Dead, Again

Just two months after a last round of executions and only four months into his term, Minister of Justice Law Tanigaki Sadakazu signed off on the hangings this morning of two former gang members, both of whom were convicted of committing a double murder in April 2005. (Link)

The reason why the crime was so heinous: the convicted killed their victims by inviting them to a family-style (no, not that kind of family) restaurant and opening fire. (Link - J)

Guns in a place where families go to give Mom a break...bad, bad, bad.

With these executions, the number of persons left on death row is 134.


Later - Yes, I do note the timing of these executions. I recall at least one previous instance of a Liberal Democratic Party minister of justice law "clearing his desk" prior to a string of national holidays.

Image courtesy: Mainichi Shinbun

Are You Doing Nothing?

There are two Fukushima Dai'ichi nuclear power plant meltdown decontamination stories.

The first is the damn serious one of the decontamination of everything in the immediate vicinity of the Fukushima Dai'ichi reactors. (Link)

The second is the farcical cleanup of areas downwind of the plant, with imaginary unsafe dosage levels, the most irregular of irregular workers and of course, organized crime syndicates playing their parts. (Link)

The real secret of the latter cleanup: the best thing to do would be...nothing.

The major components of the windborne contamination were Cesium 134 and Cesium 137. Cesium 134 has a half-life of 2 years; Cesium 137 has a half-life of 30 years.

By doing absolutely nothing, radiation levels have in two years's time dropped by 25% in the affected areas away from the Fukushima Power Station. In another two years, another 13% of the radioactive material will be gone. After the end of 10 years, only 7% of the original amount of Cesium 134 will be left.

Of course, more than half of the Cesium 137 will be remaining in 10 years' time. However, with Cesiuum 137's low rate of decay, radioactivity will fall below concern level in all but the areas in the band running from Futaba on the coast to Iidate in the mountains.

As we know though, doing nothing does not win one votes in democratic elections. The scatterbrained clean up effort also appeals to the ideology of diligence -- that through hard work and determination, one can make the seemingly impossible, possible.

So the show is sure to go on.

How Da Ya Think He Does It?

Extra, extra!
Read all about it!
The pinball wizard and the miracle cure!
Extra, extra -- Read all about it!
Extra!

- The Who, Tommy (1969)

Open sore in the Cabinet, Minister of Law Tanaka Keishu (Link), was seen last night being driven in official car back to his condominium inside the Diet Members' Residences, a brigade of photographers and reporters in hot pursuit.

According to the Ministry, Tanaka will be attending today's regularly scheduled Cabinet meeting, after his missing the Friday Cabinet meeting due to pains in the chest and exhaustion...and missing his double summons to the House of Councillors Oversight Committee the day before. Tanaka will then hold a press conference, presumably announcing his resignation for...oh whatever it will be.

Not a bad little daily schedule for a vewy, vewy sick old man.

Would you not have wanted to have been in the physician's examining room yesterday?

"You're EKG is normal. Your blood pressure is high but looking at your chart, within the range of your usual levels. Blood sugar is normal. Considering we found nothing out of the ordinary on Friday, I am pronouncing you to be in reasonable health, given your age and lifestyle. We need your bed for someone coming out of the ICU so I am recommending you for immediate discharge. Oh, and one more thing...you are an incredibly ugly little toad...and that's on the outside."

Later - Days too late for the action to have anything but a perfunctory meaning, Tanaka has handed in his letter of resignation. (Link -J)

Now the questions are "Why was he selected to be Minister of Law?" and "How did he manage to avoid exposure all these years, only to be outed after he became a minister?"

That latter question begs real questions of the purposes and goals of The Fourth Estate in this blessed land.

Pawn Sacrifice

Cut your losses. If you must lose material, lose as little as possible.

- Bruce Pandolfini, "The 64 Commandments of Chess"

The time has come for us to say, "Sayonara"...

- Freddy Morgan and Yoshida Hasegawa*, "The Japanese Farewell Song"

Yesterday, Chairman of the House of Councillors Oversight Committee (kessan iinkai) Yamamoto Junzo summoned Minister of Law** Tanaka Keishu to appear in his chamber to answer questions from the Liberal Democratic Party's Kumagaya Yutaka.

Tanaka asked to be excused, citing official duties -- which included unidentified "events pertaining to the courts" and a meeting with the German Ambassador.

"Fine," said Yamamoto, "we will postpone your answering Kumagaya's questions to the evening."

Which Yamamoto did.

Tanaka never showed up.

Tanaka Keishu has been a political vagabond, successfully serving three consecutive terms in the Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly before diving into national politics. His Diet career proceeded in fits and starts, in for a while only to be ousted again, running under the banner of four different parties along the way. He landed in the DPJ in 1998 when his Democratic Socialist Party (Minshato) accepted absorption into the larger party. In the 2005 election debacle for the DPJ, Tanaka lost his district seat, one to be revived as a zombie from the party list.

In 29 years in national politics, Tanaka has managed to eke out six elections to the Diet, the basic minimum standard for mediocre politicians to receive a ministerial posting. Since he is is 74 years of age and a repeated electoral loser, he looks to have been the obligatory pity appointee in the October 1 Cabinet reshuffle.

What a mistake that has turned out to be.

It is not as if Tanaka's ethics problems are anything new: his career has been dogged by scandal. He was one of the Diet members alleged to have profited from stock sales in the Recruit Scandal, rumors which led to his losing his seat in the 1990. Immediately after being appointed, it discovered that his political support group had received donations from a Taiwanese restaurateur. Tanaka was criticized for not resigning his ministerial post as the ultra-slick and ambitious Maehara Seiji had in March 2011 after he was discovered to have received a very minor amount in donations from a foreign national friend.

The revelations in the scandal weeklies that blew everyone's mind were that Tanaka 30 years ago served as the official go-between in a yakuza wedding and havd given a speech at a yakuza function around the same time.

Considering the political hay the opposition would make of such revelations, which Tanaka has confirmed as being true, should have meant the end of his career as the nation's highest ranking administrator of the law.

However, mysteriously, he neither resigned not did the prime minister ask for his resignation. He has lingered on, an open sore in the Cabinet, going through the motions of Law Minister.

If yesterday's mysterious defiance of a committee summons is not the result of illness or a fluke of scheduling, Tanaka's removal from office is imminent. Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko will be meeting with LDP president Abe Shinzo and New Komeito leader Yamaguchi Natsuo today in the first private get-together of the major party heads since Abe's, Noda's and Yamaguchi's reelections. The two meetings this week between secretaries-general of the three parties have been acrimonious, with the LDP and the New Komeito demanding a fixed date for a House of Representative election and the DPJ dodging the issue. (For my discussion of the impossibility the DPJ to honor the LDP's and New Komeito's demands, click here.

Nothing would help set an intial mood of conviviality at today's meeting than Tanaka's head on a platter.

Will Tanaka go quietly or will Noda have to fire him? Today is Friday, the day of the second of the Cabinet's bi-weekly meetings. The PM may let Tanaka sit in on the meeting, for appearance's sake. He will likely also be patient, allowing Tanaka the time to do the decent and smart thing and resign, then call a press conference to announce his resignation. However, if Tanaka refuses to resign -- a not unlikely outcome given his lack of a sense of decency so far in his political life -- Noda will be forced to fire him, with Noda giving the press conference before the trilateral meeting.

We shall see how this all this plays out.

--------------------------------------------
* One person? Two? Imaginary? No one knows.

** The Japanese name is Homusho. If the Ministry is in anyway interested in administering justice rather than the law, one has to ask, "Since when?"

Calling Jake Adelstein

Uh-oh.

Japan firm wants to lease 1 northern island for tsunami debris
Saipan Tribune

A private Japanese firm has offered to lease one of the islands north of Saipan as a disposal and recycling site for tons of debris from the March 2011 tsunami in Japan, Rep. Froilan Tenorio (Cov-Saipan) said yesterday.

Tenorio said officials of the firm will be coming to Saipan next week to meet with Gov. Benigno R. Fitial to discuss the proposal, which could mean millions of dollars of fresh revenues for the CNMI and help Japan in its recovery.

"If the response is good, there's a plan to charter a plane to fly to one of the islands and take a look at it. If the deal is okay, then we'll sign a lease," Tenorio said in an interview after meeting with the governor yesterday afternoon.

Tenorio, a former governor and speaker, pointed out that the tsunami debris from Japan that are planned to be shipped to one of the Northern Islands are "non-toxic" and "non-radioactive" materials...

Yeah, right. I am sure the certificate of guarantee will be printed on genuine "Govemnet of Japan" stationery, too.

This could all be legitimate, of course. Honestly. Truly.

Very Kind of Him - Reconstructing 311

A while back Ourmani Nabiko, the hardest-working human being I have ever met, asked me whether or not I would be willing to participate in a group publication attempting to draw some conclusions about 3/11, revisit some of the stories of the triple disaster or tell some of the untold stories. I said "Yes," without hesitation. Given his astonishing Quakebook project, I felt honored.

Well, Reconstructing 311 is now alive and kicking and available from Amazon.com.

Mine is the least of the contributions, in my humble opinion. It does go part of the way, however, in fleshing out the argument answering the criticism Michael Penn (a knowledgeable and astute analyst - if you do not subscribe to his newsletter The Tokyo Diplomat, you are missing out) levels against my assessment of Naoto Kan, outlined in my post on Thursday. The inimitable Jake Adelstein writes about what he knows best, those charming business facilitators in the loud suits and big cars. Philip Brasor illuminates how the public gets none of the information it needs, with or without commercials. Natalie Stucky meets up with the last man in the dead zone, whose zest for life, just life, is bracing...

I could go on and on but will stop here.

Reform of the Sumo World

Former yokozuna Takanohana surrounded by talent-challenged and unfunny Yoshimoto Kogyo performers.

I remember gagging when I read this title and introductory paragraph.

Reformer Takanohana elected to sumo board
Kyodo News

Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010 - Reform-minded former yokozuna Takanohana was elected to the 10-man Japan Sumo Association board on Monday.

Takanohana was among 11 candidates running in the governing body's first board election in eight years, held because of his surprise departure from the Nishonoseki faction...

(Link)

Words and their meanings should have to have some meeting place -- or at least be in the same general vicinity as one another. A person is not a reformer just because is he someone under 40 years of age joining a group of half-catatonic septuagenarians and octogenarians. Reform is understood to be the effectuating of positive change.

In justification of my gagging reflex, Takanohana recently inked a contact with organized crime gang-infested promotion company and talent (their noun, not mine) agency Yoshimoto Kogyo. This was done in order to promote sumo, which has seen drastic declines in popularity due to numerous scandals and the multiplications of sports alternatives, the outcomes of which are not necessarily fixed in advance. (E and E)

On Saturday Takanohana joined a performance of Yoshimoto Kogyo players for the first time, ostensibly to promote the Spring Sumo Tournament. His appearance included such tasteful and hilarious moments as being passed a paper bag purportedly filled with 3 million yen in cash and being tapped on the penis by a female member of the troupe. (image).

This represents reform, I suppose, in a sport where, to borrow a phrase from disgraced former yokozuna Akebono, grown men walk about in public in diapers.

All appropriate, I guess, for the promotion of an event with its stars seriously crossed. The date of the opening of the Spring Grand (their adjective, not mine) Sumo Tournament: March 11, the one year anniversary of the Great Eastern earthquake and tsunami.

Where have you gone Chiyonofuji? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Image courtesy: Daily Sports Online

I Saw Him Standing There

A few years ago, when a good friend was writing his first book, I chided him gently for the section (he had me reading the drafts) he had penned on matsuri (festivals). From what little training I had had in the social sciences, I knew that festivals were much more than just displays of colored lights, children running about with the gifts and treats they had just received, neighbors greeting neighbors, truly awful food and reaffirmations of local and national traditions. They were about power: who in my neighborhood clung to it, who wielded it and who would never have it. From the lists of the donors to who was pouring sake from the big bottle, the matsuri was a palimpsest of the writhing vines of power binding the neighborhood together in a way that mocked the constitutional equality of all attending.

Due to my own ignorance, I did not point out the most significant oversight: the lack of a mention of the presence of organized crime. As the Lawyer has explained to me since, "Where there are matsuri, there are yakuza.

So I should not have been surprised to see while on a January 1 hastumode at X Hachimangu a tall, heavy-set man in a black suit, short-cropped hair and a gold watch on his wrist matter-of-factly taking a fan of thousand-yen bills from the hands of a food vendor, not three meters away from where I was standing in line.

"Look," I said, "a member of the local criminal element taking his cut."

"Not necessarily," countered my companion. "He could be just a member of the organizing committee."

Uh, no.

It was 6 degrees out; we were in the shade of a grove of trees. Everyone else was in winter wear, stamping his or her feet from the cold. This guy was in a suit, no coat...and he walked over to another guy, short-set, punch-permed hair, in black suit, no coat, smoking a cigarette outside a closed tent marked "RESERVED SEATING."

The only such tent on the grounds.

The ousting of gangsters from the Kitazawa Hachimangu's autumn festival was national news (E) last year, making the evening news broadcasts on NHK. The Kitazawa Hachimangu is a tiny little place. I know; I have been there. That the National Police Agency should make such a hullabaloo about kicking the gangsters out of a postage-stamp sized shrine and its festival is indicative of a serious national problem.

In December, the city of Yaizu pulped its official 2012 calendars after a known yakuza was spotted in a photo of the city's summer festival. Please take a look at the size of the crowd in the photo. How in Amaterasu's name could there not be a yakuza in the picture?

I had my camera with me in line on Sunday. However, as I was going to pray for peace and good fortune in the new year, it is probably a good thing I did not surrender to the temptation to take the shot.

The black dragon

It is not enough that the country is saddled with a representative government where a third of the elected do not actually represent anybody; has "a beautiful nature" (sic) that is a biological nightmare due to mismanagement, climate change and introduced species; has a justice system bent on seeking the criminal first, then determining the crime; has public employees striving toward the singular goal of not making any trouble until they are old enough to retire (a goal shared by many company managers, sadly).

It must also be subject to a brazen criminal element, unfettered by police investigations, political pressure or press exposure--as one intrepid Yomiuri Shimbun reporter has found out.

Poor bugger--dreamt he could make his living stalking the yakuza and also have a family.