays in electoral politics in a modern democracy (imagine Rupert Murdoch being named chairman of Prime Minister Cameron's advisory council on press ethics and non-partisanship -- oh, OK, maybe that is too far) in charge of offering advice on how to safeguard press freedoms -- well, that's chutzpah.

The recent nomination, with Abe's fingers all over it, of Muto Toshio to be secretary-general of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee (Link) seems similarly presumptuous. Muto may be a smart man with international connections and ties to all the heads of the major power centers in government and the business community (Link). If one wanted to send out a signal, though, that political and politically sensitive positions will be handed out not to the most capable and forward-thinking but old cronies and persons to whom favors are owed (Abe's former faction leader Mori Yoshiro has already been named chairman of the organizing committee), selling the Olympic dream out to Big Business and Big Government -- then annointing the twice-not-named-Governor-of-the-Bank-of-Japan and 70-years-of-age Muto is a good start.

When one has a magic tobacco container, though...therein temptation lies...


Later - In comments, "exex" provides a link to an illustrative video clip of a me ni hairanu ka scene from a Mito Komon episode.

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* When one considers the reality that most adult Japanese have heard the original line hundreds of times, that Machimura would paraphrase it seems really odd.

So Fake - A Senryu on Abe Shinzo and Fukushima

Every day this past week, yet another domestic retail icon has announced that food outlets under its roof or under its management have been making false claims as to the ingredients in their dishes. The revelations have stuck a carving knife into Japan's service industry's reputation as a place of dedication to providing the customer with only the very best.

Yesterday, it was the Hotel Okura's turn. (Link)

The scandal started with revelations at Hankyu Hotels in Osaka, where the first discrepancies in between what was described on the menus and what actually was in the kitchen came to light. Hankyu president Desaki Hiroshi, in a desperate effort to shield his organization from lawsuits and/or prosecution for fraud, provided the scandal with its catchphrase:

"I do not believes these were misrepresentations (giso). These were mistaken public announcements (gohyoshi). This was not something where the goal was to fool the customers and gain a profit from it."

(Link - J)

No, no, if you list particular ingredients on a menu, and accept money for the food you have served, that substitutions were made without the customer's knowledge could never have been for the purpose of gaining a profit.

Huh?

One Hakkaku Shurin of Sosa City, Chiba Prefecture, keeping track of the deceptions that really matter, submitted to the Tokyo Shimbun's Saturday topical senryu poetry feature the following 17-syllable gem:

「ブロック」と言う
誤表示も
偽装なの *

"Burokku" to iu
gohyoshi mo
giso na no

"Blocked"
that mistaken public announcement
was a misrepresentation too

Now who has said anything about something be blocked, recently?

Abe again insists that radioactive water at Fukushima plant is 'completely blocked'
Mainichi Shimbun

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has again repeated his insistence that radioactive water leaks at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant are being kept within the bay there.

"We are monitoring radiation levels, and they are far below the safety limits for radioactive materials. The effects of the contaminated water are being completely blocked," Abe said on Oct. 22 at the House of Representatives' Budget Committee, denying that radioactive materials are affecting the outside ocean. The remarks were made in response to a question by the Japanese Communist Party's Akira Kasai.

At the International Olympic Committee Session in September, Abe said that "the effects (of the radioactive water) are being completely blocked to inside of the bay" and "the situation is under control." However, in questioning during the Lower House plenary session on Oct. 16, he didn't use the word "completely" and qualified his "under control" statement with "overall," saying, "The effects are blocked to within the bay. Overall the situation is under control."

(Link)

Oh, yeah, that "burokku" -- oops, his bad!

I wonder whether it is the penumbra of the Imperial House's patronage of poetry, highlighted in a recent presentation at Temple University Japan by Professor Ben-Ami Shillony (Link) that provides the safe harbor allowing senryu to be the acceptable outlet for sarcastic hackdowns of our purported betters...

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* Source: Tokyo Shimbun of 2 November 2013, page 5.

Come Visit Us - Tokyo Vs. Kanagawa

A study in the contrasting whimsies of adjoining prefectures.

The Tokyo Metropolitan District, via World Order
(best in wide screen view)

Kanagawa Prefecture, via AKB 48

It is an unfair competition. Tokyo has its mountainous interior (not depicted) while Kanagawa has both the Tanzawa Range and the Shonan Beach scene with hotspots Kamakura/Zushi, the Miura Peninsula and Manazuru.

While Governor Kuroiwa Yuji's performance in the Kanagawa Prefecture video does not dispell my impression of him as a complete dufus, gained from having had to listen to him hold forth at the bar during his television anchor years, I can entertain the possibility that he is a not-entirely-uncool complete dufus.

Tips of the hat to tips to Michael Rofe and Eleanor Warnock for the links.

Harrowing

That is what this brief video of Yamamoto Taro's press conference, as produced by Makiko Segawa and Michael Penn, is. (Link - video)

The Yamamoto letter incident, which Mari Yamaguchi has effectively covered for the Associated Press, including the all-important resonance Yamamoto's intemperate and simple-minded action has with the self-sacrifice of Tanaka Shozo at the beginning of the 20th century (Link), has been a real test for the news media.

The Yomiuri Shimbun, in default umbrage　at　everything　a　progressive　does, has demanded Yamamoto be severely punished. It also implies he should be either resign immediately or be deprived of his Diet seat (Link). Contrary to its image as the slavering mad dog of right wing vengeance, the Sankei Shimbun merely lays out the facts of the incident and the reactions triggered in the political classes, then only asks that Yamamoto's punishment be commensurate (so'o) with his offence. (Link - J)

[If the Sankei's request for a "commensurate" punishment brought to your mind the signature verse of "A More Humane Mikado" in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado (Link video) -- what are you doing in this century?]

The Mainichi Shimbun, contrary to its recent more confrontational stance, sidestepped offering judgment, seeking instead to answer the question of whether or not Yamamoto's Diet colleagues can or will actually do anything significant to him (Link). The real world answer seems to be no, as according to news reports this morning, President of the House of Councillors Yamazaki Masaaki has decided to ban Yamamoto from attending any event in which the Emperor is a participant (pretty harsh, since one presumes this includes the Diet closing and opening ceremonies). Yamazaki seems to have had to act his own authority, as a punishment for the crime of handing a letter to the Emperor seems not covered by any House of Councillors rule. (Link - J)

As for liberal side of the ledger, the Asahi Shimbun has to this point avoided addressing the letter episode in an editorial (it is all so far below them, I guess...). By contrast, Tokyo Shimbun, which has elbowed aside the communist party organ Akahata as the go-to paper for the ticked-off progressive view, concedes that Yamamoto's actions were lacking in grace and imprudent, possibly hurtful to the very causes he espouses. However, the meat of the TS editorial is a blistering attack upon Yamamoto's Liberal Democratic Party and Democratic Party critics. "Excuse us," the editors write,"but do the members of the LDP and the DPJ who have been criticizing Yamamoto for 'making political use of the Emperor' have any license to condemn even the minimum ethical qualifications for a condemnation of him?" (Tada, Yamamoto-shi o hihan suru jimin, minshu ryoto ni 'tenno no seiji riyo' o danzai suru shikaku ga aru no ka? - Link - J)

The editorial points out that the Abe administration and the LDP used the Imperial Couple as props in the first public celebration of Return of Sovereignty Day. The Abe government also drafted Imperial Princess Hisako to be the keynote speaker for the presentation that sealed the deal for Tokyo's successful bid for the 2020 Olympics. As for the DPJ, the editors point out that　when it was in power it forced the Imperial Household Agency to arrange, against protocol, an intimate interview between the Emperor and then Vice President of China Xi Jinping.

If you think you have heard this list of recent naked uses of the Imperial Family for political gain before, you have.

As for Yamamoto, whose life story Penn explores in his most recent newsletter, he has stumbled more than a few times during a rough-and-tumble journey. The stress of his life since his anti-nuclear activities took flight has indeed caused his hair to fall out. However, this incident, like the odd bald patch on the side of his head, will just be one more mark of a person who really cares, and who, despite the forces arrayed against him, prevails.

Let us hope the radical, xenophobic rightists -- and whoever shields them from being properly investigated and registered as anti-social elements -- quickly lose interest in Yamamoto, the caravan of silliness rolling on to a new purported outrage.


Later - A thanks to reader Philippe for alerting me to my royal error.

OSIIOIIDI *

* Oh Sure, It Is OK If I Do It

私としては、このような政府の行為は日本国憲法の要請である天皇陛下の政治的利用の禁止に抵触するものであり、断じて容認できないと考え、次期通常国会をはじめとするあらゆる場において、憲法第三条に定められた内閣の責任を追及していく覚悟です。

"For me, this kind of government action represents an infringement of the ban upon the political use of the Emperor, as set down in the Constitution. I simply cannot accept it, I am prepared, as a first order of business, to pursue, in the next regular Diet session, the Cabinet's responsibility for this infringement under Article 3 of the Constitution -- and pursue it everywhere else as well!"

That was Liberal Democratic Party Policy Research Council Chairman Ishiba Shigeru, writing in his blog on December 15, 2009 about what was clearly in his mind a heinous abuse of the constitutional status and royal person of Japan's fragile 75 year-old monarch.

What the Democratic Party of Japan-led coalition government did was ask the Imperial Household Agency to arrange a brief private chat at the Imperial Palace between His Majesty and then Vice-President of China Xi Jinping. The Agency initially rejected the government's request based upon an internal rule that all requests for Imperial audiences must be made at least 30 days in advance. The Hatoyama government had put in its application 19 days prior to the proposed meeting date. Backed by the DPJ's then Secretary-General and China Best Friend Ozawa Ichiro, the government persisted (or insisted, depending upon your politics). In the face of pressure, the Agency relented, agreeing to arrange an audience.

The government's pushing for a reversal of the Agency's decision unleashed a storm of protest from both the opposition LDP and right wing activists, an uproar abetted by Grand Steward Haketa Shingo's unprecedented public complaints about the government's actions. (Link)

Despite the acrimony, including the ultra-rightists protesting in front of the Palace (Link), the meeting went off without a hitch, with Japan emerging a big symbolic winner.

Fast forward four years. An LDP-led coalition government rules Japan. Ishiba is now Secretary-General of the LDP.

In an agreement signed in May, the Abe government confirmed its readiness to send Japan's now 79 year-old monarch and his equally frail spouse on a state visit to the healthful confines of India (Link) a visit that K. V. Kesavan alerts us, begins on November 30. (Link)

India...kind of far away...maybe kind of arduous...

Last month, Grand Steward Kazaoka Noriyuki questioned the propriety of the government's urging Princess Hisako to travel to Buenos Aires in order to shore up the Tokyo bid for the 2020 Olympics. Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide gave Kazaoka a public tongue lashing for having the gall to try to divine what their Imperial Majesties were thinking about the Princess' trip. (Link)

Princess Hisako's participation led to questions from all quarters regarding the use of the Imperial institution to political ends (Link). In a development that will likely leave some scratching their heads (aren't Japan's right wingers a cabal?) arch-nationalist cartoonist Kobayashi Yoshinori blew his top -- mocking the government's official explanation that the Princess was only attending in order to thank the international community for its contributions to disaster relief and recovery in the Tohoku region. In Kobayashi's view, to see the dispatch of the Princess as anything but use of the Imperial House for political gain would be inane. (Link)

Kobayashi's being a stickler about keeping the Imperial Family above politics comes as something of a surprise. Then again, Kobayashi has been of late marching to the beat of his own drummer.

As it turns out, the decision to have Princess Hisako address the IOC congress was a masterstroke. Unlike the terrifying sing-song and presumably English-language presentations by eye candy like fencer Ota Yuki and gymnast Tanaka Rie, Princess Hisako, a Cambridge graduate and translator before she married Prince Takamado (the Prince, in his charming, off-kilter way, proposed marriage to her in English) marched through the text of her opening speech both in more-than-acceptable French and then The Queen's English.

The political taint of Princess Hisako's dispatch to Buenos Aires pales, of course, besides the government decision to have their Imperial Majesties preside over the first official commemoration of the anniversary of the end of the Allied Occupation. That celebration, fraught from the outset by the slap to the face it delivers to Okinawa (Link) descended into farce when the hopped up hyper-patriot almost exclusively LDP and Japan Restoration Party attendees hooted out a triple “Long live the Emperor!” (Tenno heika banzai!) at the clearly uncomfortable Imperial Couple. (Link)

The hypocrisy of the LDP as regards use of the Imperial House for political ends, as demonstrated by Ishiba’s dudgeon over an afternoon courtesy call at the Palace (so uncool) versus nothing but smiles about a state visit to India (What problem? I do not see any problem) is emblematic of a greater trend. Having the budget under the DPJ government stay the same size but emphasize temporary support for citizens over the permanent laying of concrete ? That's baramaki ("pork barrel politics"). Passing huge supplementary spending bills and reconstituting the funding for the wasteful Construction State? That is setting up the basic conditions for economic expansion. The DPJ's prime minister not visiting Yasukuni? The mark of a squirming, China-coddling, disloyal mindset. Prime Minister Abe's not visiting Yasukuni? The mark of a mature, realistic ethos in the LDP and the Cabinet.

For issue after issue -- expansionist monetary and fiscal policy, ambitious plans for a greater acceptance of women in the workplace, delays in restarting nuclear power plants, tossing the interests of the agriculture sector to the wolves in Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations -- the progressive policies are being promoted and instituted by what is the regressive party, and indeed the most regressive members of that party. Give the DPJ power, and these same policy initiatives would be hacked down from behind by the very  persons currently implementing and promoting them.

So the LDP's electoral slogan "Japan, Let's Take It Back" (Nippon o, torimodosu!)? Not really descriptive of the Abe government's and the LDP's current trajectory.

I have a suggestion:

"Hypocrisy? Just Let Us Get Away With It!"

The Future Is Supposed To Look Like This

A music video (one cannot really call it a video tour) of the new Zaha Hadid-designed National Stadium. (Link)

I am neither engineer nor architect, which is probably why the dearth of lateral bracing in the roof scares me. In a country where the primary stress is gravity working upon arches, where the load is composed almost entirely of the arches themselves, fine. However, in the Tokyo Metropolitan District, the stress comes from side-to-side motion of varying intensity and wavelength, several times a year. The immense window spaces in between the structural elements, with only a few gargantuan linkages, look like invitations to disharmonic disaster.

Tip of the Hat to Michael Rofe for the link.

Later - Was I saying something about earthquakes? (Link)

Abe Shinzo in 2020? (Not Hindsight)

Twice this week I have read in prominent publications musings about whether or not Prime Minister Abe Shinzo could possibly still be in office at the time of the opening of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Could Abe be the premier at the torch lighting ceremony?

In theory, yes. The only requirements for a prime minister are being alive and a member of the Diet (yes, I am aware that the latter presumes the former. Bear with me).

Prime Minister Abe is 58 years old, meaning that he will be 65 at the time the 2020 games. Abe's father Shintaro died at the relatively young age of 67 of undetermined causes -- explanations including heart failure (the official cause of death), liver failure and cancer. Shinzo has also had health problems, the nature of which are the subject of speculation (secrecy about health issues seems to run in the family). Shintaro's death came after a two year period of hospitalization -- a collapse and sudden withdrawal from public life seemingly triggered by the shuddering halt in his career brought about by the Recruit Scandal (another parallel - Link).

While the robustness of Abe Shinzo's physical health has a question mark over it, there should be no questions about his political health. Yamaguchi Prefecture is the home of conservative elective politics and a Liberal Democratic Party (all six Diet members) and Kishi clan (Abe's younger brother Kishi Nobuo is the representative for Yamaguchi District #4) bastion. Abe will continue to win in his Yamaguchi #2 district as long as he is running for a seat.

Nevertheless, the charter of the LDP pretty much rules out Abe presiding over Olympics in 2020. Article 12 of the charter sets the term of the presidency of the LDP at three years, with a maximum of two consecutive terms in office (Link - J). While there is no stipulation that a prime minister must be the head of a party, the general consensus is that only the heads of parties are eligible for the prime ministerial election. Murayama Tomiichi became prime minister even though he was not the leader of the largest party in the Diet. He nevertheless was at least the leader of the soon-to-be-doomed Socialist Party.

In the already unlikely event Abe Shinzo manages to serve out two full terms, he will lose his party presidency. This will mandate his resignation as prime minister.

Abe could, of course, return to the LDP presidency after the term in office of a successor. However, it is extremely unlikely that the members of the LDP, or more specifically the many prime minister wannabees in the LDP, would let Abe have a third chance at the party's top post. It is even more unlikely that Abe would run for the premiership as an independent or the head of a party other than the LDP.

Shimomura Hakubun, Japan's New Friendly Face To The World

Prime Minister Abe is giving Shimomura Hakubun, the minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, a man who really does not need another title, another title:

Minister for the Olympics (Link)

Oh, what could possibly go wrong with this appointment?

Ummm...

Uhhhh...

Whoa...*

Mmmmm...

Cough...

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* Bet you didn't know that "The 67 years since the end of World War II have been a history of Japan's destruction."

It's A Four-Letter Word

Now from his pocket quick he flashes
The crayon on the wall he slashes
Deep upon the advertizing
A single word, only comprised
Of four letters...

- Paul Simon, "Poem On the Underground Wall" (1966)

And if it were me, that word would be "GOLF."

Perhaps not wishing to demolish Tokyo's chances in the Buenos Aires vote on the hosting of 2020 Olympics (congratulations to all involved in the winning bid), I did not on Friday post this photo I came across of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo engaged in his favorite, ummmm, sport this summer:



a passion/duty, the Prime Minister's energetic engagement in I have blogged about previously.

In terms of ultraviolet radiation protection, the prime minister's garb (note the rarely seen glasses) seems effective. In terms of mode of dress...the totality transcends even geek fashion. And it sure defeats the best efforts of the photoshoppers and makeup artists have been making at disguising the prime minister's true age.

A full 15 years ago, in the aftermath of the Asian Currency Crisis, about which so much is being written in the current red hot argument over whether or not the raising of the consumption tax from 3% to 5% was the economic growth killer it is in this country's political lore (Link), The Economist offered its own explanation as to why the economies of East Asia keeled over in 1997-98 like too-portly industrialists on the 16th hole at the Koganei Country Club in mid-August. (Link)

To be fair, while GOLF is indeed a four-letter word, so, according to Robert Allen Zimmerman, is LOVE.

Yes, by my tastes I do date myself.

Forget About Weimar

Today is the big day. The peculiar menagerie of humankind known as the International Olympic Committee will gather in a single room in Buenos Aires to select, in what is a frankly bizarre and fraught election, the winner of the title of the most convincingly mad town on Earth: the city to be shackled with the hosting of the 2020 Olympics.

How we or anyone else should care about this contest or the Olympics themselves, considering the history of the IOC's looking away or actively courting strongmen governments, how much the Olympics usually costs the citizens of the host city, how juiced up and strung out the athletes are and how little the Olympics deters us poor East African Plains Apes from killing each other -- which was the point of the whole shebang -- I do not know.

There is a special twist in today's pitting of Team Japan against Team Turkey, however. Unlikely as it may seem, the country that Japanese revisionists and arch-conservatives look to for answers, where they turn to when they need hints, is not, as Finance Minister Aso Taro indicated, Weimar Germany. The country Japan's most patriotic patriots really love is Turkey.

Yes, Turkey: a country with its own culture, with a strong military and a strong sense of historical mission. A problematic U.S. ally that says no to the U.S. at crucial times -- most prominently the refusal to allow an invasion force to pass through Turkey in the Iraq War. A country so tightly wound up it is engaged in a bitter territorial dispute with a treaty ally, clinging to Northern Cyprus of when all logic argues for a settlement, ignoring pressures from both the U.S. and the EU in the process. A country that despite being a royal pain can still twist the U.S. Congress around its finger -- successfully squelching successive congressional resolutions condemning the Armenian genocide -- a sharp contrast to the government of Japan, which despite spending tens of thousands of dollars per month in fees to Washington insiders and lobbyists, failed to squelch the comfort women resolution.

That the prime minister who has to lead the final charge against the Turks today is Abe Shinzo, a revisionist of the first rank and the prime minister at the time of the passage of the comfort women resolution, is for me the highest irony. If Tokyo were not in competition, Abe and his friends would all be Fools for Istanbul.

That being said, I do hope Tokyo wins today's election. For only one reason, too: if there is a single municipality on the planet capable of absorbing the cost of an Olympics, it is the Tokyo Metropolitan District.

We shall see if the IOC members agree.