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School cell phone bans gaining momentum in Japan
“I didn’t realize there were so many things in the world I don’t need. - Socrates, describing his impressions on visiting the marketplace GROWING NUMBERS of Japanese officials are concluding that one...
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The shame of the shameless DPJ
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? - Mark 8:36 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGIST Ruth Benedict famously described Japan as having a culture of shame and the...
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Japan’s political kaleidoscope
NOW THAT THE OPPOSITION Democratic Party of Japan has stuck a feather in former leader Ozawa Ichiro’s cap and called it macaroni instead of calling on Jack to hit the road, events in the world of...
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Japan’s political Big Bang, V.2
WE’VE ALL HEARD THE EXPRESSION about running around like a chicken with its head cut off. That’s derived from the way in which chickens will thrash around the barnyard in a headless state. After the...
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The warring sandbox period in Japanese politics
You’re only young once, but you can be immature forever. - Larry Anderson NO SOONER do I compare the behavior of Japanese politicians at the national level to that of the daimyo during the Warring...
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Fraternalism
THE CONCEPT OF YUAI, or fraternalism, is the basis of Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio’s political philosophy. Idealistic and positive, it is admirable and worth emulating in one’s personal life. That so...
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Jockeying for position
I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat. - Will Rogers, American humorist AMERICANS ON BOTH SIDES of the political aisle still laugh about the Will Rogers quip above, but it’s no...
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More bad polling news for the DPJ
IF THERE WERE a Japanese version of the Intrade market in the United States for betting on political outcomes, punters would be selling the Hatoyama administration short. Most of the nation’s media has...
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Aspirations
As Fukuzawa Yukichi said regarding an attitude of self-sufficiency and self-respect, a good nation, a good community, and superb people of ability cannot exist unless local governments and individuals...
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Chip off the old block
ONE OF THE MOST compelling debaters in the Diet during Question Time was former Prime Minister Koizumi Jun’ichiro of the Liberal Democratic Party. He was deft, confident, had a wicked instinct for the...
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Fireworks
SUMMER IS THE SEASON for fireworks, but there’s a real possibility the mad festival of Japanese politics could explode in a shower of light, fire, and dead flowers as early as this week. The fuse has...
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Stayin’ alive
One of the themes of the play was that the country itself is much too good for politics, especially when politicians seek to govern it by serving their own selfish ends. - Andrew Ferguson on the David...
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Goodbye hello
大山鳴動して鼠一匹 - The great mountain rumbles and brings forth a mouse (Japanese proverb) Kan Naoto's impersonation of Foster Brooks ON THURSDAY 2 June, the opposition no-confidence motion was voted down in...
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Is that duck just lame or is it dead?
後悔先に立たず - A Japanese proverb meaning that no matter how much one regrets an event after it is concluded, one can’t undo something that occurred because of one’s negligence or tardiness IT NOW seems...
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