“In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell

“Jake” is a news reporter for a major broadcasting station in Japan. His program is broadcast to millions of homes. I recently interviewed, “Jake” (not his real name). We met at my favorite watering hole and “Jake” confessed his story to me. Here is what he said:

“In a surprising turn of events, I have lately found myself in the position of propagandist for the state and Big Pharma. It’s true. I am now reading and broadcasting the “news” (read: “propaganda”) to millions of people in Japan.

It disturbs me to have to read out some of the stuff that arrives on the newswire.

If I tell the truth on air, I will most likely get in a lot of trouble even if I am not fired. If I follow the “party line” and read out the propaganda as written, I will wind up hating myself and quitting. (This has happened already twice before.) These are my only choices. It’s just the way it is. I don’t want to get fired, but it will happen if I tell the truth. If I do like everyone else and trot out the lies, I will keep my job.

I just cannot parrot the lies. I think the news has lost all credibility, and station ratings go down because people know they are being fed propaganda. I think people are smart enough and mature enough that, if they are given the facts, they can make intelligent decisions for themselves.

Anyhow, here’s how I got into this curious position.

I was hired to produce and direct a prime-time show on a major broadcasting station. I have a staff of five, including me. I was told that I would also have a professional newsreader to come onto the show and do his stuff.

The day before the first show, at rehearsal, I was told that we didn’t have a newsreader after all. I was dumbfounded when I was told that I was expected to do the news. As producer/director (which translates as engineer, scriptwriter, co-host and coffee boy) I pretty much had my hands full each and every show. It is a live broadcast, and in live broadcasts, mistakes are verboten!

So I became the news anchor. Not by choice, but by – well, like I said, it just fell into my lap. Don’t get me wrong; the news needs to be done. So since there was no one else qualified to do it, I was stuck.

Now, here’s where the problem begins. I know the news is written for people around the education level of an eighth-grader, so lots of facts are omitted, but sometimes the propaganda is just so blatant that I can’t stand it. Also, from years of experience, and being a voracious reader, I have developed a healthy skepticism of what passes for news these days.

Here are two examples of news stories that I had to read out that just made me roll my eyes. But, before I do that, let me quote George Orwell once more:

“Omission is the greatest form of lie.”

Keep that in mind. The news stories are not written so that I must directly speak a falsehood. But they are filled with important omissions, which turn some of them into blatant propaganda.

Read this next bit of news. It is the kind of story that all news reporters read verbatim. Tell me what’s wrong with this picture.

G-8 statement slams N. Korea

Ministers of the Group of Eight countries condemned North Korea over its nuclear and missile development programs and warned that the group will take additional steps if Pyongyang fires missiles.

In a chair’s statement released after the gathering, the G-8 foreign ministers “condemned in the strongest possible terms” North Korea’s active nuclear weapons development and ballistic missile program.

The statement also criticized North Korea’s “current aggressive rhetoric,” saying, “This will only further serve to isolate the DPRK.”

Like I said, this is blatant propaganda. I just couldn’t bring myself to read this out as is. If I did, I would be a tool of the propagandists. This sort of news is a lie by omission and can only serve to stoke public opinion into supporting a war against North Korea that will get a bunch of innocent people killed! That’s right. This is a lie and this news is written to further a political agenda.

I admit that I did broadcast the story the way it was written but I added a critical fact to the very last paragraph that I think people need to know. I said:

“The statement also criticized North Korea’s “current aggressive rhetoric,” saying, “This will only serve to further isolate the DPRK.” While ignoring the fact that US B2 Stealth Bombers, capable of dropping nuclear weapons, have been making threatening flights over South Korea just seconds away from North Korea.”

Gee, isn’t this little fact relevant? Not if you are a propagandist for the state.

Saying this, though, is telling the truth. How can we expect the North Koreans not to be bellicose when US bombers are buzzing their territory? Hell, the USA carpet-bombed the North during the Korean War, killing an unknown thousands of innocent civilians! Of course they will scream to high heaven when US bombers are flying around, within seconds of flying time of their country. Please refer to: Ubuntu Peace Education Project website:

In the Korean War, the U.S. demonstrated its willingness to attack Korean civilians in order to injure unidentified military partisans. In doing so, it violated international humanitarian law and provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Among illegal actions engaged in by U.S. soldiers and the U.S. command during the Korean War 1950-53 war were the destruction of clearly marked hospitals and destruction of irrigation dams at Kusong and Toksan that provided water for 75% of North Korea’s food production.

The Air Force at the time reported that the “subsequent flash flood scooped clean 27 miles of valley below”, noted the flood waters wiped out supply routes as well as villages, and acknowledged that the loss of the rice crop will mean “starvation and slow death.”

Napalm attacks more widespread than those ultimately banned in Viet Nam 16 years later and carpet-bombing destroyed 75% of North Korea’s cities and villages…

The American planes had bombed the entire city (Pyongyang) multiple times in the Korean War and obliterated virtually everything in it. Indeed U.S. reports cite a general ordering a stop to the bombing of Pyongyang since “nothing worthy of a name” was left standing.

Why we are stoking the flames of war with the North Koreans – a country that can’t even feed its own people – is just beyond my comprehension. People need to wake up and see that they are being manipulated.

The next story that I had to read out also made me want to pull my hair out. It was about a 74-year-old man dying from bird flu in China. I can’t remember the exact text now, but it went like this:

China: In the last two weeks, 11 of the 43 people infected with bird flu in China have died, the World Health Organization said Friday.

The latest to succumb was a 74-year-old male patient from Shanghai.

Bird flu, again? You’re kidding me, right? And how does the death of a 74-year-old man in China make the news when average life expectancy in China is 72?

We go through this flu nonsense every four or five years. The last time this sort of sensationalism flared up, I complained about it and predicted this story coming up. Big deal! (Let me make another wild prediction: that there will be a war in the Middle East within the next year or so.)

Eleven people die in China and that makes the news? What a joke. How about a few points of reference here?

First off, there are over 1,340,000,000 people in China. Over 65,000 die in traffic accidents in China per year (an average of over 170 people every single day!) Many Chinese factories are dangerous and every year there are hundreds of thousands of fatalities and injuries! I have read of about 300 people dying every day in China in factory and industrial accidents!

And these people want us to worry about eleven people dying of the flu?

They call this “news”? I call it propaganda!

I simply refuse to be a propagandist for the state. I wish more so-called news reporters would wake up and realize that they are not helping – and are actually harming people – by scaring them like this.”

By this time, “Jake” was very drunk and about to pass out. I put him in a cab and took him to his home so he could sleep off his drunk and his frustrations.

I cynically chuckled and was reminded of my old saying about TV news:

“Remember the Golden Rule about TV: 90 per cent of everything you see on TV is bullsh*t; the other 10 per cent are commercials.”

Edited by Jeremy Irwin

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) The Bashful Bitcoin Numismatist

“In an age of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell

"Jake" is a news reporter for a major broadcasting station in Japan. His program is broadcast to millions of homes. I recently interviewed, "Jake" (not his real name). We met at my favorite watering hole and "Jake" confessed his story to me. Here is what he said:

"In a surprising turn of events, I have lately found myself in the position of propagandist for the state and Big Pharma. It’s true. I am now reading and broadcasting the “news” (read: “propaganda”) to millions of people in Japan.

It disturbs me to have to read out some of the stuff that arrives on the newswire.

If I tell the truth on air, I will most likely get in a lot of trouble even if I am not fired. If I follow the “party line” and read out the propaganda as written, I will wind up hating myself and quitting. (This has happened already twice before.) These are my only choices. It’s just the way it is. I don’t want to get fired, but it will happen if I tell the truth. If I do like everyone else and trot out the lies, I will keep my job.

I just cannot parrot the lies. I think the news has lost all credibility, and station ratings go down because people know they are being fed propaganda. I think people are smart enough and mature enough that, if they are given the facts, they can make intelligent decisions for themselves.

Anyhow, here's how I got into this curious position.

I was hired to produce and direct a prime-time show on a major broadcasting station. I have a staff of five, including me. I was told that I would also have a professional newsreader to come onto the show and do his stuff.

The day before the first show, at rehearsal, I was told that we didn’t have a newsreader after all. I was dumbfounded when I was told that I was expected to do the news. As producer/director (which translates as engineer, scriptwriter, co-host and coffee boy) I pretty much had my hands full each and every show. It is a live broadcast, and in live broadcasts, mistakes are verboten!

So I became the news anchor. Not by choice, but by — well, like I said, it just fell into my lap. Don’t get me wrong; the news needs to be done. So since there was no one else qualified to do it, I was stuck.

Now, here’s where the problem begins. I know the news is written for people around the education level of an eighth-grader, so lots of facts are omitted, but sometimes the propaganda is just so blatant that I can’t stand it. Also, from years of experience, and being a voracious reader, I have developed a healthy skepticism of what passes for news these days.

Here are two examples of news stories that I had to read out that just made me roll my eyes. But, before I do that, let me quote George Orwell once more:

“Omission is the greatest form of lie.”

Keep that in mind. The news stories are not written so that I must directly speak a falsehood. But they are filled with important omissions, which turn some of them into blatant propaganda. 

Read this next bit of news. It is the kind of story that all news reporters read verbatim. Tell me what’s wrong with this picture.

G-8 statement slams N. Korea

Ministers of the Group of Eight countries condemned North Korea over its nuclear and missile development programs and warned that the group will take additional steps if Pyongyang fires missiles.

In a chair’s statement released after the gathering, the G-8 foreign ministers “condemned in the strongest possible terms” North Korea’s active nuclear weapons development and ballistic missile program.

The statement also criticized North Korea’s “current aggressive rhetoric,” saying, “This will only further serve to isolate the DPRK.” 

Like I said, this is blatant propaganda. I just couldn’t bring myself to read this out as is. If I did, I would be a tool of the propagandists. This sort of news is a lie by omission and can only serve to stoke public opinion into supporting a war against North Korea that will get a bunch of innocent people killed! That’s right. This is a lie and this news is written to further a political agenda.

I admit that I did broadcast the story the way it was written but I added a critical fact to the very last paragraph that I think people need to know. I said:

“The statement also criticized North Korea’s “current aggressive rhetoric,” saying, “This will only serve to further isolate the DPRK.” While ignoring the fact that US B2 Stealth Bombers, capable of dropping nuclear weapons, have been making threatening flights over South Korea just seconds away from North Korea.”

Gee, isn’t this little fact relevant? Not if you are a propagandist for the state. 

Saying this, though, is telling the truth. How can we expect the North Koreans not to be bellicose when US bombers are buzzing their territory? Hell, the USA carpet-bombed the North during the Korean War, killing an unknown thousands of innocent civilians! Of course they will scream to high heaven when US bombers are flying around, within seconds of flying time of their country. Please refer to: Ubuntu Peace Education Project website:

In the Korean War, the U.S. demonstrated its willingness to attack Korean civilians in order to injure unidentified military partisans. In doing so, it violated international humanitarian law and provisions of the Geneva Conventions. Among illegal actions engaged in by U.S. soldiers and the U.S. command during the Korean War 1950-53 war were the destruction of clearly marked hospitals and destruction of irrigation dams at Kusong and Toksan that provided water for 75% of North Korea's food production.  

The Air Force at the time reported that the "subsequent flash flood scooped clean 27 miles of valley below", noted the flood waters wiped out supply routes as well as villages, and acknowledged that the loss of the rice crop will mean "starvation and slow death."      

Napalm attacks more widespread than those ultimately banned in Viet Nam 16 years later and carpet-bombing destroyed 75% of North Korea's cities and villages…   

The American planes had bombed the entire city (Pyongyang) multiple times in the Korean War and obliterated virtually everything in it. Indeed U.S. reports cite a general ordering a stop to the bombing of Pyongyang since "nothing worthy of a name" was left standing. 

Why we are stoking the flames of war with the North Koreans — a country that can’t even feed its own people — is just beyond my comprehension. People need to wake up and see that they are being manipulated.

The next story that I had to read out also made me want to pull my hair out. It was about a 74-year-old man dying from bird flu in China. I can’t remember the exact text now, but it went like this:

China: In the last two weeks, 11 of the 43 people infected with bird flu in China have died, the World Health Organization said Friday.

The latest to succumb was a 74-year-old male patient from Shanghai.

Bird flu, again? You're kidding me, right? And how does the death of a 74-year-old man in China make the news when average life expectancy in China is 72?

We go through this flu nonsense every four or five years. The last time this sort of sensationalism flared up, I complained about it and predicted this story coming up. Big deal! (Let me make another wild prediction: that there will be a war in the Middle East within the next year or so.)

Eleven people die in China and that makes the news? What a joke. How about a few points of reference here? 

First off, there are over 1,340,000,000 people in China. Over 65,000 die in traffic accidents in China per year (an average of over 170 people every single day!) Many Chinese factories are dangerous and every year there are hundreds of thousands of fatalities and injuries! I have read of about 300 people dying every day in China in factory and industrial accidents!

And these people want us to worry about eleven people dying of the flu? 

They call this “news”? I call it propaganda! 

I simply refuse to be a propagandist for the state. I wish more so-called news reporters would wake up and realize that they are not helping — and are actually harming people — by scaring them like this."

By this time, "Jake" was very drunk and about to pass out. I put him in a cab and took him to his home so he could sleep off his drunk and his frustrations.

I cynically chuckled and was reminded of my old saying about TV news:

"Remember the Golden Rule about TV: 90 per cent of everything you see on TV is bullsh*t; the other 10 per cent are commercials.”

Edited by Jeremy Irwin

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Greetings from Japan!

Welcome to Uncle Mike’s Bitcoin Emporium! Since 2013, Tokyo’s pre-eminent dealer of Bitcoin.

About Us

For nearly 1/25th of a decade, Uncle Mike’s Bitcoin Emporium has been the nation’s preeminent dealer of Bitcoin. Dealers and collectors everywhere, episodically recognize Uncle Mike’s reputation for buying and selling only authentic, high quality products out of our Midtown location. You might also recognize Uncle Mike when you meet him as he is a famous Japanese television Teen Idol appearing in many Japanese Anime! (Ok, well, that part about the teen idol and Anime is not true). Whether new to the business, adding to an already extensive collection, searching for a nice gift, or looking for a unique investment opportunity, come visit us for the finest authentic merchandise on the market today.

Mission Statement

Uncle Mike’s Bitcoin and Collectables Emporium (formerly known as “Mike’s Muffler-Rama, Comics & Collectables”) is a family owned and operated dealer of Bitcoin and collectibles. For nearly 1/25th of a decade, we’ve offered our customer’s world-class quality, knowledge, service, political opinions, divorce counseling, loyalty, price and even sometimes a cup of coffee! We will not be undersold! Our business was built on integrity and trust, and we strive to maintain our standing as the neighborhood’s most knowledgeable and reputable dealer.

Uncle Mike’s Quality

Too often, people shop for price and forget about quality. Me too. I hate it when that happens! Uncle Mike’s New & Used Bitcoin, Comics and Collectables Emporium promise only the highest quality for our collectors. That is a statement very few dealers can make. We are proud of the term, “Mike Quality,” which has become a statement in the business, synonymous with the “finest available” (and smile when you say that!) You can buy from us with the confidence that our nearly 1/25th of a decade reputation backs each and every purchase. In addition to our lunchtime guarantee, we offer certificates of authenticity from only the most respected, industry leading sources (Federal Reserve, US Mint, Peter Parker and my wife). With us, there is never a risk in a sometimes extremely risky business! Shop at Uncle Mike’s New & Used Bitcoin, Comics, Collectables and Antique Emporium with confidence for rare Bitcoin, comics, vintage sports memorabilia, autographs and knick-knacks. We guarantee that you will be treated fairly-whether buying or selling… But mostly buying – we usually are not interested in the junk most people are selling!

	Uncle Mike personally grades each and every Bitcoin

Our History

Uncle Mike started out collecting baseball cards as a pale, supple, young boy in the early 1960s. He then went on to hone his skills collecting rare and valuable Hulk, Spiderman and Silver Surfer comics. As everyone knows, those baseball cards and comic books made many people extremely rich in the process as, opposed to the US dollar that is not backed by anything, Marvel Comics are backed by editor Stan Lee, Captain America and the Fantastic Four; and, even better, those baseball cards are backed by Topps and Fleer bubblegum makers! In the last several decadesdays, Uncle Mike began offering expert advice and top quality in the ever-expanding market of Bitcoin numismatics!

Word from Uncle Mike

My name is Uncle Mike and I am here to talk to you about the wonderful life-changing opportunities Bitcoin offers. I am looking for people; people just like you, who want to change their lives and get a hold of their financial freedom. That’s why I started my new Bitcoin business and that’s why I am here; I want to show you how you too can make your own Bitcoin profits ranging from 50 to 100 to 500% virtually overnight* and become worth gazillions of Bitcoins!

A Word About Bitcoin Grading

Being able to grade Bitcoin is an art that usually takes years moments of experience to master. Your main Bitcoin grading tiers are: Mint, Uncirculated, Fine, Good and Junk. You will also sometimes hear a Bitcoin being given a grade of “Scam”! Choose only coins that have been given the “Uncle Mike Grade of Approval!”

To protect your Bitcoins, it is a good idea to wear white cotton gloves when handling Bitcoins, especially expensive ones, as corrosion will seriously affect the value of a Bitcoin. Ewww! Don’t touch that cruddy Bitcoin! You don’t know where it’s been!

Why You Can Trust Uncle Mike

Uncle Mike once went back to his university dorm room, stoned as usual, and saw a rare and collectable Mickey Mantle baseball card on the TV news that sold for $5000 at auction! Mike owned that very same card! When Mike rushed back to his folk’s home to get the card and take it to the baseball card dealer, he was chagrined to find that the dealer would only offer him $5 for it because the card was so beat up and not in Mint condition. Mike said, “Of course it was all beat up, dude! What do you expect to happen to a baseball card after an 8-year-old kid put it into his bicycle spokes?” Mike added later, “How else was I to make my Schwinn sound cool like a World War II Mustang P-51 fighter?”

Message From Our Legal Department

We at Uncle Mike’s Used & New Bitcoin, Comics, Baseball Cards, Antiques, Home Brewery and Collectables Emporium are old-fashioned guys. We cannot accept any responsibility for your losses on Bitcoin, comics, baseball cards, signed sports junk, etc. Also, we are only interested in real money (funny that!) we really don’t like this new-fangled electronic money at all. I mean, really! If we can, we still would like to trade in real things, like gold or silver. No gold? OK, how about cigarettes, canned food, coffee or even bottles of whiskey? Heck, if you don’t have that, then we will gladly accept animal furs or hand-made goods.

To Contact Us

You can contact our support team by sending us an email… Oops! There’s a power outage or the Internet is down and you can’t spend your Bitcoin nor can you contact us? Not to worry, we still accept old-fashioned things that are tangible – like post cards or Indian smoke signals.

*Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Thanks for the inspiration, David Leibowitz!

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) Driver's Taxes and Other Money-Grabbing Schemes Throughout History

Greetings from Japan!

Welcome to Uncle Mike's Bitcoin Emporium! Since 2013, Tokyo's pre-eminent dealer of Bitcoin.

About Us

For nearly 1/25th of a decade, Uncle Mike's Bitcoin Emporium has been the nation's preeminent dealer of Bitcoin. Dealers and collectors everywhere, episodically recognize Uncle Mike's reputation for buying and selling only authentic, high quality products out of our Midtown location. You might also recognize Uncle Mike when you meet him as he is a famous Japanese television Teen Idol appearing in many Japanese Anime! (Ok, well, that part about the teen idol and Anime is not true). Whether new to the business, adding to an already extensive collection, searching for a nice gift, or looking for a unique investment opportunity, come visit us for the finest authentic merchandise on the market today.

Mission Statement

Uncle Mike's Bitcoin and Collectables Emporium (formerly known as "Mike's Muffler-Rama, Comics & Collectables") is a family owned and operated dealer of Bitcoin and collectibles. For nearly 1/25th of a decade, we've offered our customer's world-class quality, knowledge, service, political opinions, divorce counseling, loyalty, price and even sometimes a cup of coffee! We will not be undersold! Our business was built on integrity and trust, and we strive to maintain our standing as the neighborhood's most knowledgeable and reputable dealer.

Uncle Mike's Quality

Too often, people shop for price and forget about quality. Me too. I hate it when that happens! Uncle Mike's New & Used Bitcoin, Comics and Collectables Emporium promise only the highest quality for our collectors. That is a statement very few dealers can make. We are proud of the term, "Mike Quality," which has become a statement in the business, synonymous with the "finest available" (and smile when you say that!) You can buy from us with the confidence that our nearly 1/25th of a decade reputation backs each and every purchase. In addition to our lunchtime guarantee, we offer certificates of authenticity from only the most respected, industry leading sources (Federal Reserve, US Mint, Peter Parker and my wife). With us, there is never a risk in a sometimes extremely risky business! Shop at Uncle Mike's New & Used Bitcoin, Comics, Collectables and Antique Emporium with confidence for rare Bitcoin, comics, vintage sports memorabilia, autographs and knick-knacks. We guarantee that you will be treated fairly-whether buying or selling… But mostly buying – we usually are not interested in the junk most people are selling!

    Uncle Mike personally grades each and every Bitcoin    

Our History

Uncle Mike started out collecting baseball cards as a pale, supple, young boy in the early 1960s. He then went on to hone his skills collecting rare and valuable Hulk, Spiderman and Silver Surfer comics. As everyone knows, those baseball cards and comic books made many people extremely rich in the process as, opposed to the US dollar that is not backed by anything, Marvel Comics are backed by editor Stan Lee, Captain America and the Fantastic Four; and, even better, those baseball cards are backed by Topps and Fleer bubblegum makers! In the last several decades days, Uncle Mike began offering expert advice and top quality in the ever-expanding market of Bitcoin numismatics!

Word from Uncle Mike

My name is Uncle Mike and I am here to talk to you about the wonderful life-changing opportunities Bitcoin offers. I am looking for people; people just like you, who want to change their lives and get a hold of their financial freedom. That's why I started my new Bitcoin business and that's why I am here; I want to show you how you too can make your own Bitcoin profits ranging from 50 to 100 to 500% virtually overnight* and become worth gazillions of Bitcoins!

A Word About Bitcoin Grading

Being able to grade Bitcoin is an art that usually takes years moments of experience to master. Your main Bitcoin grading tiers are: Mint, Uncirculated, Fine, Good and Junk. You will also sometimes hear a Bitcoin being given a grade of "Scam"! Choose only coins that have been given the "Uncle Mike Grade of Approval!"

To protect your Bitcoins, it is a good idea to wear white cotton gloves when handling Bitcoins, especially expensive ones, as corrosion will seriously affect the value of a Bitcoin. Ewww! Don't touch that cruddy Bitcoin! You don't know where it's been!

Why You Can Trust Uncle Mike

Uncle Mike once went back to his university dorm room, stoned as usual, and saw a rare and collectable Mickey Mantle baseball card on the TV news that sold for $5000 at auction! Mike owned that very same card! When Mike rushed back to his folk's home to get the card and take it to the baseball card dealer, he was chagrined to find that the dealer would only offer him $5 for it because the card was so beat up and not in Mint condition. Mike said, "Of course it was all beat up, dude! What do you expect to happen to a baseball card after an 8-year-old kid put it into his bicycle spokes?" Mike added later, "How else was I to make my Schwinn sound cool like a World War II Mustang P-51 fighter?"

Message From Our Legal Department

We at Uncle Mike's Used & New Bitcoin, Comics, Baseball Cards, Antiques, Home Brewery and Collectables Emporium are old-fashioned guys. We cannot accept any responsibility for your losses on Bitcoin, comics, baseball cards, signed sports junk, etc. Also, we are only interested in real money (funny that!) we really don't like this new-fangled electronic money at all. I mean, really! If we can, we still would like to trade in real things, like gold or silver. No gold? OK, how about cigarettes, canned food, coffee or even bottles of whiskey? Heck, if you don't have that, then we will gladly accept animal furs or hand-made goods.

To Contact Us

You can contact our support team by sending us an email… Oops! There's a power outage or the Internet is down and you can't spend your Bitcoin nor can you contact us? Not to worry, we still accept old-fashioned things that are tangible – like post cards or Indian smoke signals.

*Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Thanks for the inspiration, David Leibowitz!

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

I think “Driver’s Taxes” is a pretty good and descriptive name for this topic and article. Why? Because anything that has to do with your car; driver’s license, automobile license plates, gasoline, random DUI and seat belt inspection stops; tolls; police hiding in wait to catch a bypassing speeder, etc., are all forms of taxation. I know I am speaking to the choir here at this web site when I say this but there are many of our own family members and friends who seem to fail to realize this simple fact of life; Driver’s Licenses and the related costs are actually all taxation.

Indeed, things like driver’s licenses; DUI and seat belt stops are not for the safety of the public, but merely just one of many back-door schemes by our overlords to tax us more.

Let me prove it to you so that you can prove it to your friends.

When it comes to the chicken and egg, I don’t know which came first. But when it comes to cars and driver’s taxes? Did you know that the forerunner of today’s Driver’s Licenses, I mean Driver’s Taxes, came way before engines for automobiles were ever dreamed of? Yes, it’s true.

But before I go into that, let me give a brief explanation of how I got onto this subject in the first place.

A guy wrote to me the other day about gun control. In his note he asked,

“If you agree that we need a license to drive, then why don’t you agree that we need a license for a gun?”

I wrote back,

“You might be surprised but I don’t think you need a license for a gun just as I don’t think you need a license to drive a car. Licenses are merely a back-door form of taxes levied upon us by our government. Don’t you know that?”

Just like I don’t agree with laws requiring the wearing of seat belts in cars or helmets when riding motorcycles.

I always wear a seat belt. I don’t need a law. We know that wearing seat belts can save a life in a car accident but if some guy doesn’t want to wear a seat belt, then what business is it of yours or mine? It most certainly is not the governments business either. And it definitely is not a reason to tax us more money in order to put more police on the road to stop drivers who drive without their seat belts on and fine them. If Dick or Harry want to drive without a seat belt, then let them. I don’t care and it is none of my business.

Driver’s licenses and things like seat belt laws have zero to do with protecting the public and everything to do with taxes. Driver’s licenses and license fees (for passports, filing papers, dogs, cats, fishing, open fire, killing bugs, you-name-it, etc.) are all merely a form of taxation.

Just to drive home the point of how ridiculous drivers licenses are and to point out how they have nothing to do with safe driving and everything to do with another form of taxation, let me tell you the story of “rikishaw,” or, as you people in the west call them, “Japanese rickshaw.” You know, the old style carts that were used in Japan long ago that were pulled by one skinny Japanese guy running in front?

Well, it used to be, over a hundred or so years ago, when rikishaw were quite prevalent on the streets and alleyways in Japanese towns, one needed a license for a rikishaw and a license to be a rikishaw “driver.”

There was even a “Rikishaw organization” (probably filled with retired cops) that handled the licensing and registration of these vehicles all in the name of protecting the public. (As if some guy could out run the cops in some high speed chase after a hit-and-run accident with his unlicensed rikishaw!)

Today, now that these rikishaw are no longer popular, and not in much use (though they still exist mainly in tourist areas) there is no requirement for licensing rikishaw.

Think about it; if the licensing procedure for rikishaw were for safety of the public and the good of society, then this procedure would still be in practice today, would it not? But it is not. These rikishaw still exist! Why no licenses? This proves that the licensing was – and always will be – a scheme merely to fill government coiffures. It is no longer cost-effective to license these things. Automobiles make for a much more healthy revenue stream.

“Oh, but that was ancient Japan. The United States is different!” You say?

Well, hardy-har-har! Check your US (and UK) history and find the same taxation licensing story concerning horse drawn carts in the cities up until about 1910 or so (and still going on in Canada today!)

This rikishaw story should be proof enough to get people to see that, no matter the geographical zone or time in history, government will always look for new ways to tax the people through licensing.

Remember that Monty Python episode about the Ministry of Silly Walks? Well, throughout history, and still today, every country has their Ministry of Silly Taxes.

Did you know that you need a license in Japan to be a sushi chef? It’s true. In Japan, you need a license to slice raw fish.

You can bet that if the sushi restaurants in the USA were to become so popular that they stood on every street corner, the government would increase taxes on them by requiring a special license to slice fish; and why not? They tax you to go out on the water to catch them!

Throughout the history of man there have been all sorts of ridiculous taxes levied on people by their overlords. The government claims they are doing it for the good of society, but it’s all a money scam.

Here’s a short list of some of my, er, “favorite” taxes through time:

In the first century AD, Roman emperor Vespasian placed a tax on urine.

European governments placed an absurd tax on cleanliness during the Middle Ages. It was a “Soap Tax.” This tax remained in effect in some countries for hundreds of years. England, for example, didn’t repeal its soap tax until 1835!

Did you also know that in 1660, England placed a tax on fireplaces? I guess that’s where George Harrison got the line about taxing the heat in his song.

In 1696, the King of Jolly Old initiated a “Window Tax,” that placed taxes on any dwelling by the number of windows they had.

One of the dumber ideas the King of England and his court had was in the 1700s; they placed a tax on bricks! Yeah, you know; rectangular blocks of ceramic material used to build buildings? Well, this didn’t work out so well as the builders quickly figured out that they could just use bigger bricks and pay less tax. The brick taxes weren’t repealed until the 1850s.

These taxes are pretty dumb, right? Well, they get dumber. Let’s let our imaginations fly on some more stuff that has been taxed. I mean, “Licensed” in order to protect the public.

Sometime in the 16^th century, the geniuses that held the King’s ear in England decided to tax playing cards (you know, poker, Texas Hold’em, Old Maid?) They got away with this for a while, but sometime in the early 1700s, they drastically upped the taxes on cards and dice. Soon after, criminal elements in society began making forgeries to avoid paying taxes. Fake poker cards and dice? Heavens! See? I told you the taxes were for protecting the public. This playing card and dice tax wasn’t repealed in England until, are you ready for it? 1960.

And how about hats? Did you know that England had a hat tax in the late 1700s? To avoid paying the “Hat Tax,” hat-makers, in the early 1800s, began calling their creations, “Head-gear.” You just have to love the ingenuity and spirit of the independent businessman! By 1811, the “Hat Tax” was in the dustbin of history – unfortunately the concept wasn’t.

The taxes listed above make us laugh at our British friends. But, frankly speaking, Americans are not really in any position to laugh at anyone. Why? Americans can’t laugh because the USA has more than its fair share of ridiculous taxation ideas and schemes as well as absurd laws.

Did you know that the IRS taxes stolen property? Yep. On your 1040, you know, that TV you stole from the neighbors when you broke into their home while they were on vacation last summer? You are supposed to report that to the IRS as income or you are breaking the law! However, if you did report that, it would be self-incrimination under the 5^th Amendment and you might go to jail. But fear not! Our masters have thought of everything! That’s why you, dear Quick Fingers, have the option of reporting your thefts as “other income.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

And that’s the way it is with taxes, licenses, whatever folks. If, someday soon, flying vehicles become popular and there’s one in every garage, do you think that the government will be licensing them for our safety? No way! They will license them because they will see it as just another profitable revenue stream. Just like fining people for driving without seat belts, helmets, burnt out taillights, blah, blah, blah.

They can call them “licenses” all they want; I hope this proves to dear reader that licenses (for driving, dogs, cats, fishing, open fires, raising animals, etc.) are all a form of taxation.

Undoubtedly, the only thing throughout man’s history that taxes have proven to be really good for was the inspiration of a great Beatles song.

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) Expatriation? Beware of the Culture Shock! Oh, and the Tentacles Too!

I think "Driver's Taxes" is a pretty good and descriptive name for this topic and article. Why? Because anything that has to do with your car; driver's license, automobile license plates, gasoline, random DUI and seat belt inspection stops; tolls; police hiding in wait to catch a bypassing speeder, etc., are all forms of taxation. I know I am speaking to the choir here at this web site when I say this but there are many of our own family members and friends who seem to fail to realize this simple fact of life; Driver's Licenses and the related costs are actually all taxation.

Indeed, things like driver's licenses; DUI and seat belt stops are not for the safety of the public, but merely just one of many back-door schemes by our overlords to tax us more.

Let me prove it to you so that you can prove it to your friends.

When it comes to the chicken and egg, I don't know which came first. But when it comes to cars and driver's taxes? Did you know that the forerunner of today's Driver's Licenses, I mean Driver's Taxes, came way before engines for automobiles were ever dreamed of? Yes, it's true.

But before I go into that, let me give a brief explanation of how I got onto this subject in the first place.

A guy wrote to me the other day about gun control. In his note he asked,

“If you agree that we need a license to drive, then why don’t you agree that we need a license for a gun?”

I wrote back,

“You might be surprised but I don’t think you need a license for a gun just as I don’t think you need a license to drive a car. Licenses are merely a back-door form of taxes levied upon us by our government. Don’t you know that?"

Just like I don’t agree with laws requiring the wearing of seat belts in cars or helmets when riding motorcycles.

I always wear a seat belt. I don't need a law. We know that wearing seat belts can save a life in a car accident but if some guy doesn’t want to wear a seat belt, then what business is it of yours or mine? It most certainly is not the governments business either. And it definitely is not a reason to tax us more money in order to put more police on the road to stop drivers who drive without their seat belts on and fine them. If Dick or Harry want to drive without a seat belt, then let them. I don’t care and it is none of my business.

Driver's licenses and things like seat belt laws have zero to do with protecting the public and everything to do with taxes. Driver's licenses and license fees (for passports, filing papers, dogs, cats, fishing, open fire, killing bugs, you-name-it, etc.) are all merely a form of taxation.

Just to drive home the point of how ridiculous drivers licenses are and to point out how they have nothing to do with safe driving and everything to do with another form of taxation, let me tell you the story of “rikishaw,” or, as you people in the west call them, "Japanese rickshaw." You know, the old style carts that were used in Japan long ago that were pulled by one skinny Japanese guy running in front?

Well, it used to be, over a hundred or so years ago, when rikishaw were quite prevalent on the streets and alleyways in Japanese towns, one needed a license for a rikishaw and a license to be a rikishaw "driver."

There was even a "Rikishaw organization" (probably filled with retired cops) that handled the licensing and registration of these vehicles all in the name of protecting the public. (As if some guy could out run the cops in some high speed chase after a hit-and-run accident with his unlicensed rikishaw!)

Today, now that these rikishaw are no longer popular, and not in much use (though they still exist mainly in tourist areas) there is no requirement for licensing rikishaw.

Think about it; if the licensing procedure for rikishaw were for safety of the public and the good of society, then this procedure would still be in practice today, would it not? But it is not. These rikishaw still exist! Why no licenses? This proves that the licensing was — and always will be — a scheme merely to fill government coiffures. It is no longer cost-effective to license these things. Automobiles make for a much more healthy revenue stream.

“Oh, but that was ancient Japan. The United States is different!" You say?

Well, hardy-har-har! Check your US (and UK) history and find the same taxation licensing story concerning horse drawn carts in the cities up until about 1910 or so (and still going on in Canada today!)

This rikishaw story should be proof enough to get people to see that, no matter the geographical zone or time in history, government will always look for new ways to tax the people through licensing.

Remember that Monty Python episode about the Ministry of Silly Walks? Well, throughout history, and still today, every country has their Ministry of Silly Taxes.

Did you know that you need a license in Japan to be a sushi chef? It's true. In Japan, you need a license to slice raw fish.

You can bet that if the sushi restaurants in the USA were to become so popular that they stood on every street corner, the government would increase taxes on them by requiring a special license to slice fish; and why not? They tax you to go out on the water to catch them!

Throughout the history of man there have been all sorts of ridiculous taxes levied on people by their overlords. The government claims they are doing it for the good of society, but it's all a money scam.

Here's a short list of some of my, er, "favorite" taxes through time:

In the first century AD, Roman emperor Vespasian placed a tax on urine.

European governments placed an absurd tax on cleanliness during the Middle Ages. It was a "Soap Tax." This tax remained in effect in some countries for hundreds of years. England, for example, didn't repeal its soap tax until 1835!

Did you also know that in 1660, England placed a tax on fireplaces? I guess that's where George Harrison got the line about taxing the heat in his song.

In 1696, the King of Jolly Old initiated a "Window Tax," that placed taxes on any dwelling by the number of windows they had.

One of the dumber ideas the King of England and his court had was in the 1700s; they placed a tax on bricks! Yeah, you know; rectangular blocks of ceramic material used to build buildings? Well, this didn't work out so well as the builders quickly figured out that they could just use bigger bricks and pay less tax. The brick taxes weren't repealed until the 1850s.

These taxes are pretty dumb, right? Well, they get dumber. Let's let our imaginations fly on some more stuff that has been taxed. I mean, "Licensed" in order to protect the public.

Sometime in the 16th century, the geniuses that held the King's ear in England decided to tax playing cards (you know, poker, Texas Hold'em, Old Maid?) They got away with this for a while, but sometime in the early 1700s, they drastically upped the taxes on cards and dice. Soon after, criminal elements in society began making forgeries to avoid paying taxes. Fake poker cards and dice? Heavens! See? I told you the taxes were for protecting the public. This playing card and dice tax wasn't repealed in England until, are you ready for it? 1960.

And how about hats? Did you know that England had a hat tax in the late 1700s? To avoid paying the "Hat Tax," hat-makers, in the early 1800s, began calling their creations, "Head-gear." You just have to love the ingenuity and spirit of the independent businessman! By 1811, the "Hat Tax" was in the dustbin of history — unfortunately the concept wasn't.

The taxes listed above make us laugh at our British friends. But, frankly speaking, Americans are not really in any position to laugh at anyone. Why? Americans can't laugh because the USA has more than its fair share of ridiculous taxation ideas and schemes as well as absurd laws.

Did you know that the IRS taxes stolen property? Yep. On your 1040, you know, that TV you stole from the neighbors when you broke into their home while they were on vacation last summer? You are supposed to report that to the IRS as income or you are breaking the law! However, if you did report that, it would be self-incrimination under the 5th Amendment and you might go to jail. But fear not! Our masters have thought of everything! That's why you, dear Quick Fingers, have the option of reporting your thefts as “other income.”

You can't make this stuff up.

And that’s the way it is with taxes, licenses, whatever folks. If, someday soon, flying vehicles become popular and there’s one in every garage, do you think that the government will be licensing them for our safety? No way! They will license them because they will see it as just another profitable revenue stream. Just like fining people for driving without seat belts, helmets, burnt out taillights, blah, blah, blah.

They can call them "licenses" all they want; I hope this proves to dear reader that licenses (for driving, dogs, cats, fishing, open fires, raising animals, etc.) are all a form of taxation.

Undoubtedly, the only thing throughout man's history that taxes have proven to be really good for was the inspiration of a great Beatles song.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) ‘I Went to an Islamic and a FascistCountry…’

Recently, there's been lots of talk, and rightfully so, about Americans escaping the USA to live in other countries. If you already have escaped and are already adjusted to your new home, I say, "Bravo!" If you haven't yet done so, but are thinking about escaping, then all I can say is that you need to be prepared! This article is for you.

Of course, I can't write about specifics for every country in the world, but I can write about generalities concerning expatriation. And that is what this article is about: Culture Shock. It is a common denominator concerning expatriation to any country of the world. It doesn't matter if we are speaking about another developed western nation that speaks your language or some backwards dive in the sticks of Boroguay; Even those of stalwart mind and body, like Clark Kent, can be reduced to a pile of incoherent useless and drooling wet noodles by Culture Shock.

I have a friend whose son is moving to Japan. We’ve been having some correspondence and I really want to help my friend’s son get acclimated and become successful in the Land of the Rising Sun. (Gee, does that mean I have to immediately take him out every night getting so drunk we can barely walk and also have him start smoking two packs of cigarettes everyday within the first two days? No! That can wait at least a week or two!)

Seriously, I want to help any way I can so I thought I should bring up a nasty subject and that is about Culture Shock. I also thought since we're here, you, dear reader, might find this information useful too!

Here’s what I wrote to my friend:

Culture shock can really screw people up. Years ago, I was the liaison between foreigners and the Japanese management for a big company in Tokyo. We had about 480 foreign staff. From that experience, I’ve seen people just totally and completely fall apart. Really.

It really hits people when they become ill with the flu or something. It happened to me!

I got the flu one time and was sick as a dog. All I wanted was to have for breakfast two eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice. That’s not asking a lot, is it? Well, in Japan, it is…

I got the two eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice, but it’s not the same in Japan as it is in the United States. I know that this is difficult to understand, but trust me; there is no restaurant or person in this country that can make bacon and eggs like mom can. For one, mom isn’t here in Japan and for two; even the bacon and the eggs, toast and juice are different.

Really. They are. You have a very hard time finding a restaurant in Japan (that’s not inside a major hotel) that makes bacon and eggs like you get in the states (even inside a major hotel, I think you have trouble.) In Japan, they don’t know how to cook an egg over-easy or over-medium; In Japan, the toast is sliced massively thick (or too thin) and they often cut the crusts off. Sure, Wonder Bread sucks, but when you’re sick and longing for home-style cooked food; it sounds “Wonder-ful” (Sorry for the pun!); and the bacon? Nope. No way. There is no such thing as a slice of crispy bacon in all of Japan. I know. I checked.

Hell, the bacon is different so it’s even hard to make bacon at your Japanese apartment that is like the bacon mom makes!

And juice? Are you kiddin’ me? My episode was in the late 1970s so it is much better now. Back in the late 1970s there was no such thing in Japan like what Americans call “juice” – meaning something like 100% fresh squeezed or even concentrate – back then in Japan, “juice”, meant something carbonated like Orange Soda Pop.

Really. All I WANTED WAS A SIMPLE GLASS OF JUICE AND THEY BROUGHT ME SOMETHING LIKE FANTA ORANGE! THAT’S NOT JUICE! I wanted to scream! "Argh! Fudge frank melon monkey feathers!" How hard could it be to get a simple glass of juice?

Well, in 1979 Japan, completely and totally impossible!

“You sick? Poor baby! You want eggs and bacon just like mom made for breakfast? Well, we don’t have that, but how about some nice tentacles, instead?”

That seemingly benign episode of the flu, with no eggs and bacon like mom makes, set me off on a deep Culture Shock experience too! I was such a wreck that I thought I was going to explode!

When living in Japan, if Culture Shock sets in then if the person doesn’t come out of it relatively quickly, I’ve seen them fall into serious clinical depression. If that happens, they are finished. I’ve seen that happen more times than I can count.

One time, there was a guy who came here from Iowa (or was it Illinois?) and within 3 weeks, he was in serious depression, and we had to send him back to the USA. Why? When he got here to Japan, he thought he was going to see a Japan that had samurai and geisha running around (no joke). So, after arrival, when he saw a big modern city and business people in suits (nothing like what he was expecting) it freaked him out.

You can’t make this stuff up. I remember seeing my face in his one morning when he was bursting at the seams and complaining about not being able to get a decent steak and eggs breakfast in Tokyo. He was demanding that I take him to a McDonald’s (there were only a few around in those days) so that he could at least get some pancakes. He told me that he wanted a, “Home cooked meal!” I wondered what kind of home he was from if McDonald’s pancakes were his idea of “home-cooked”?

Then there was the lady from Nebraska (or was it Nevada?) who insisted to me that because we were in Asia, her wristwatch had started running in reverse. After telling me this a few times I decided to investigate and soon realized that she had started wearing her wristwatch upside down.

I used to joke to foreigners that dogs in America lift up their left rear leg when doing their business but, since Japan is the other way around, dogs lift up the opposite leg, their right rear leg, when doing so. After that episode with the upside down watch, I stopped making that joke to people.

Too many were taking me seriously.

Your son won’t be that bad, of course (I trust). But I highly recommend that he familiarize himself with Culture Shock, what it is and its symptoms, so he can expect it and know what’s happening when it comes and be more able to deal with it. I knew about it beforehand so I think that helped me from not becoming more of a psychotic than I already am.

Heck, I have a friend whose younger brother came here and he had lived with Japanese people all his life. He even had a Japanese mom! Even so, he had seriously bad Culture Shock for at least three months. And I know he was so incapacitated and depressed that he missed work for several weeks.

You son (and dear reader) will be better off if he understands that he will have Culture Shock like everyone else does. In fact, if he understands it and expects it, it might bounce off him like rain on a duck!

And that was basically the letter.

I hope my friend’s son comes to Japan and that he does well. I love this place and have never regretted moving here even once.

If you decide to come to Japan to live, or move anywhere else outside your native country, please do yourself a favor and at least get a cursory understanding of Culture Shock and be ready for it when it comes. That way, you’ll understand what is happening and it will just be another part of the experience.

Oh, and I also suggest that you start liking tentacles for breakfast.

For a humorous article on this same subject, may I recommend this? Five Things They Never Tell You About Living in Japan

Dedicated to my friends, Mark Davis and Shea Davis

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) Gun Control and Japan

Just like the title says, I've been to a hard-core Islamist country and a very frightening fascist country. I'd like to tell you about it.

What can I say about this fascist country? I feared for my safety. That country is called a melting pot as it has people living there who come from many different countries with different cultures and they practice many different religions. Even so, I have been told that this country is 70% Christian (they don't act like Christians!) with the rest a mix of many others. This is not a very peaceful country and it has an extremely high crime rate. There is little freedom to do as one pleases. The government seems to spy on the people for even the most mundane things.

I suppose it’s because they are at war constantly.

Before I arrived in their country, in the airplane before we landed, they made me fill out all sorts of stupid forms asking all sorts of ridiculous questions. Upon landing, the very unfriendly customs and immigration agents seemed like they hated their jobs, lives, and wished I’d never bothered them by visiting their country. It is unnerving to be given the stink-eye like I am some sort of terrorist. I am often disheveled and possibly suspicious looking but I think I am hardly terrorist material or even terrorist-looking material.

With a gasp of exasperation, the man stamps my passport, mumbles something to me and waves us by with one finger as he grimaces at the next in line.

How warm and polite.

I reckon an old 1/2 white guy and his Japanese wife and half Japanese kid don’t fit the bill of your typical terrorists, but that doesn’t stop them from making you sorry you were ever born and feeling unwanted in their country by way of an unpleasant interrogation.

That is a country that is suffering from a distinct lack of freedom and a terrible overdose of paranoia suffered by the populace. There is a tension in the air, which seems of the racial sort, as the denizens of that country even fear for their lives at night out in their own neighborhoods in many places. The police scowl at everyone everywhere. The rules are plentiful; you have to wear seat belts when driving a car and helmets while on bikes; you can't talk on cellphones while driving; you can't do this nor can you do that… Heck, you can't even do simple things like walk in public smoking a cigarette or drinking an adult beverage.

Yes, that’s the way it is in the USA, a decidedly fascist country and police state. I don’t go there anymore.

What can I say about the Islamic country? I went to Malaysia. I felt very safe there. Malaysia is called a melting pot as it has people living there who come from many different countries with many different cultures and they practice many different religions. I was told by a Malay taxi driver that Malaysia is a majority Islamic, 25% Buddhist and a small percent Christian nation. Malaysia is a very peaceful country with an extremely low crime rate.

I suppose it's because they are not at war constantly.

When flying out to Malaysia, I was surprised because on the plane there were no special forms or registration sheets to fill out. "Surely this must have been some mistake!" I thought. So I asked the stewardess.

"No!" came the reply, "No forms to fill out before landing in Malaysia."

Upon leaving the plane, I was stunned to see that there was no one at customs checking what was in our bags. We picked them up and walked on and, just as we were to depart the terminal, a lone immigration man smiled at us, took our luggage tags and, “Visiting?” he grinned as looked down and patted my son on the head. "Have a wonderful time!" he smiled as he waved us goodbye without a second glance.

How warm and polite.

Two female followers of Islam obviously suffering from Islam's intolerance and discrimination towards women laugh and frolic while enjoying some time in the pool at a five-star hotel in Malaysia's Penang Island Resort.

I reckon an old 1/2 white guy and his Japanese wife and half Japanese kid don’t fit the bill of your typical terrorists so left us alone. Or maybe, because Malaysia isn’t bombing foreign countries 24/7, everyone leaves them alone too. Do unto others and all that.

Malaysia is a country that is definitely not suffering from a lack of freedom and an overdose of paranoia suffered by the populace. I saw one policeman the entire two weeks I was there. You didn’t have to wear seat belts when driving a car or helmets while on bikes. Some people were riding three or four people on a single motorcycle! Heck, you could even walk in public drinking a beer or smoking a cigarette wherever you wanted.

Yes. That’s the way it is in Malaysia, an Islamic country, a very free and peaceful society.

But, in America, a supposedly “free” country how is it? In America, you could never do those simple things that the Malay people take for granted everyday of their lives.

And that concludes my review of an Islamic country and a fascist one. 

This article is dedicated to a person who I think is a true hero for our times, Becky Akers!

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) The US Government's Proven Record of Keeping the Peace

When it comes to gun control in the USA the logic of the progressives works in a very curious way. They often like to cherry pick nations from around the world to compare with the USA. One of their favorite nations to use as a comparison is Japan.

The argument goes like this; "Gun crimes are out of control in the United States! In America, over eleven thousand people are killed with guns every year! Japan has strict gun control laws and only a handful of people are killed with guns annually. Therefore Japan proves that gun control works. The United States should have gun control laws like Japan!"

You've heard this argument. I'm constantly hearing it; "If the United States were more like Japan"… "If the United States had gun laws like Japan, then gun crimes would virtually disappear."

Is this true?

Well, it is certainly true that overall Japan is a much safer place than the United States. The data show this to be fact. I would also venture to say that, in many ways, it would be better if the United States and American people were more like Japan and the Japanese people. But I suppose that's a samurai sword that cuts both ways; there are plenty of unfortunate things about Japan and the Japanese that sometimes make me wish it were more like the USA and American people.

Is directly comparing Japan's gun laws and crime rate with the USA a good and logical comparison? Does this make sense? Are the progressives bringing up a point that is difficult to argue against? Can we make an apples-to-apples comparison using Japan against the USA?

The answer is no. Unfortunately for the progressives, we can't sensibly make that comparison and I want to show you why it's absurd to even consider it. The only things that might make sense in a Japan versus USA comparison might have to do with economics, automobiles, love of sushi and baseball (and I'm not so sure about the baseball part). If we are talking about gun control, crimes, or even universal health care, Japan and the United States are two animals that are as different as night and day.

We probably can't even fairly compare Japanese girl's fashions

Let me show you why and then when anyone makes this sort of comparison, you should smile and remind them of these few points…

You want to compare the United States to Japan?

The United States is a country that isn't even 250 years old.

Japan has been a nation for over 2,700 years.

The United States is a nation of citizens that came from all over the world. Pureblood Native Americans account for a mere 0.9% of the total population.

Japan is a nation that consists of 98.5% of the population as being pureblood native Japanese. These Japanese people are descendants from those folks who came here 30,000 years ago.

Some people consider that the USA has a huge immigration problem. In the United States, there are estimates of up to 20 million illegal aliens in the country.

Japan is not known to have an immigration problem. Japan is extremely strict on immigration. About 150,000 people per year are allowed to immigrate to this country.

Any child born in the USA is automatically awarded citizenship even if that child's mother is in the country illegally. This accounts for about 380,000 new Americans annually.

Just because you were born in Japan doesn't mean that you can get Japanese citizenship. Even those living here today, as permanent residents, whose grandparents were brought to Japan as slaves from Korea or Taiwan over one hundred years ago, are not given Japanese citizenship upon birth.

"Cultural Identity" and "United States of America" are not words that I often note in the same sentence. The United States is a good example of a country that is considered a "Melting pot."

The Japanese have an extremely strong cultural identity. Japan is a good example of one of the world's few homogenous societies.

The United States was born in a revolution against a monarchy and all through its history it has had a civilian population that has always been well armed.

Japan was a caste society for thousands of years. The people — the peasantry — have never been armed. There was never any idea of democracy in feudal Japan and the people never considered rising up against the aristocrats and the warlords.

The United States was also founded on the principle that "All men are created equal."

In Japan's feudal caste society, 98% of the population was the peasantry; the remaining two percent were aristocrats, warriors and merchants. People were far from equal.

In the United States, the law of the land, written in the 1780s, says that the people have the right to keep and bear arms. People in the United States have a history of a country awash with guns.

In ancient Japan, the people were not even allowed to carry swords. The Great Sword Hunt was carried out in 1588 and disarmed everyone. The only ones who were ever allowed to carry arms were the warrior class. Guns? What guns?

According to the Global Peace Index, the United States ranks a lowly 88th place (One rank above the People's Republic of China). Japan is ranked as the 5th most peaceful nation in the world.

According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, in 2012, the USA had 56,600,000 people on some sort of government financial assistance.

According to Japan's Ministry of Health Labour and Welfare, as of June 2012, there were 2,115,477 people on some sort of government financial assistance.

In the USA, the official numbers show unemployment at 7.8% of the population. Unofficially, according to Shadow Stats, the unemployment rate is about 23%.

In Japan official unemployment stands at about 4.2%. Unofficially it is at 5.7%.

And that's just a few of the big differences. There's much more but I think you get the picture,

Now, you tell me, after considering the above, is comparing Japan and the United States fair when it comes to gun control or even Universal Health Care?

Can we find a cure for gun crime in the United States by looking at how another country with a vastly different history, culture and people with a completely different experience have dealt with it or do we have to look within ourselves and our own nation?

Could it be that the gun crimes and murder rate in the USA have little to do with the numbers of guns and everything to do with what Henson Ong said at a gun violence prevention public hearing said,

"Gun control does not work. Your own history is replete with high school rifle teams, Boy Scout marksmanship merit badges. You could buy rifles at hardware stores. You could order them — mail order them — delivered to your home. Your country was awash in readily available firearms and ammunition. And yet, in your past, you did not have mass shootings… What changed? It was not that the availability of guns suddenly exploded or increased, it actually decreased… What changed was societal decay…"

I think it must be pretty obvious to anyone who thinks about it when talking about gun control and crimes (or even universal health care) comparing the United States to Japan is like comparing a steak barbeque to a slice of fish.

Men may be from Mars, and women are from Venus, but never forget that the Japanese are most definitely from Japan… Americans are from who-knows-where and that’s why they are hard to compare.

And that's just the way it is.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers: Stop the Obesity Carnage! Establish a ‘No Pie Zone’ and Ban Spoons!

This is an open letter to one of my friends who is pro-gun control… Well, that’s not exactly true; he doesn't just want gun control. He wants to make all guns completely illegal.

Dear Lenny (not his real name),

About gun control: I agree with you. We need to protect the children. I understand that the best entity to do that is undoubtedly the US government. They have a proven record of success that cannot be matched!

Perhaps you should tell everyone who is against gun control about how the U.S. government protected them when they killed about 1 million Native Americans (who, by the way, didn’t have guns). Those Native Americans were savages and they had to die to make way for our God-given manifest destiny and us.

Also remind people not to forget the great protection the US government gave its own citizens when it waged a war against them and killed nearly 700,000 of them in a war to protect sanctity of the state between 1861 and 1865? A war that killed citizens that had voted in that government to protect them!

Or how, as late as about 1890, the US government righteously executed over 150 American Indians (80% were women and children) in a legal gun seizure raid at Wounded Knee? Or those evil Branch Davidians at Waco, TX in 1993, killing 76 men, women and children?

Don't forget to mention the now rarely disputed view that FDR knew about and encouraged the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor — and didn’t allow his commanders to know about it, so that 2400+ Americans died? FDR did that to save lives!

Sure, sometimes there are tough choices to make, right? But remind everyone that the US government are always the Good Guys, with God on our side. Everyone makes mistakes, but at least our government means well.

Isn't it wonderful living in the greatest country in the world?

Oh, and don't forget to mention about how the U.S. government — which would never turn on its citizens — imprisoned about 112,000 peaceful Japanese Americans during WWII? And also imprisoned peaceful German Americans during both world wars (over 2,000 in World War I and over 11,000 in World War II.)

Or, don't forget to mention shooting peaceful student protestors and killing them at Kent State in 1970! Sure, those things happened… But it was for those students’ own protection!

9/11? What? There another 3000 died. But no one could possibly imagine that our benevolent leaders would intentionally allow the world’s most powerful, most feared, air force to sit at base doing nothing at the time, right? Let us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th.

Some nutcases will argue that US history is replete with the US government committing gross crimes against humanity (Hiroshima, Nagasaki) and a litany of atrocities against its own people. But these cases are all hearsay. What proof do they have?

Blowing away a few to several hundred troublesome Americans matters to no one except conspiracy nuts and terrorists, right? I mean, if they are troublesome, they can't be "real Americans," anyway!)

We need to protect the children. We need to take guns out of the hands of the citizens and give it back to the government….

After all, history shows that the US government is our best protector. They’ve proven, without a doubt, again and again, that they will take care of us!

Thanks to my friend, David Kramer.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Recently by Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers: Why Korea Beats Japan

“Obesity, Diabetes, Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure costs this country more than $120 billion dollars each year.” — Michele Obama

It is well known that obesity is Americas number one killer today. Don’t believe me; just take a gander at the video of Michelle Obama as she makes the quote above. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! 

“The spoons made me do it!”

Recently many people in the USA have been calling for a gun ban as we all know that inanimate objects (as well as God, dogs, voices in the head and Frank Zappa recordings) can and do control human actions. Guns are responsible for about 9,000 deaths in the US annually. Meanwhile obesity, er, I mean, spoons and forks, account for over 300,000 deaths. Where are our priorities?

Of course we need to ban all guns and ammo (as well as camouflage clothing, night vision glasses, Coleman camping equipment and sterno lanterns). But, let’s get our house in order and set our priorities straight! We must fight back against the obesity epidemic by severely restricting spoons and all other types of silverware and table utensils that make it easier to become obese!

The real problem with America today is obesity not gun murders… Therefore I propose a federal ban on spoons as too many Americans eat far too much ice cream and sweets… I also propose enforcing a “No Pie Zone” over all major American cities.

Let’s now put our heads together and find a way, a true way, in the American spirit of bi-partisanship, towards finding the best way to deal with this obesity scourge that is obviously caused by kitchen utensils. 

I have a dream! Today spoons and forks, tomorrow desert plates and tablecloths!

Let the discussion begin! Here’s how we tackle this obesity epidemic once and for all! Here are selected quotes from my distinguished panel of friends! 

Red Brown: You need to move incrementally — you can’t just throw this down all at once. First you need to make people register their spoons, and also restrict the capacity of spoons allowed. Once that becomes accepted, you can move towards limiting the number of spoons a person can have, and you can also restrict the movement or exchange of any spoons. Then, and this is the important part, you announce that there is a bill in the works to criminalize any and all silverware. Finally, you strike down all the provisions of this new bill except banning spoons of any type. You also move most of the old spoon restrictions over to forks. Everyone thinks they got off pretty well and gives up their spoons — easy as that!

Marc Abela: Since you don’t want to alarm everyone, first I suggest we increase taxes and add bureaucrats who will build a paper based federal spoon-registry list… all spoons will need to have a serial number on them, and they will need to be registered and attached to a clearly identified owner…

Me: Good idea! I suggest a federal commission be created to study the feasibility of federally mandated studies studying registration of spoons. Perhaps we can implant chips in the spoons to make sure individuals are not sharing their spoons with other people in violation of section 23.1234B (section d) of the “Freedom in Spoonerisms Act of 2013.” My only fear is that people will use loopholes to get around the laws and insist, for example, that those little plastic spoons you get at Starbucks for stirring coffee be exempt from all federal regulations and taxes.

Robert Gibson Hill: Make everyone eat with a coke-spoon.

Me: Harrumph! Are those Coke spoons under the 16oz legal size limit?

Red Brown: Unfortunately, a huge black market, of illegal spoons from foreign countries and also locally made spoons, explodes into existence and the Feds create a new bureaucracy called the BATFU (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms & Utensils). This monstrosity consumes 1/10 of our federal budget and most of the employees are grossly overweight. It doesn’t matter though because nobody but extremists and conspiracy theorists give a sh*t.

Me: ”BATFU !?” I laughed so hard coffee came out of my nostrils on that one! Well, it looks good on paper, but will it really work? Usually, as Ron Paul says, “Enforcing No Pie Zones” is an act of war under the Geneva Convention… And it’s usually followed by a full fledged military invasion (to seize spoons). Can the US afford such actions under the current economic environment? I think not… That is, unless, of course, the invasion pays for itself when we melt down those spoons and resale the metal to China (like the Iraq war was paid for by the oil we seized from them).

Red Brown: The BATFU is here to see you! They are now working with the DHS (Dept. of Household Security) and need to see your kitchen. A no pie zone has been established between Wendy’s and Arby’s, where your neighborhood is.

Red Brown: It is illegal to have your own black market pie, but you can buy commercial pies — they just taste like sh*t and cost a lot. I have heard there is a pied pipeline, from Mexico, and you can get pies there — they all taste like cinnamon, though.

Me: I hear Hostess pies are still available downtown on Market & 5th street after 8 pm. Ask around….

Red Brown: I’m cracking myself up just thinking about this — what a total folly it always is when the government sets out to help us by harming us.

Me: No! No! You are not adult and mature enough to understand the difference between a spoon that is safe and a dangerous one. Sure, sure, some people say spoons are a “Gateway utensil” that, later on in life, leads to even more over eating, but that hasn’t been proven in laboratory tests!

Me: Heads Up! They just made these illegal! 

Read the description on this pocket monstrosity! It says, “Look like a big honkin' Swiss army knife. The Eatensil is designed for the kitchen. It combines seven tools which make eating easier — a spoon, fork, knife, pizza cutter, chopsticks, bottle opener and wooden chip fork — all in a Swiss Army Knife-type casing.” The Eatensil?! We’ve got to put a stop to this!

Red Brown: Remember, food is bad. The last two letters in "food" are OD (outside diameter) as if it were some kind of sick joke. I used chopsticks the other night — they are the bolt-action rifle of utensils, for sure; easy to manufacture, though. How anyone could get fat with those damned things is beyond me…

Me: You are either with us or you’re with the delicatessen owners!

Marc Abela: OK so, I’m ready when you are, my “But spoons DO help” poster should be ready in a few moments (for the moment all the crazy revolutionary rebels come shouting our way “Spoons don’t feed people, people feed people!”).

Yep. Outlaw guns because guns cause gun crimes. Outlaw glass bottles at bars because glass bottles cause people to get their necks slashed. Outlaw kitchen knives because they stab people…

And always remember to shout down those who don’t think that inanimate objects control people to do things they normally wouldn’t do. The evidence is there and the science is settled…

If anyone says, “Spoons don’t feed people, people feed people” make sure you print this article and shove it down their throats… 

Because, as everyone knows, printing machines cause choking.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

I was at my son’s school the other day and got into a conversation with a friend who is the chief of Japan operations for Korea's electronics giant, Samsung corporation. His son and my son are in the same class again this year and so it was very pleasant to see him and talk. During that talk, we came to the subject of how Samsung is dominating the market in flat screen TVs and moving that direction in the hand held computers and cellphones field too.

In August of this year, the Wall Street Journal ran this article entitled, “How Japan Lost its Electronics Crown“

Sony, Sharp and Panasonic combined to lose about $20 billion in the past fiscal year. That is a contrast with the glory days of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Japan started to dominate the world of consumer electronics. As the Japanese economy surged, the electronics conglomerates ruled the market for memory chips, color TVs, and videocassette recorders, while their research labs gave birth to gadgets that would define an era: the Walkman, CD and DVD players.

Now, Japan’s device makers are an afterthought to Apple Inc., Google Inc. and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co.

Or, how about this interesting tidbit from Marmot Hole a blog about Korea?

Samsung Now Bigger Than Nine of Japan's Major Electronics Companies

And you thought Samsung was big enough already since it accounted for more than a fifth of Korea's GDP.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Samsung Electronics' operating profit, at $3.14 billion, is more than two times larger than the combined operating profit of nine of Japan's largest consumer electronic companies. Samsung now has a $7.4 billion war chest to spend on growth and R&D where many of the Japanese companies are at an operating loss (Sony) or in huge debt (Hitachi).

These articles touch on some very important points, like value of yen and style issues, but both my Samsung friend and I agree that the biggest problem for Japanese companies versus Korean companies in today's world may not be simply issues with design and ease of use, but it has a lot more to do with corporate culture in Japan.

Frankly speaking, from what I’ve seen, Korean companies will continue to beat Japanese companies for the foreseeable future. There’s no way out. Why? Because inside a Korean company, there are no factions fighting for position like what goes on at a Japanese company.

My Samsung friend put it this way,

“At a Korean company everyone is on the same bus and we are all going the same way. At a Japanese company, the leaders have a very difficult time getting everyone pointed in the same direction.”

He’s absolutely right.

At a Japanese company groups are struggling within, and against each other, to gain power. At Korean companies, I gather they feel it is “Korea versus the world!”

When I worked as an executive at a major Japanese TV station subsidiary, I saw a consistent infighting between three or four factions for power. When faction “A” would come to power, the other factions seemed to not put in their best effort. In fact, I saw times when the other factions would actually drag their feet and become a hindrance to the efforts of the group in power; and, in turn, a hindrance to corporate profitability.

It was infuriating to me as a foreigner who wasn’t inside of any group to see people protecting their friends and their position as the number one work priority rather than the success of the company business or the project.

It seems to me that the success of the project would automatically protect one’s position. But, no! These folks wanted success for sure, but only if their group was the one in power when that success occurred.

I saw this same problem at a Sony subsidiary and another TV network I worked at in the mid 80s ~ early 90s; and you can readily see this same problem in Japanese politics anytime anywhere.

I was, and am still to this day, astounded at the immaturity of some of these people.

As an aside, at my son’s annual school festival, the Korean families always run their “Korea booth” featuring delicacies from their home. It’s a wonderful time for all. I was chairperson of the PTA committee one year and was able to witness first hand how the Korean team worked. It surprised me that the women worked in the exact same pecking order as their husbands had at work; the wife of the highest ranking executive was the boss of the Korean booth; wives of second tier executives were second in-charge, and so on. There seemed to be no friction; just total teamwork. Everyone was certainly facing the same way and the boss of the Korea Booth proudly told me, “We are striving to sell the most food and give the biggest donation of any country to the school and charity!” She was dead serious about it too.

There goes that “Korea against the world!” again.

Several weeks ago, well before it had “only” 100 million views, I posted the video about Korean sensation PSY on a video countdown weeks before it exploded on the consciousness of Americans and the Japanese. At that time, the video had about three times more views than the entire population of South Korea! I was astounded!

Nevertheless, after posting the video, some small minded people came out and made silly comments like, “Oh, he’s just copying the Japanese.” Or, a week ago or so, after the song because popular in the USA, I saw an article on Yahoo (America) that said, “Will PSY be a one-hit wonder?”

Yeah, I wish I could be even a 1/100th of a one-hit hit wonder. My video would then still have over 3 million views!

What the heck! The guy sings in Korean! Probably he will be a one-hit wonder in the USA. But, so what? The guy’s video, “Gangnam Style” has, as of this moment, 319,052,309 views! That’s the most viewed video in history! That more than twice the views of Justin Beiber’s “Boyfriend.” PSY might possibly be one of the biggest stars in Korea, possibly Asia, in all of history.

Not bad for a guy who “copies” stuff or is a “one hit wonder,” eh?

Why are people so jealous of these Korean success stories? I am happy and pleased to see guys like PSY and companies like Samsung doing so well. Competition is healthy and competition makes us all up the quality of our game. Those who chatter and grouse only show their immaturity and lack of self-reflection and professionalism…. We need to learn from them because, well, as they say, “the best revenge is success” and it seems the Koreans are doing quite nicely thank you.

I really hate to say this because I am half-Japanese, but, sometimes I think MacArthur was right when he said, “Japan is a nation of twelve-year-olds.”

If the Japanese don’t snap out of it and get with the program and start all dedicating their efforts to the success of the project, rather than protection of their position, they’re going to become a nation of very poor twelve-year-olds.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

“It’s easy to be conspicuously compassionate if others are being forced to pay the cost”

~ Murray Rothbard

I admit it. I discriminate. I am kind and respectful to the elderly; I am helpful to the handicapped and I open doors for women.

When I go into a Japanese restaurant, I am a racist. I don't want to see a white guy or a black guy or a Latino guy, or even a Korean guy making my sushi. Funny that. When I go into a Korean restaurant I certainly don't want to see a Japanese making the food either (ask any Koreans you know if they agree with me).

And speaking of Seoul food, ditto goes for, say a German or Italian, or down-south real Soul food restaurant; and nope, I don't want to see a guy named Yamazaki making the pork chops and gravy with collard greens.

I guess that makes me a sexist and a racist and all sorts of naughty things and, in some people's eyes, an all-around scum of the earth.

I am proud to say I discriminate.

People who claim that sexism or racism should be outlawed by the nation will say, “I dream of a world where people can be judged not by their skin color or sex, but by their merits." They claim that want everyone treated equally.

Then they go on, in the next breath, and say, "But special considerations for some people!" 

That's very subjective and hypocritical.

One great example we often hear in Japan is how women are treated like "Second-class citizens." This seems a curious notion in a country where women hold the pursestrings in over 80% of all Japanese households.

So many will say, “Women in Japan are discriminated against and should have equal rights and equal pay at the workplace!" Yet we have "Women’s Only” cars on trains and subways that operate during morning rush hours to work… Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with “Women’s Only” cars… But I practice discrimination so it doesn’t bother me. I don’t claim that “everyone is the same and we are all equal.” 

We’re not.

The ones who claim to want everyone treated equally are far too often subjective about what that means. They claim to want to use morality as a guide, but fail to see how that, too, is totally subjective. 

I have a handicapped daughter and don’t want people to be treated equal. I want special considerations for some. I love how Disneyland allows handicapped people to go directly to the front of the line and ride the rides. Is this discrimination? Yes! And I thank Disneyland for it. 

My daughter is handicapped. I call her "perfect!"

Also, I want to decide, for myself, how and to who those "special" considerations should be applied. For example, I like having elevators and facilities for the handicapped; I think it is good there are men’s and women’s restrooms; I think pregnant women, old people and the handicapped should be treated with deference, kindness and respect and be given seats on the trains and buses, (I’m old fashioned) etc. 

Even though we should give up our seats to handicapped, old or pregnant (and others) do we need laws to force kindness or morality? No. And, by the way, just how does a law that forces us to, say, give up our seats to old people promote equality? I think that is forced age discrimination, isn’t it?

I also think forced equality is bad for business… 

Let’s be ridiculous for a moment and look at what anti-discrimination laws that force equality in employment would do to professional sports! Take the NBA (please!) Can you imagine having your favorite basketball team staffed with people that represent the cultural make-up of their “home” market? Imagine the new and improved Los Angeles Lakers; two white guys, one black guy, and one each of a Hispanic, short-legged Japanese who can't jump, a great Jewish athlete (good luck finding one of those), two women, one gay and one lesbian, a transexual, a transvestite, a Democrat, and a hairdresser (I can’t specify sex of hair dresser as that would be discriminatory!). 

It would be wonderful. Probably would draw in as large the crowds the freak shows do at Ringling Brothers Circus!

Nope. I guess that won’t do.

The only way to handle this discrimination “problem” is the private property vs. public property philosophy of Libertarianism. Libertarianism stands up for the free rights of all people.

Michael S. Rozeff once wrote: 

“…Libertarianism champions equal rights. It champions the person and the potential of every person to use liberty to the fullest. Libertarians would NEVER have authored Jim Crow laws or denied the vote on the grounds of race or denied equal access to public facilities depending on one’s race. Libertarians have for decades preached against the drug war, which severely discriminates against blacks and browns. The prisons are filled disproportionately with people of color. Libertarians have stood staunchly against wars initiated by the U.S. against people of color and fought to a large extent by American soldiers of color…”

In this Libertarian philosophy, private property is respected. You can do what you want with your private property as long as you do not commit aggression against me. Not allowing people in your private business, for whatever reason, is your choice. That you do not allow some people onto your premises is not, in any sense of the word, aggression against anyone. 

In fact, if you stop and think about it, people who want to use government power to force their morality onto others are the ones committing aggression.

I don’t have any right to order you to associate with people you don’t want to on your private property. Nor do you have the right to tell me how to run my business or who I should allow as my customers. 

We don't need laws against stupidity or bad business decisions. You can’t outlaw stupidity. It won’t work.

A public property (paid for by taxes) is a different story. Those places must be open to everyone regardless of race, creed or color.(But we all know the public government discriminates all the time). 

If a restaurant policy of, say, “No dark skinned people,” was so odious that it scared away (or pissed off) all their customers (even ones without dark skin) what would happen to that restaurant? It would probably go bankrupt very quickly, right? The free market would handle the issue. 

I don’t have dark skin and if I saw a sign that said, ”No dark skinned people,” I wouldn’t patronize the place at all (I’ve been discriminated against many times in my life and I have friends who are gay, lesbians, women, men, whites, transvestites, transexuals, Indians (from India), Indians (from America), Bangladeshis, Germans, Kiwis, Aussies, blacks, etc. etc….) and I don't particularly care for it, but I will not ask that government force people to do something they don't want to do.

If I saw a sign that said, “No darkies!” I certainly wouldn’t want my friends to go in there and would seriously wonder if they weren't nuts if they insisted upon doing so…. But! I don’t think that the government can pass laws on who you associate with or laws against stupidity…. 

The more laws we have, the worse things are getting (current situation should be proof enough of that fact!)

And this brings me to an absurd real-life example of how confused people are when they base their ideas of how we should deal with discrimination on a "moral level" instead of considering private property rights first:

Now, in Japan, some people who scream “Discrimination” are in a huff because the Japanese women’s team had to fly to the Olympics in economy class while the men's teams flew business… Well, that is terrible sexism! By the folks screaming, "Discrimination!" A second ago, these same people were spouting the virtues of "treating people equally" but now they want special consideration because these athletes are women!?

Why the sudden contradiction whereby suddenly now they think the women should be treated differently because they are women? Uh, don’t look now, but they are now contradicting themselves!

Why did the women fly economy class while the men flew business class?

Simple: they were treated equally and on their merits and their company is trying to cut costs. Makes sense to me.

Let me explain: The Olympics are a for profit organization (in spite of the nationalist brainwashing you receive about this event every few years). In just about every country, there is a privately run organization, that runs their own “Olympics” (kind of like a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise). The owners of the Olympic games know from advice given by their Madison Avenue Marketing agencies that to make money, they need to promote statism and nationalism.

It’s an old, tried and true formula. 

In the Japanese case, the men’s Olympic soccer team has a professional soccer league, the Japan Soccer Association (JSA) involved in the money making. That men’s league get’s 15,000 ~ 35,000 people paying to come and see their games. The games are televised. Some players play in European leagues. They have big name sponsors, money and all players are professionals. 

The women’s league? Well, now, they lose money every year. They almost went bankrupt in 2000 and are now subsidized by the JSA. The women’s games have a hard time with attendance. They might have a few hundred fans in attendance (nonpaying mostly), no TV, few sponsors and no professionals…

Now, in a privately run for profit organization, why should the women be treated differently from the men? If the owner wants to do so, then that is their choice. If we want them treated differently then that is acknowledgement of their differences… Hence sexism (polite booing here, please!) 

The Olympic committee is not run by taxes (thank God for that!) If it were, then I could see people complaining. (And they'd better be complaining about spending their tax money on Olympic crap otherwise I'd backhand them!)

See what I mean? Here, let me explain it for your Liberal friends:

Team A makes lots of money. They fly 1st class. Team B loses lots of money and is subsidized by an organization that lives off the profits of Team A. Team B flies economy class. What’s the problem with that?

To claim, in this case, that Team B should fly business class, the same as Team A, is not fair and is discrimination.

I can’t see how these people complain about “discrimination” but then, a second later, say that women should be treated differently.

If this Olympic committee were a government run organization, paid for by our taxes, they probably legally can't do that. But, they are a private organization paid for by private investments and sponsors: they can do what they want with their money and their property and their employees…. The same as a privately run restaurant can. No?

After all, exercising freedom of choice is exercising discrimination.

Like I said, I exercise discrimination constantly: I help the handicapped, I am kind to old people and to pregnant women and give my seat to them on the train; I like to go to Sushi restaurants and see a Japanese sushi chef. I like to go to Italian restaurants and see an Italian cooking (trust I will ask where the chef is from or will have checked before I arrived)… on and on… I don’t mind it if people want to enjoy their space and I don’t think we should force people to associate with those they do not wish to.

I certainly don’t really care if someone is gay, lesbian, transsexual, Indian, black, Hispanic (though I am quite partial to Japanese women!) Oops! There I go discriminating again….

Many of these people who scream "discrimination!" are not consistent in their thoughts because they are confused on private property. How you run your place of business is up to you and no one has the right to tell you how to act or what you can and cannot do inside of your own house or in your place of business.

So, well, until the Japanese women's team wins gold in soccer at the London Olympics, or they become a profitable private business, I guess they'll be relegated to economy class… If were up to me, I wish they could ride business class… But it is not…. And, I'm certainly not volunteering to pay for them to ride business class when their employer is not… Are you?

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

My father died last year. One of the last wishes of this retired career marine father was to have a burial at sea in the tradition of the military.

He told me upon his death bed, "The only important things in my life were the US marines, your mother and you kids."

I wasn't pleased at all with this decision for a military burial as I do not believe that the US military really "takes care of its own" at all. One need just look at all the military veterans who are homeless or had their bodies and ashes dumped in landfills for evidence of this. But it was my father's life and death and, since I no longer live in the USA, it was difficult for me to try to convince my father and remaining family that we should have a quiet family-only ceremony like we did for my mother.

I was hoping for a small and respectful burial at the same place my family sent my mom's ashes back to the sea at the peaceful and oh so serene Japanese temple that was surrounded by blue skies, mountains and nature on the coast of Kyushu, Japan. That was a ceremony whose hallowed silence was punctuated only by the sound of the waves crashing on the rocks and the birds overhead; the only other sounds were the sobs and cries (along with hugs) amongst the four of us remaining relatives in attendance.

That ceremony, to me, represented reverence and respect for the dead; a tranquil and close family affair just for us. Not one surrounded by strangers, with a military band blasting out marching tunes with no immediate family present.

Nevertheless, my father believed that he wanted to be thanked for his service to his country. In spite of my voiced hesitation, he had the full support of my militarist cheerleading state-worshipping brother. I was out-voted and a military-style burial at sea was decided.

Interestingly enough though, and as is par for the course for Leviathan, it took six months for the funeral proceedings to take place. Even though my father died in September of 2011, his burial was in March of 2012. In an curious twist of fate and timing, I received a DVD video of my father's burial at sea over the Memorial Day holiday.

Unfortunately, the video was painful to watch. The fact of the matter is that, in my opinion, the video wasn't so much a ceremony and tribute to my father who "fought for his country;" it was, in fact, a video of a ceremony that celebrated the American military machine; it was an orgy for the glorification of the State and US militarism.

Even though I shed a tear for my father, I'm sorry to say that the video of the ceremony nearly disgusted me.

In the background of the video, dubbed in music played the national anthem, the Marine Hymn and, even more in line with bargain-basement "celebration" quality of the proceedings, a country song was overdubbed that included the singing refrain, "I'm glad to be an American. Where I can be free."

I wondered, "Is this really reverence for a dead soldier and his family?"

Before you folks who are family of the military dead are too quick to judge my criticism, listen to this: I also received the US flag that was supposedly used in the video for my dad's ceremony. Unfortunately, and pardon my politically incorrect language, but even a blind man can see that the flag I received isn't the one used in the video of the burial ceremony. The one I have in my possession is twice the size of the one that was used in the video. Am I supposed to have some sort of emotional tie to this flag? What does this flag have to do with the one used in my father's ceremony besides both probably being manufactured in China?

Sorry, folks. These are different flags.

Or is the purpose of this flag that I was sent a continuation of the state-sponsored propaganda and use of the dead to influence the thinking of the living? Is this another token that is supposed to make the owner of the flag "proud to be an American" too?

It doesn't make me proud at all.

I'm sorry. Dad, I love you and I am proud of you, but you didn't go to war in Korea to protect our freedoms; you went to war over there to further US economic interests and the US empire. That you never figured that out in your lifetime is sad. But, I hope that you are in a better place and have had the chance to speak directly with a former US marine general by now.

That my still very much alive university educated brother is too dim to see it today in all American militarism is a testament to the power of the American propaganda machine and brainwashing by the mass media. That I write this is merely a warning to American people to wake up.

In Japan, the old order before World War Two told people that they went to war in China and Asia to bring peace and to fight for the emperor. In the USA, the old — and current — order tell people that they go to war to be free and to protect American freedoms.

These things are all lies.

In this regards, the Japanese are decades ahead of the average American; they figured out long ago that the propaganda was a lie. The average American still buys this trash hook, line and sinker.

My father was duped this way in life and now in death. My living relatives also believe this. It is sad that, in life and in death, my father is still used as a tool of the state…

Of course, from this short missive, I will expect to get the usual hail of criticism and hate mail claiming that I disrespect the military or their service. That I, a person with no experience in battle, are using the sacrifices that these men and women made "protecting my freedoms" so that I may make these claims.

To that I say, "Poppycock!"

In response to the anticipated storm of hate mail, I'd like to borrow the words of another famous American statesman and true patriot whose experience in battle rivals my own: "Bring it on!"

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you." ~ Pericles 

I sit at the Yakitori-ya (BBQ chicken on sticks restaurant) and nurse my beer and a few delicious sticks of chicken. Tanaka san, the neighborhood school English teacher, howls besides me about the decline of Japanese civilization.

“Japanese kids today don’t care about studying English. They don’t want to go to the United States anymore. They are not fascinated by the west. If Japanese kids don’t learn about other cultures, especially the United States, Japanese culture is doomed!” He says.

I think, "Japanese culture is doomed if Japanese kids don't learn about American culture!?" I laugh and have another sip.

Tanaka san comes from an older generation of Japanese that were born just after the war. He is from the generation that grew up with Elvis Presley and Rock and Roll music. The United States, to his generation of Japanese, represented dreams and freedom. Tanaka san even has posters of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe — American idols from a day long gone past — on the walls of his classroom. But, that’s not what the United States represents to young Japanese people anymore…

I say to him, ”Don’t worry about it, Tanaka san. It’s not the end of Japanese culture and civilization, it is just the end of the United States as you know it. You are just witnessing the fall of the American empire, that’s all.”

Tanaka san stares at me incredulously at the blasphemy emitting from my mouth.

“Seriously, that’s what it is, Tanaka san. Japanese kids are not interested in the United States anymore NOT so much because the Japanese kids have changed that much. Kids will always be kids and interested in fun and excitement. Today's Japanese kids are not interested in the United States because the United States isn’t fun and exciting anymore. It has changed, and not for the better. The United States isn’t a good place full of good dreams.

It used to be that the USA were the good guys, but they are not anymore. The USA and NATO lackeys as well as the UN (which has become a rubber stamp organization for US imperialism) bomb and destroy the homes and families of brown-skinned people all over the world 24/7 and it is obvious to everyone (excepting many Americans).

I also hear that Japanese student enrollment at Ivy League universities is way down. I know for a fact the enrollment in English schools inside of Japan has crashed. I submit to you that it is because of at least three things:

1. The United States has a very bad image of a country full of crime and a definitive lack of safety
2. The United States has a very bad image of a country full of abusive police and a police state (TSA, Homeland Security, etc…)
3. The United States and its people have the image of a nation of over weight war mongers

I’d like to add another one to that list, but I don’t think most Japanese realize this, and that is: Far too many Americans are completely out of touch and ignorant to the extent of the murder the US government and military are involved in in the name of the American people. The really dumb Americans act like and say, “I’m apolitical.” When, in fact, it is these very same people who are responsible for what that country has become. They can bury their heads in the sand all they want. But they are responsible.

I wonder if the sixties artists who protested the Vietnam war, guys like Bob Dylan, would have gotten very far if while the Vietnam War was going on and we were bombing those people 24/7, he’d have shrugged his shoulders and said, “I don’t know about it. I’m apolitical.” 

Ha! How can you be apolitical when your country takes your money and uses it to kill children in other countries? That’s like Germans in World War II saying they are apolitical while the Nazis killed minorities and Jews and wiped out entire populations.

“Yeah… But, well, I don’t know about that!” Typical American says. 

Since when has ignorance been an excuse?

So this situation is why Japanese kids are no longer fascinated with the USA. I believe it is also a big reason American and western rock artists are no longer popular here. Guys like Michael Jackson used to be able to sell out Tokyo Dome! Today? No way, not even Coldplay or Lady Gaga. There's no western artist in the entire world that can sell out tokyo Dome today. Japanese artists, on the other hand, sell out multiple nights in a row at the dome.

What ever happened to western musicians who had a message and something to say? Weren’t politically charged and motivated artists in the sixties moving entire segments of society? They sure were in Japan!

What’s the difference between the artists of those days and today’s American artists? Back in those days, the American military were bombing and killing brown skinned children 24/7, in a few countries, yet American musicians sang about it and protested. They were popular all over the world.

Today, the American military are bombing and killing brown skinned children all over the world 24/7, in a half dozen countries, yet American musicians, for the large part, are in muted silence… They tell me, “I’m apolitical.”

Ha! Yeah, and you American Rock musicians are not popular and don’t sell your music all over the world like you used to either. 

I wonder if there is a connection?

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.”

~ Maya Angelo

I had many reasons for leaving the USA and moving overseas. One of the big reasons was, because of traveling outside of the USA a lot in university days, I began to realize that the story (brainwashing) about the USA being the “Greatest Country on Earth” (that we were all taught in school) wasn’t exactly true. 

The propaganda involving American exceptionalism and how “we are different (better)” certainly wasn’t true either.

Many people’s of the world are proud of their countries (rightly so) and think they are living in the best country in the world… I’ve met many those outside the USA. Before I had met these people, I was under the impression that everyone was desperately trying to find a way to escape their country and get to the USA… 

Maybe trying to escape to the USA was the dream of most people during World War II. It’s not that way today. In fact, it seems that it’s definitely become the opposite of that today; American people are trying to leave the USA. 

I notice that, over this last year or two, this talk and the topic of folks escaping from the USA has gotten bigger and bigger. Of course, the MSM doesn’t report it. The fact that online and offline publications (like my favorites International Man and Dollar Vigilante) as well as many other that have popped up supporting expatriation or diversifying out of the dollar, shows you what readers of LRC have known all along: People who can read the writing on the wall are getting out of the USA. 

“Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against danger, real or pretended from abroad.”

~ James Madison in a letter to Thomas Jefferson

LRC has had many articles about this subject since just after the Invasion of Iraq. When I told my friends this in the early 2000s, they all scoffed. I doubt that they scoff anymore (or maybe they are still clueless or in denial).

People with a basic grasp of Modern European History should have seen the parallels of what happens to a country that wages wars of aggression to what that means for the domestic populace. The historical record of the Jewish people and some wealthy and educated people leaving Germany and Europe in 1938 was a clue. By September 1, 1939, even those who wanted to leave, couldn’t.

That the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq were a precursor to today problems in the USA should have come to no surprise to anyone. Of course these types of foreign adventures and wars of aggression lead to a collapse of society; they always have throughout human history. To think that these incidents and wars would not lead to the current US debt, economic problems and a loss of freedom is foolish. To think that foreign wars would not lead to a suppression of the people and a rise of the police state is to ignore history… These economic problems and despair, and other recent examples such as the police beating of OWS protesters were completely predictable and the situation will only get worse. Or, even this wonderful tidbit about how well life in America is today from Reuters about a shopper pepper-spraying other shoppers or a man getting shot or the grandpa getting beaten while shopping should surprise no one.

Merry Christmas, USA 2011! Did you remember to bring a helmet and a flak jacket?

And while we're on the subject, what’s the problem here, officer? What's wrong with a woman pepper-spraying shoppers? If you guys can pepper-spray peaceful protesters then why can’t this lady pepper-spray a pack of insane and possibly dangerous people out buying crap? I mean, think about it, anyone who would get up early and line up to buy cheap made-in-China junk must be insane and dangerous… At least dangerous to themselves!

I think I can safely write this sort of review of the USA today, but even 7 years ago, when LRC ran a post I wrote about how bad the USA was becoming, in America is Bankrupt, I received much hate mail and even a few death threats. Today, from seeing so many different writings and publications on the Internet similar to what I had written, talking about USA expatriation is no longer laughed at, but has now become a common topic.

The window has almost closed, folks. If you can get out now, you should. You won’t be able to so easily in the near future. 

Jeff Berwick recently wrote an article right here on LRC entitled, “Escape From America“:

Recently I was surfing the internet and reading some of my favorite writers and thinkers when something dawned on me. I read articles or interviews with the following people — all of whom I respect and enjoy their viewpoints — in approximately the following order:

• Marc Faber, The Gloom, Boom and Doom Report
• Doug Casey — Founder, Casey Research
• Jim Rogers — American investor and author
• Jim Willie — Hat Trick Letter
• Dudley Baker — PreciousMetalsWarrants.com
• Fred Reed — Author

Can you name something which they all have in common?

If you said that they are all top writers or speakers about free markets and/or precious metals you’d be correct. But that isn’t their only similarities. They also all have expatriated from their country of origin. After having read seven articles in a row I realized that every person I was reading has already defected from the USSA or other similar western countries.

Like I said, the people who can have gotten out while they can. 

It is not unusual to write about these things today. It was risky to do so seven years ago… But when I first decided to move to Japan in the early 1980s, there was no one that I could tell my fears to… In those days, if you had told anyone that you believe that the USA was way overstepping its authority and turning into the new Nazi State, American people would have thought you were nuts. 

To recall an experience when I was working at a company office before I came to the USA allows me to exemplify one case of just how twisted the modern American mindset has slowly become. In 1983, Ronald Reagan ordered the US invasion of Grenada. For me, this was a quick preview of what was coming for the USA. I didn’t like it at all.

In 1981, I had worked as a salesman / broker. The other salesmen were nice guys and most of them were typically at least 20-30 years older than me and many of them were ex-military men. 

One day when I came to the office they were having a celebration. I walked in and it was a happy scene.  A few dozens guys eating and having several “toasts.” When they saw me they shouted, ”Mike! Come on in! Have a drink! We’re celebrating!”

I grabbed a drink and was very happy to join the party! “Wow! Drinking at work? Cool!” I then asked, ”What are we celebrating?”

To which several guys smiled and said to me, “We won a war!”

An older gentleman who was ex-navy said, “We invaded Grenada and won a war! The Vietnam war is over! We’ve won!”

At first, I was happy too. But then it dawned on me… “What the heck are we doing invading some Caribbean nation. Why do these people celebrate? They probably don't even know where Grenada is!”

The MSM was reporting that we invaded that island nation to save US university students… Then the story was something about 5,000 Cuban regular army on the island building an airport… There were so many excuses. (Sounds like Iraq?)

Later, I went to the public library and found out some truths. First off, if you are Cuban, everyone is in the army so 5,000 “Cuban regulars” probably means about 600 scruffy ille-equipped Cuban soldiers, their wives and their 8 kids. The University students were never in any danger and that the UK and several other nations severely protested the US action as US imperialism (Nah! Couldn’t be! We’re the good guys, remember?) And that a US puppet government was put into power. So much for being the good guys. 

Wikipedia says:

While the invasion enjoyed broad public support in the United States, and received support from some sectors in Grenada from local groups who viewed the post-coup regime as illegitimate, it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly, which condemned it as “a flagrant violation of international law.”

Everything the US media was telling us about this naked aggression was a complete lie. I remember thinking, 

“Hey! We’re supposed to be the Land of the Free! We’re supposed to be helping people and spreading democracy (and I don’t mean from the barrel of a gun). We’re not supposed to be invading other countries!”

The writing was on the wall for me. I could see what kind of right wing America we were heading for. I was surprised that no one else saw it coming, it seemed to me.

I was still young, cocky and believed I could do anything I wanted. And I wanted to be free. I left the US police state. Now there are many following. 

I do feel vindicated. I feel sorry for those in the USA who fail to see what’s coming. I feel so sorry for the 14 million homeless in the USA children living in poverty. I am still, to this day, astounded that even university educated people in the USA support the vast US empire and military industrial complex.

The day of reckoning is almost here.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Greeting and salutations! They are no longer to say "Hello!" they are a defense mechanism.

I went to America a few months ago to see my deathly ill father. I didn’t want to go to America. I hate going to that place.

Why do I hate going to America? Well, there’s something very wrong about that country. From the moment you land at the airport — I always land at Los Angeles International (LAX) — there’s a tension in the air. I can’t put my finger on it exactly but it seems like a racial tension. It certainly got worse after the Los Angeles riots of the early 1990′s after the LA police beat up Rodney King.

Most Americans realize that America is an extremely messed up place and they will talk about it and complain about it amongst themselves but they will take umbrage with you if you, as an outsider, bring it up. 

People may know that their kid is an idiot but they don’t like it if you say so…. 

America is one royally messed up place. Though most Americans recognize that fact, many are in serious denial or think that it is “still the best country in the world!”

Today's American is so used to being treated like a third-class citizen that they fail to comprehend what has happened to their country. Most Americans are so blind that they think it is normal to be yelled at by police on a street or scolded at the airport and treated like cattle. They think that this kind of behavior is normal.

Well, it is not. It’s bizarre and uniquely American.

Why don’t Americans recognize how bad that country has become? I suppose it’s kind of like the frog in the slowly boiling water: Things have been going to hell in a hand basket so slowly that Americans cannot see what kind of a crappy third-world country that place has become.

The biggest reason I hate going to that place are the police and the airport.

You know, there's a joke going around all over the world;

"How do you tell the American at the airport?"

"They are the ones stripping naked!"

Ha! Ha! Really funny, eh?

When you go to any other civilized country in the world, and leave, they don’t ask you to strip down naked and take off your shoes like the USA does. They don’t ask that you go through an X-ray machine like the USA does. They don't normally strip you of your dignity like the USA does.

Ask me why I hate going to that place.

The last time I went to a foreign country, besides the USA, I went to Hong Kong. Weird, those Chinese communists. Those people are polite and actually pleased that you come to visit and spend your hard earned cash. They are polite and kind to you! Can you believe it? They treat you with respect! What’s their problem? I had the same problems whenever I visited any other country in Eastern Asia or Oceania: The border and customs officials were polite and seemed happy to have me and my wife and children visit.

Odd balls, aren’t they? I mean, who wouldn’t think a guy who looks like a middle-class white American dude with his Japanese wife and 6-year-old son and two teenage daughters (with their Gucci bags and makeup) aren’t terrorists with bombs strapped under their clothing ready to suicide themselves for the freedom of Designerbagistan?

The USA? The surly immigration agent looks at my USA passport, his lips curl at the corners and he barks in a most foul attitude,

“What is your purpose in visiting the USA?”

“Uh, I am an American!" I say. But I think, "Duh! I have an US passport, dummy! Why do you think I am here? What is your purpose in being such a dolt?”

And that brings me to an interesting thing I heard from an American woman living in Tokyo the other day. We were talking about this very same subject. She said that she recently went back to New York and was surprised because people were “nicer” than she remembered them being. She had been living in Japan since the year 2000.

I asked her to explain what she meant by “people being ‘nicer’.”

She said that wherever she went, to stores or shops, it seemed that people were friendlier and more polite than she remembered. She said that when she was at a coffee shop, whenever customers walked in, they would always say a very polite “good morning” to the clerks and staff.

She’s right. American people do this. I’ve noticed it too. It is much more pronounced than it used to be before 9/11. In fact, this "overly politeness" has escalated as the recent years go by.

I have pondered about this and why it happens as I love to watch people and, in my amateur views on humanity and social behavior, reason why people act the way they do.

When I was in the USA a few months ago, I saw this very same behavior by people in many places I went. It has been becoming more and more pronounced as the US police state grows and crime grows along with it.

I didn’t usually notice these overly friendly salutations at chain restaurants such as a McDonald’s or fried chicken establishments like KFC or Popeye's. Nor did I see it at large, very crowded restaurants. (I did, though, notice many security cameras at a McDonald’s that I stopped at to get a cup of coffee off the freeway heading back to LAX). I noticed this sort of overly friendly greetings and gestures at small restaurants like corner donut shops, liquor stores or out of the way mom & pop coffee shops….

I noticed this sort of behavior by customers at these small shops and these small shops only. 

“Now," I wondered, “why are people acting so overly friendly? Isn’t it strange?” 

I did some very surface research about crime in my home county and found that more than 10% of all felonies were robbery (with 85% being assault)… When it came to property offenses, over 1/3 were theft.

Perhaps my image is wrong, but it seems to me that robberies of these little corner shops and mom and pop restaurants are far more prevalent than robberies of big chain restaurants and establishments that are full of customers. Low traffic and poor security seem to me to make an easier target.

So, how does this abnormally high amount of extremely friendly greeting work as a self-defense mechanism? It dawned on me at a coffee shop in Oxnard, California.

It was 7 am or so. I walked in. The shop's clerks nervously looked at me. They were a Vietnamese couple. Nice folks. I quietly said (in what used to be a normal voice in the USA), “Good morning.” I made my order. After me several others came in. They all gave out a very loud “Good morning!” (It seemed too loud, in fact)… Everyone did this as they filed in and out of the shop. I sat down and enjoyed my coffee at one of the two (dirty) tables available.

One after another, people came in with a very loud, “Good morning to you!” “How are you today?” etc. Nevertheless, there was that tension in the air whenever someone new walked in. It was the same tension I always felt at LAX.

If you always lived in Southern California, you’d probably never notice it. But if you lived outside of the USA for any period of time, this tension is very heavy and like soup in the air; it is a very heavy fog. 

The tension is in the air. The people all greet in a loud, yet mechanical way. “What is the reason?” I thought….

I believe that this excessively friendly greeting and attitude was a method of self-defense. When these people walk into an establishment like the ones described above, they say a hearty (exaggeratedly friendly) “Good morning!” The true meaning of this greeting is not a de facto, “Good morning!” it actually means, “Don’t worry about me. I am a safe person and mean you no harm. I just want to come and go about my business. I am not dangerous to you!”

The greeting disarms people and allows them not to worry and can give them a chance to relax… Like I said, it is a defense mechanism.

It is just one more reason why the USA has gone to hell in a hand basket. People must now announce their intentions in coded language to others to show that they mean no harm. It used to be the other way around; people expected others to be civil; that was normal and a matter of course.

It used to be that it was normal behavior that everyone was not a criminal and only criminals announced their intentions upon entering and establishment by way of saying something like, “This is a robbery! Put your hands up!” Now, in 2011 USA, normal people must disarm others by announcing that they are not criminals by saying “Good morning!”

Many Americans will scoff at this idea. But, deny it as you wish, it is pretty difficult for any human being to shut off their basic human survival mechanism regardless of what country they are living in.

In today’s USA it is necessary to let others know that you have no ill-intentions upon greetings.

It used to be obvious and common that people had no ill-intentions towards others… In today’s USA? One never knows. In today’s USA you must broadcast your intentions.

It is a bizarre and sad state of affairs.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

One might think that, from the title, this article is the script for some outrageous movie plot ala Rocky Horror Picture Show or even some modern day Japanese horror "splatter" film. But it is not. This is a story about America today. It is the story of a very sick society.

Week before last, I went to the USA to visit my ailing father. He is basically bedridden so he watches the TV constantly. That meant, to spend time with him, I had to sit and watch the TV constantly. Torture!

Oh, how things have changed in the USA over these last few decades and, most assuredly, not for the better.

I went to Jr. high in a town on the west coast. I suppose I went to the typical schools with typical school problems. As a junior high school student, I spent most of my time trying to avoid getting beat up by the jock meathead white kids and the Mexican-American kids.

The white kids generally left me alone because they thought I was white. The Hispanics usually left me alone because they thought I was half-Mexican. I allowed them all to think whatever they wanted as long as it allowed me not to have a bloody nose, bashed up head or getting pounded with any regularity.

I can say that my strategy worked throughout my school years for the most part, pretty well; I don’t recall ever having my butt used as a soccer ball.

The first day at my dad's house, while sitting in front of the TV and watching the local news with him, I struggled to keep my eyes open (it wasn’t just jet-lag either)… Suddenly, the newscaster came on and scowled. He proclaimed, “The trial of the murder of a transsexual jr. high school student in Oxnard that has captured the attention of the entire world… Up next!” Then it was on to a commercial about some processed foods that make American kids fat, sick and stupid.

I sat up. Did I just hear what I thought I heard? I asked my dad. He confirmed that I heard what I thought I had heard. “Transvestite jr. high school student? Murder? Captured the world? What!”

Flabbergasted, I said to my dad, “This country has gone nuts. Besides that, people in this country are so ethnocentric that they think the entire world revolves around what is going on in West Los Angeles. Well, I work in the news in Japan and I have never heard of this story before. So trust that not very many others overseas have either. I certainly doubt that most people around the world know this story (as if, for example, brown-skinned men, women and children in the middle east who have the USA and her NATO allies bombing their houses and killing their brothers and sisters 24/7 don’t already have enough to worry about and would actually care (or even comprehend) a story about some kid shooting another kid who dresses like a woman in Oxnard, California! Absurd!)

But I digress…

For the convenience of dear reader, let me bring you up to speed on this story.

In 2008, at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California, a then 14-year-old student named Lawrence King started showing up for school one day in dressed like a woman. He even did his fingernails in hot pink and wore makeup, women’s accessories and high heels.

Some of the girls at the school have been quoted as saying that Lawrence wore makeup better than they did. Even though the school has a dress code, it wasn’t enforced; teachers and administrators looked the other way.

Lawrence added to the outrageousness of the show by often chasing some of the other boys around the school grounds and making uncalled for sexual advances towards them.

One of the recipients of these regularly occurring unwanted advances was another 14-year-old student at the school named Brandon McInerney. After withstanding repeated advances from King, one day McInerney showed up for school carrying a handgun.

At about 8:30 am, during class study, McInerney stood up and pulled out the handgun and aimed it at King’s head and fired two shots. He then threw the gun down, pulled his hoodie over his head, and walked out of the classroom.

Lawrence King died two days later.

The media has had a field day with this case. They have said King was a 14-year-old gay. They have called the murder a "hate crime" and alleged that McInerney had "White-supremacist leanings" along with the rest of the circus side-show trimmings.

Since that time the case has gone to court and, most recently, a mistrial was declared.

(You can learn more about this case here.)

Intelligent commentators making opinions about this story should have a problem knowing where to even begin; Hate crime? White-supremacist leanings? A 14-year-old boy showing up for school in women’s accessories? 14-year-old gay? Murder? Junior High School!?

Read that last one again: Junior High School? 

Utter and sheer madness is what is going on in America today. This news story ran over and over while I was in the USA. It was one of the big stories of the day.

The day after seeing this story for the first time, some of the nurses came over to attend to my father. Once again, the TV was on. Once again, this news story aired.

My father said something stupid like, “They ought to let that kid go! He was teased by the transvestite.”

The lady he lives with made some sort of snide remark about how he is a murderer and must pay.

I tried to hide my face as I rolled my eyes. It reminded me of the great writer Thomas Pynchon’s quote from Gravity’s Rainbow: “Get people asking the wrong questions and you don’t have to worry about the answers.”

The chief nurse, who is married to a Japanese American looked at me and asked me what I thought of all this. 

I hesitated to answer. It’s been my experience that, nowadays, it is very difficult to deal with most Americans and it is often best to keep one’s opinions to one’s self. Not all, but many of today’s American’s are quite the opinionated group, especially on subjects they know little about.

Confucius says: “Never argue with a fool, he may be doing the same thing.” And, “The only person to argue with a fool is a bigger fool.” I try to, as much as I can, keep my mouth shut. It usually makes me the most intelligent person in the room. Please refer to the Value of Silence at Meetings.

But, once again, I digress.

The nurse asked me again. I did something stupid. I opened my mouth. I said my opinion. Here’s what it was concerning this mess:

1) Whether or not this boy should be guilty or innocent is, I think, looking at the symptoms of the problem and not the cause of the problem itself. I cannot comment on this one particular case. I do believe that this is a microcosm of a bigger problem. And that problem is that the USA today has become a sick society full of sick people because of big government policies that have eroded societies’ morals and the family structure. It’s amazing how bad things have gotten in the 27 years I’ve been gone.

Years of government programs that put people on the dole have created an entitlement society whereby people all think they deserve something for nothing. Nobody deserves anything and life owes no one anything. Yet, these social welfare plans have destroyed the family system. We have little crime in Japan for many reasons, but one big one is that, in many houses, the grandparents still live with their children and those children’s children. How many households in the USA still have three generations living together in them and learning about responsibility and caring for each other?

2) This has lead to a situation in the USA where people are not wont to examine their own shortcomings and failures and are always interested in other people’s problems and worries. Anyone can watch TV here for one minute and see that. People in the USA should take a cue from Japan and mind their own business.

3) On that note, what difference does it make to you or me whether or not Johnny and Ronnie want to get married? Who cares? It’s not your business or mine if two men or women want to marry. It most certainly is not the business of the government to make laws concerning such either. Are people happy paying such high taxes so that these clowns in government can spend their time legislating what kind of behavior goes on in someone’s house?

And that goes for many other things too. Take abortion, for example. If some woman wants to get an abortion (I like to think no one wants to get an abortion, but some feel a need too) then what business is that of yours and mine? It’s none of our business and none of he business of the central government either. An abortion is the business of that woman and her god and, hopefully, her husband or boyfriend.

Items 1, 2 and 3, above (among other things) have all contributed to make this country a politically correct nightmare that has no common sense and no basis in reality. That brings me to number…

4) This entire affair is a good example of just how nuts the USA has become in these last few years. In the USA, a boy can be expelled from school for wearing a T-shirt that is not flattering to the president, but another boy, in another town, can dress like a woman and tease and harass other boys and not get at least suspended? Don’t these schools have dress codes?

My local friends in the area tell me that there are dress codes, but when it comes to sexuality or morality, school officials are afraid to enforce. But that’s different than the huge problems that arise when kids exercise their freedom of speech rights and make political commentary on T-shirts! In that case, school officials know they must put their foot down! They also know they won’t get sued as America in 2011 is a fascist dream come true. 

But a guy dressing like that character named Klinger (the transvestite played by Jamie Farr) in the TV show MASH? No way. He is untouchable. We wouldn’t want to hurt any one’s sensibilities, you know.

I could go on and on about what I see are the problems. But I won’t. I won’t because it doesn’t matter. For America in 2011, the debate is not heard, nor is it even desired.

The people are running around confused and wondering, “What’s happened to our beautiful country?” The power’s that be are satisfied with the situation as it is. When the people spend their time debating the wrong issues and asking the wrong questions, then, you can be sure, that the people will always be getting the wrong answers. And that’s, in a nutshell, what’s wrong with America today.

Finally allow me to show off my skills as a poet with this rendition of an old English favorite about the Duke of Buckingham, George Villiers, who is rumored to have highly suspect morals. I have updated it for today’s modern American society:

George Porgie (USA version 2011) George Porgie pudding and pie, Kissed the boys and made them cry, When the boy came back next day, George Porgie lay with two bullet holes in the back of his head

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

"…Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so…" — Bertrand Russell

Things have calmed down quite a bit concerning the nuclear accident at the Fukushima reactors. While it is going to take more time to completely control the situation, things are not getting worse, and they are much more stable than they were two weeks ago.

Maybe folks living in the West can be forgiven for thinking that the world is coming to an end, or that Japan has been destroyed completely, as the Western media is still having uncontrollable spasms that result in sensationalist and unfounded reporting. Just as it was with swine flu, bird flu, SARS, man-made global warming and Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" — there is a deadly crisis! Maybe not in the real world, but at least in the news room.

Think about it: One day you are told to fear for your very lives because of the nuclear melt-down. The next minute? Well, look at that! We’re bombing Libya! Looking at Yahoo News at the time of this writing, the nuclear accident at Fukushima is listed at #8 of the top nine news stories. For comparison, at #3 is the earth-shaking story that Cuba is giving the "okay" for farmers to have credit.

If the situation in Japan were so serious and so dangerous to you and your family's safety, and if our lives were coming to an end, do you actually believe that the mass media would be switching your attention so smoothly to bombing some lunatic in North Africa?

Of course, Western news media can get away with this. Attention spans in America are short.

Is this sudden switching of attention proof of ridiculous mass media induced tabloid sensationalism?

Some friends have started a Wiki Bad Journalism Wall of Shame in Japan, to take the ludicrous reports and reporters to task. I am proud to say that I volunteered to join their team. One of my favorite nods on the Wall of Shame goes to Germany's Bild Zeitung. One article was headlined “Atomic Horror!!!!” The picture on the front shows a person in a gas mask and protective suit. In the background, a devastated landscape. On first sight it looks like a nuclear desert, but it is a picture from the destruction caused by the Tsunami.

Incredibly, on the next page they ask: “And whats up with the sushi in the restaurants? Can we still eat it?" (emphasis mine)

Absurd. Readers of LRC should know already that everything the mainstream mass media says is to be taken with at least several large grains of salt. I've previously mentioned my Golden Rule about TV news: 80% of everything you see on TV is BS. The other 20% are commercials.

But this article is not about mass media sensationalism. This is about something that should make the American taxpayer extremely angry. I never thought I'd be using LRC as a sort of Wikileaks, but that's what this article is about.

I'd like to examine with you, dear reader, something concerning this mess that was completely due to US government officials' incompetence and dishonesty, that cost Japan a lot of money, and that contributed greatly to the panic. In addition, this example of US government criminal behavior cost you millions of dollars. It was all wasted due to American embassy officials in Japan making decisions in order to cover their butts.

This is a scandal. These supposedly responsible people need to be made accountable for their actions. Perhaps even lose their jobs.

How the Tokyo Panic Started Amongst US Citizens in Japan Despite the Evidence

An insider at the US Embassy in Tokyo wrote me the following comments about how the panic began in Tokyo for Americans. Since this person works there, on compound, it is understandable that he or she prefers not to be named. How does the old saying go? Something like: Hell hath no scorn like a politician who has been exposed as being a crook or incompetent.

"Mike, this might be old news to you, but some background you might be interested in. It concerns how and why these stupid voluntary evacuations got started amongst Americans in Japan.

"How some of the panic started despite the evidence. The US Ambassador to Japan chaired a Town Hall meeting on the 15th of March. It was poorly executed with little real information and uncomfortable disclosures such as weak contingency plans for evacuation (eg travel vouchers were indicated in the initial plan) and poor planning (eg they admitted a shortage of Potassium Iodate pills). People on The Compound (US embassy grounds) were nervous for good reason.

"The second Town Hall meeting on the 16th of March was much more successful. The Ambassador was able to confidently indicate there was no real danger for Tokyo residents even in a worst case scenario and this was backed with the qualified opinion of over 30 US nuclear disaster experts who had flown to Japan. Also, they announced installation of the Compound’s own radiation monitor which indicated levels were within very acceptable limits.

"However it did not help that during this time, the Political Minister Counselor Robert S. Luke made quiet arrangements for his family to be evacuated. Of course this leaked. His wife even posted it on her blog. Duh! Therefore many families felt that if the Lukes were evacuating, something must be up. And pressure on the Ambassador’s office increased accordingly. Hence, I believe, they caved with a voluntary evacuation plan for Embassy staff and dependents. And, since the Ambassador indicated a consistent policy for American citizens, this new offer.. needed to be extended to US civilians and military dependents…at cost (Embassy dependents fly free). What’s even more ridiculous was that the offer of voluntary evacuation was extended to employees at the US Consulate in Nagoya. Next on the list: Seoul, HK, Taipei, Canberra?

"Here is the official announcement from the US government. Please keep in mind my comments when reading this:"

US Embassy American Counselor Services (ACS).

From: American Embassy Tokyo [tokyoacs@state.gov] Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2011 3:02 PM To: Deleted Subject: Warden Message Japan

The U.S. Embassy in Tokyo informs U.S. citizens in Japan who wish to depart that the Department of State is making arrangements to provide transportation to safehaven (sic) locations in Asia. This assistance will be provided on a reimbursable basis, as required by U.S. law. U.S. citizens who travel on US government-arranged transport will be expected to make their own onward travel plans from the safehaven (sic) location. Flights to evacuation points will begin departing Japan on Thursday, March 17. There will be a limited number of seats available on evacuation flights departing from Narita and Haneda airports on March 17. Priority will be given to persons with medical emergencies or severe medical conditions.

Persons interested in departing Japan via USG-chartered transportation should proceed to Narita and Haneda airports or contact the US Department of State and EmbassyJapan by sending an email to JapanEmergencyUSC@state.gov or by calling 1-202-501-4444.

Please provide the following information:

Name, age, place of birth, U.S. passport number and any special medical needs.

Immediate family members (spouses and children) who are not U.S. citizens must be documented for entry into the safehaven (sic) country and/or U.S., if that is your final destination.

Frequently Asked Question (sic)

I'm ready to go. What do I do?

Documented U.S. citizens may proceed to Haneda or Narita airport as of Thursday, March 17 at 6:00 pm.

My child is a U.S. citizen. Can my whole family be evacuated?

A U.S. citizen child may be escorted by one adult, preferably a parent, who has appropriate travel documents. If a family has more than one U.S. citizen child, the one-adult rule still applies.

Do I need a U.S. passport?

All U.S. citizen travelers and their spouses and children, are required to have valid travel documents. The U.S. Embassy in Japan will assist U.S. citizens with travel documents. U.S. citizens who do not hold a valid U.S. passport or visa and are interested in departing Japan via USG-chartered transportation should contact the USDepartment of State and Embassy Japan by sending an email to JapanEmergencyUSC@state.gov or by calling 1-202-501-4444.

What do I do if my child is a U.S. citizen, but hasn't yet been documented?

Contact the U.S. Embassy in Japan. U.S. citizens who do not hold a valid U.S. passport or visa interested in departing Japan via USG-chartered transportation should contact the U.S. Department of State and Embassy Japan by sending an email to JapanEmergencyUSC@state.gov or by calling 1-202-501-4444.

My family members aren't U.S. citizens. Can they travel with me?

The scheduled evacuation flights will transport U.S. citizens and their immediate family members. Immediate family members — defined as spouses and children — who are not U.S. citizens will be required to have travel documentation that will permit their entry into the safe haven destinations. At this time, flights are expected to travel to Seoul, Republic of Korea and Taipei, Taiwan. Safe haven destinations may change. U.S. citizens requesting evacuation will not be able to select their safe haven destinations.

Will you fly me to the United States?

Our goal is to get people to a safe place, where they can make their own onward travel arrangements. Travelers will be responsible for their own onward travel arrangements and accommodations in the safe haven city. Consular officers will provide travelers with information on airlines and hotels.

What should I bring?

Travelers should bring valid travel documents and any necessary medications.

Each traveler may bring one suitcase and a small personal carry-on item.

U.S. citizens seeking evacuation should be prepared for a substantial wait at the airport. Travelers are advised to bring food, water, diapers and other necessary toiletries with them to the airport.

What about my pets?

Evacuation flights will not be able to accommodate pets.

Do I have to pay for the flight?

U.S. citizens requesting evacuation will be asked to sign paperwork promising to reimburse the U.S. Government for flight costs at a later date. Exact flight costs are not yet available, but should be comparable to a one-way commercial flight from Japan to the safehaven (sic) location.

How do I get to the airport?

Public transport to include taxis is still operating in Japan.

My inside source tells me that the evacuation was a flop and merely wound up costing the US taxpayer millions of dollars. An acquaintance who was once CEO of an international airline tells me that to fly a 747 from Japan to California costs an airline somewhere in the neighborhood of USD 500,000. My source continues:

"As I indicated, if you are rational, this offer is unnecessary. ETA as it turned out, on the second day of voluntary evacuations (free for Embassy staff and dependents in Tokyo and of all places… Nagoya; up to $3000 per person for civilians and military …can you guess who made the rules?) there were three Boeing 747s… one had only 8 passengers which outnumbered the crew. At least one flew empty. Your tax dollars at work.

"PS: Also as I indicated, the offer of Potassium Iodide pills to civilians … for US citizens ONLY. Not Japanese dependents or family (unlike the policy indicated by the British and the fleeing French). They are NOT posting in their ACS messages or on their website and the Embassy operator is discouraging people from taking up the offer if they call the mainline for more information (03) 3224 5000. The pick-up times are very convenient for US Embassy staffers — Mon–Friday 0900–1700 at the New Sanno Hotel. No weekends. And, they have indicated they might discontinue it Monday. My guess is that they do not have enough. On March 15th the Ambassador confessed there was not enough for Embassy staffers so not surprised. Another reason for keeping the publicity down on this … it directly contradicts John V Roos’ March 13th statement that there would be “no double standard” for Embassy staff and US citizens."

There seem to be many people on the US Embassy compound who are unhappy with the situation. Another insider confirms the story above:

"You can easily confirm the story on the Luke’s (secret evacuation plans) with nearly anyone on the Compound.

"The whole KI pill issue is being handled very poorly. Anyways, I don’t think it is necessary — and has the probability of doing more harm than good if a few people down them unnecessarily. Regardless if you consider that many long-term American expats who live in Japan are married to Japanese nationals, restricting distribution to US citizens to civilians who want these pills is an idiotic and discriminatory policy. Especially when dependents of Embassy employees — regardless of nationality — were provided with not just KI pills but also free voluntary — albeit crap — evacuation flights to Taipei/Seoul. They also charged US military which really makes you wonder. The US government is even charging evacuees from Northern Japan for the bus rides from Sendai. u2018No double standard'?"

My second informer ends his commentary with a statement along the lines of wanting the US Ambassador to Japan to smooch his derriere. It must be wonderful to be such a respected leader that your subordinates speak so highly of you behind your back. S/he precisely cuts to the chase as to why this behavior demands that America's representatives in Japan be disciplined, punished or fired.

"I have many friends and acquaintances in large corporations and government offices, and they all say that not one of their Japanese bosses fled in panic and left the rest to their fate. Do you know why?

Responsibility.

One of the Japanese words for an executive, manager or other person in charge is ‘sekininsha’, which literally means ‘responsible person’. These people are not just responsible for their workplaces and the people below them during fair weather; when the sh*t hits the fan, they are also expected to step up and take responsibility. That is to say, "leaders" are expected to "lead". In contrast, the actions of (these) people are nothing short of disgraceful."

I will say that I agree with these remarks. US Embassy leadership panicked and committed crimes that cost the US taxpayer millions of dollars. Not to mention the damage that can't even be counted due to the panic they helped create.

I think that these people, specifically the US Ambassador to Japan John V Roos, and Political Minister Counselor Robert S. Luke, must take responsibility and pay the penalty for their actions.

What do you think?

This article was edited by Jeremy Irwin

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Everyone knows by now that Northern Japan suffered a massive earthquake on Friday March 11, 2011. The earthquake has caused extensive damage and, as of the writing of this article, over 1,300 people have died from it and the tsunami that followed.

My heart goes out to those who have suffered or lost loved ones in this disaster.

Today, though, I’d like to comment on an aspect of this tragedy that is not being discussed in the news; namely the Nanny State Mentality shown by friends and neighbors in this event. I'd also like you to consider personal responsibility to ourselves and families in cases like this.

First let me talk about personal responsibility — or lack thereof — shown by people in today's society. This earthquake and people's reaction to it — even in Tokyo, nearly 200 miles away — often shows a distinct inability of many today to make even simple decisions for themselves. It is a sad day indeed when people do not know what to do nor what to think concerning their own individual freedom and safety. It is shocking that so many seem to need someone to tell them what to do and how to think.

The reaction of many people I witnessed shows that years of government-run schooling and indoctrination have been very successful in breeding a vast society of sheep.

I feel sad for those people directly affected by this incident. I don’t, though, feel in the least bit sorry for the vast majority who think that these sorts of events are reason to give up personal responsibility to the authorities.

Let me give you two specific examples of the Nanny State Mentality that I saw immediately after the earthquake.

Thirty minutes or so after the big shock ended, my wife and I drove the car to pick up our son from school. The cars were lined up for blocks near the school because the school had evacuated the children to the school sports field (an evacuation center) and wasn’t allowing any of the children to leave until the “all clear” was issued.

I parked my car and began walking towards the school grounds. As I walked along, one of the student mothers saw me and shouted out to me.

From our conversation, I am assuming that this woman comes from a country that does not experience earthquakes as she was visibly shaken and seemed nearly in a panic. She seemed as if she thought the sky was falling and it was the end of the world as we know it.

Let me recall the exact conversation for you:

"Mike! Are you going to take your son home now?" She whimpered from her slightly down car window.

"Yes."

With a very strained look of confusion on her face she added, "Don’t you think it is safer to leave the kids here at school?"

"No. Why?"

"Because isn't the school is safer than home?" She added.

"I don’t think so," I added. For a moment the old English fairy tale about the Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf flashed in my head. I wondered what kind of shack she thought she lived in.

In exasperation she said, "But what should I do? We might have another earthquake!"

I replied, "Yes. This is true. We might have another earthquake. We could have another earthquake in the next minute or ten minutes or tonight or tomorrow or next week or next year… I don't think you can live your life worrying about things like that." "Anyway, I added, "I've come to pick up my son and take him home. I suggest that you do the same."

With that I said, "Goodbye" and went on my merry way. She remained frozen in her car.

Poor woman. What would she ever do if she really had to think for herseIf? Unfortunately, there seemed to be many people who thought just like her. I met many of them that day. I won't give you all the examples as they were pretty much the same as the above.

Surprisingly, the second example of the Nanny State Mentality was waiting for me a second later, right around the corner. Upon coming to the school gate, a guard man stopped me. He said that the children were not being allowed to leave just yet.

That the children were not allowed to leave is completely understandable… to a point. Let me explain where I have a problem with these arrangements.

Even as the guard tried to explain, I smiled at him and politely — but firmly — said that I was there to pickup my son and I walked on. He waved to a nice young woman who worked in the school office. She quickly approached me and told me that the children weren't being allowed to leave because the u2018all clear' has not been given yet. Once again, I told her that I am the child's father and that I have the right and responsibility to decide if it is all clear for my child or not.

She protested. "Where do you have to go that's so important?" she asked.

Even though it was none of her business, I replied anyway, "My son has piano lessons."

She was shocked, "Are piano lessons more important than living?"

Amused, I grinned slightly, "Well, I don't see how standing around here on the football field has anything to do with living. My child has a life to lead. He's got to go to piano lessons."

She disagreed and insisted that the children must stay where they were. I didn't get angry at her but responded, "All right then, who then has the authority to give the permission for children to leave?"

She said that the headmaster of the school did. I then approached him. I said, "Mr. Smith (not his real name) I love everything that you do and I appreciate that you are protecting the children. Thank you so much for that. But now I am here and I must take my son home. There is no one who has more responsibility for my child's safety than I do."

He politely countered, "But the u2018all clear' has not been issued!"

"Who issues the u2018all clear'? I asked, "Some bureaucrat in some office?"

I didn't get an audible answer from him. I gathered that it was possible that this had not been well thought out before, an understandable situation if true. He then said something about the trains not running.

"It doesn't matter to me whether the trains are running or not. I have a car. We need to go."

All the while we were having this conversation, there were dozens of parents standing around acting like they were awaiting directions as to what to do. The headmaster explained to me that they couldn't let the children leave because if they did let some children leave, they couldn't keep track of the kids who stayed or left. He said that they would have no way of knowing which kids were gone and which kids were still under their care.

I said it wasn't my problem if they had an accounting system in place for this or not.

For one, whether the school has a system to account for the location of other people's children or not, is their problem, not mine. And to extrapolate from that then, because they don't have said system, why are we being held hostage for lack of this sort of paperwork? It is the school's responsibility to hold drills and to make arrangements like this. Not mine. I have made my arrangements at home.

I thought that this situation was absurd. I am the father. I am there. I am responsible for my child's safety. I have the right to decide. Is there anyone who could possibly disagree with me?

Of course if the parents are not present to take the children home, the school must take responsibility. But once the parent arrives, the school must relinquish control over the child. If necessary, the school needs to prepare some sort of paperwork and chain of responsibility as to who has the right to remove the child from school premises such as grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. They also need to implement the system so that proof of identity is required to take a child home in an emergency.

As it was, lucky for them and lucky for me, the school quickly gave me permission to take my son out of school grounds. Upon going to the gate to leave, a young woman stopped me once again and asked for my son's name and class number so she could check the list and let us leave. Embarrassingly for her, my son's name was not listed on the computer print out she had. I told her my son's name. She wrote it down, incorrectly. Then she failed to ask for my name and ID and we walked out the gate.

So much for not allowing children to leave because they can't keep track of which students have left and which have stayed.

I explained the entire situation to my wife and son told them that if there ever was a very serious life-threatening situation that I would go to school and even if the school did not allow us to leave, we would have to find a way to escape. As I have written, we were in Tokyo. The earthquake was nearly 200 miles away. We were most definitely not in a life-threatening situation in spite of how much people and the news sensationalize this crisis.

If people become so useless and incapacitated by an event so far away, then what will happen to them if they really face a life-threatening situation?

It is a sad state of affairs when so many people around us have lost their individuality and independent spirit so that they have to be told what to do. It's indeed a sorry situation we have today when so many sorry people cannot think for themselves.

Please consider this situation for yourself. Will your loved ones be able to decide for themselves? Are your children being trained to think by themselves? Will they act on what they know instead of what they’re being told?

These are important questions to consider and answer for ourselves. Hopefully the remedy can be administered before the old saying plays out. You know the old saying I am talking about?

"The only cure for stupidity is death."

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

The nuclear power plant failures and explosions near Fukushima, Japan are an excellent case example of the failure of government. Here, the Japanese government has been horribly derelict before, during and after this incident. This freak occurrence would be a tragedy of comical proportions if only it weren't so grotesque and a real-life horror show. It has been a brutal tragedy of errors that makes me wonder why anyone would trust or believe anything the government says.

I am not talking about just the Japanese government here. I am talking about all governments. All governments lie all the time. It is the nature of government to do so.

As of the writing of this article, the situation at the nuclear power plants keeps getting worse as it has been reported that after the first nuclear power plant's dome cracked, exploded and is now experiencing at least a partial nuclear meltdown, a second reactor is now in danger of the same.

Interestingly of the writing of this article, there were reports that the Japanese government still has not admitted that there has been an explosion at the first reactor plant even though there is video evidence of the event.

Like I said, that anyone would trust what the government says is simply astounding to me. How many times do people need to be lied to before they start to get suspicious? Need I remind dear reader by going through a litany of lies over these past few years? How about Swine Flu, SARS, bird flu, Mad Cow disease, AIDS, etc.?

The nuclear accident is a good example of how a government lies. It shows in undeniable proof of how a bureaucrat changes their story every few hours. Of course, after things gets bad and people die, the politicians always have the excuse that they, "Didn't want people to panic" so they use this as justification for their fibs. Though they will never admit that they lied or were wrong.

Reuters Reported:

Radiation leaked from a damaged Japanese nuclear reactor north of Tokyo on Saturday, the government said, after an explosion blew the roof off the facility in the wake of a massive earthquake.

The developments raised fears of a meltdown at the plant as officials scrambled to contain what could be the worst nuclear disaster since the Chernobyl explosion in 1986 that shocked the world.

The Japanese plant was damaged by Friday’s 8.9-magnitude earthquake, which sent a 10-metre (33-foot) tsunami ripping through towns and cities across the northeast coast. Japanese media estimate that at least 1,300 people were killed.

“We are looking into the cause and the situation and we’ll make that public when we have further information,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said after confirming the explosion and radiation leak at the plant.

Edano said an evacuation radius of 10 km (6 miles) from the stricken 40-year-old Daiichi 1 reactor plant in Fukushima prefecture was adequate, but an hour later the boundary was extended to 20 km (13 miles). TV footage showed vapor rising from the plant, 240 km (150 miles) north of Tokyo.

Catch that? They said that a six-mile radius was sufficient, but an hour later, they change it to 13 miles? I hope that dear reader will trust me when I tell you that just 24 hours before they said that there was no danger at all. I also hope dear reader believes me that this same politician denied that there was an explosion even hours after the video of the explosion was shown on TV.

This is a terrible situation indeed, but there is a very important lesson in life for all of us in this mess. I believe that this is a lesson that is teaching us personal responsibility and it is also teaching us to have a healthy skepticism of the state and its proclamations.

Consider: On Friday, soon after the earthquake struck, it was reported that the Japanese electrical company that was running the nuclear power plant was experiencing difficulties at the plant. The reports said that even though they had shut down the reactor — for fear of damage — the temperature of the reactor inner core was still rising. The company said they were making all efforts to contain the problem.

At the same time, the Japanese government claimed that there was no danger of a radiation leak and that engineers were getting the situation under control. I see that most of the early reports concerning this disaster and government reaction have disappeared into the memory hole, but here’s one. This report was released at about 1 pm on Saturday March 12, 2011.

NOTE: The rolling power outages have begun and our power will be off for about 5 hours starting in 8 minutes. I will attempt to stay in contact. I have a brief blog about the power outages here.

From Reuters:

"It's possible that radioactive material in the reactor vessel could leak outside but the amount is expected to be small and the wind blowing towards the sea will be considered," Chief Cabinet Yukio Edano told a news conference.

Possible?.. Small amount?… No big deal, right? Sure. Move along, nothing to see here folks. I think only a fool would take what this clown says at face value.

(By the way, it is now confirmed that 9 people have radiation poisoning with at least 160 more are suspected of it. So much for government announcements that it is safe.)

My entire point here is that the government screws up constantly and, if you take what they say for God-given truth, then you probably deserve what you get. If anyone should know the truth in that statement it should be the Japanese. They've had experience with disasters and a government who lied to them about a similar disaster to today called Minamata.

Now, before you, dear reader, go on to protest and defend the statist position in that, “The government must report something!” Let me say that as broadcaster with over 30 years experience, it’s an argument that I completely disagree with (and I will save for another day). Sure, the government will make their announcements, the point of this article is whether you should believe them at face value or not.

Let me point out to you one more critical factor in my argument: These nuclear power plants need a license to operate. Who grants these licenses? The government, that’s who. This means that citizens who are damaged by any errors of that power plant only have recourse in taking action against that government in court should anything go wrong. Think about that. It was the government who gave the approval for that plant to be built where it is built. It was the government who gave the approval for the safety precautions of that plant. The free market was nowhere to be seen in these events.

So if the government were responsible should the SHTF then do you actually think they would tell us the truth and take the risk of losing their jobs in the next election? I don't think so.

I wonder if an electric power company were liable in civil and criminal court for damages– which, because of Japanese law, they are not — would they be building government approved-nuclear power plants on earthquake fault lines? I doubt it.

So the government created this situation and, as usual, the government must cover up and spin the results of this mess.

Now, dear reader, I ask you, do you still believe that you should believe government pronouncements as to whether or not it’s safe to go outside or drink the water or breathe the air?

Who knows what’s best for you and your family’s safety more than you do? As a former broadcaster, all I can say is that you must gather all the available information you can — remembering that there are those who have certain motivations for what they pronounce — and judge what's best for yourself by yourself.

Your life and your children’s lives depend upon it. Take this opportunity to teach your children well… If you don’t teach them, the government will.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Are you irritated and frustrated by foolish and idiotic commentary that you read by people on the Internet? I am.

Well, I was until a seven-year-old boy, a girl from Kansas and a scarecrow woke me up.

How could the Wizard of Oz help you, like it helped me, with frustration at the befuddled nonsense other people constantly post or proclaim? Let me share my story…

I spend much of my time — or, should I say, too much of my time — reading the Internet and getting so frustrated, nay, irritated by the chatter and claptrap from people who still espouse silly ideas such as, "the government is here to help and protect us," or, "there wasn’t enough government regulation of the banking industry so we had a market crash in 2008;" or "the Democrats are better than the Republicans" or vice versa.

Where do these people get these ideas?

Don't they remember that Bush had a ninety-percent approval rating just a few years before all those same people changed their minds and went Go Obama?

How can these same people jump from being a Bush fan to an Obama fan in such a short time? Or it is like getting a new favorite TV show or ice-cream flavor of the week? Or is this all ancient history already to Boobus?

The part of all this that frustrates me the most is not the paid shills for the government or corporate America that go on the mass media to spout this sort of nonsense — I can understand them; it is the average Boobus who goes on Internet comment and chat rooms and carries on about the old Republican versus Democrat paradigm or how we have to give the government more power to do whatever it is they want to do to make our lives better.

Hasn't the government made our lives better enough for everyone already?

When will these people ever learn?

To borrow an example I think I read on this very site: Rome had many emperors. They had Caligula, Cesar, Nero, Augustus and many more. They changed emperors but, ultimately, it was still always the Roman Empire. The United States has had different presidents all through the years. Yet we’re still the American empire.

Any questions as to why Obama still has us in Iraq and Afghanistan and is expanding bombings to other countries?

Why does Boobus have such a bad memory and why is he so dumb that he keeps spouting off nonsense at work, on TV and on the Internet? Why is it that people have one mouth and two ears and yet they use their mouths easily ten times more than their ears and run their mouths constantly and make ridiculous comments?

Aren’t they embarrassed? I know I would be.

I am reminded of a famous quote from Buddha that goes something like this:

“Those who don’t know, say they do. Those who do know, say they don’t.”

These are such wise words that are especially useful to remember when discussing a subject that one is unsure of, especially in mixed company. I often find it is best to say as little as possible.

Whatever happened to the American male who was tall, dark, and handsome and the strong silent type?

One of my big challenges is I think I talk too much. But, in my defense, when it comes to a subject that I am not well read on, I make a conscious effort to keep quiet and use my ears as they were intended.

Even so, I need to be more diligent when it comes to remaining silent. I certainly see many others who would do well in considering such diligence.

Unfortunately, in these days, it seems to me that too many people — far too often — state their opinions when they haven’t a clue as to what they are talking about. It reminds me of a story I once heard when a young lady told an old woman that she was from West Virginia. To which the old lady replied, “There’s no such state as West Virginia. There’s a Virginia, but not a West Virginia. This is the first time I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t know what state they were from!”

I’m sure that wasn’t the first time that the young lady met someone who talked a lot but didn’t have a clue as to what they were talking about. I’m sure it won't be the last either.

Which brings me to an interesting thing that happened the other day that I would like to share with you. I’d like to call this a parable, but that might make me seem very pretentious, so let’s just call it a “story.”

The other night, I was reading L. Frank Baum’s the Wizard of Oz together with my seven-year-old son. We came to the part where Dorothy meets the Scarecrow and the Scarecrow tells her that he hasn’t a brain.

When we read that, my son stopped and said to me, “Daddy! If he doesn’t have a brain, then how does he talk?”

Sometimes little kids say the darndest things. I didn’t expect that a seven-year-old would ask that question. I thought he would be so involved with the story, he wouldn’t notice the illogic…. But he did.

Surprised, I didn’t know what to say so I could only make the intelligent reply of, “Don’t worry about it, kid. Keep reading the story.”

Thank God for the great parenting magazines I have read.

The next day we finished the book. My son loved it. I was happy because I wanted him to start reading more classics rather than these modern day “educational series” that the school has. He found the Wizard of Oz just as fascinating and satisfying as Harry Potter.

Since my son loved the book so much, my wife went online and bought him the 1939 classic version of the movie starring Judy Garland. I usually do not allow my son to watch things on screens but felt this was a good opportunity to teach him the difference between the book and a screen adaptation of a book.

The Wizard of Oz book is a classic adventure fairy tale; the movie is a classic musical. Some of the important points of the story are the same, but many details are different or missing altogether. If you’ve only seen the movie yet never read the book, you’d be so surprised at the difference. For example, in the book, Dorothy’s slippers are silver. In the movie, they are ruby red.

In the movie, as in the book, when Dorothy met the Scarecrow, he told her he didn’t have a brain… Once again my son looked at me smiling and proudly cried, “See!”

But, different from the book, when Dorothy replied, “How can you talk if you haven’t got a brain?” The Scarecrow replied, “I don’t know. But some people without brains do an awful lot of talking. Don’t they?”

To which Dorothy responded, “Yes. I guess you’re right.”

Ah! Wisdom! Then and there a light went off in my head. Yes. Enlightenment surrounded me. And now, friends, if you think about this simple statement it will surround you too…

It's so perfectly simple! I do not need to get angry or frustrated at Internet comments… Just remember…. Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking — and, unfortunately, they also do a lot of commenting on the Internet.

I should have known this all along. If only I had a brain!

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

In North Korea, if they catch you trying to escape, they execute you. Imperial Japan did the same thing. How much longer until the USA tries this? Laugh now but the situation there is getting more absurd by the minute.

People from the outside of the USA can’t send you regular mail in many cases anymore.

Americans have lost their freedoms and their country. How much longer will they tolerate what has happened to them? How much farther will they allow their government to invade on their privacy in order to give them “security”?

Considering all the recent uproar about police brutality to TSA groping, I wonder, how many more of these mini cancers will be needed to accumulate before the entire system collapses?

Now, unbeknownst to most Americans, I’m sure, people outside of the USA can no longer mail you packages if that package weighs more than 1 pound (453 grams). That’s the total weight including packaging. One pound is not very heavy.

My seven-year-old son just received a beautiful electronic building set for his birthday from a girl who is his seven-year-old friend in Arizona. My son loves it. With that set, you can build all sorts of electrical projects; lights, on-off switches, fans, you-name-it. The set is high quality. That, and the book she sent him, was easily over one pound.

Too bad he is unable to repay the favor.

Of course, we try to teach our son manners and kindness; if you wish to receive mail, you write mail. If you get a present, you must write back thanks. To receive, you must give.

In this case, Christmas is coming up and so he felt it was best to give a present back to his friend who sent the birthday present. Quite understandable and I agree.

Since my son is only seven and has no job, it is up to dad and mom to finance such operations as buying gifts and we are happy to do so when the occasion seems right. I took my son shopping and he chose some Hello Kitty items and a book for his seven-year-old girlfriend.

We wrapped the packages and took them to the post office to send to the USA this morning. Alas, while at the post office, we were told that the US Department of Homeland Security has stated that there can be no more mailing of packages that weigh over 1 pound unless we can provide the Social Security number of the recipient.

Bravo! Homeland Security! I am so pleased to see you on the front line of America’s safety! One can never be too careful you know.

Always be proactive to make sure kids don’t run, jump and have fun as they might hurt themselves… And never, but never, go into the swimming pool until you’ve learned to swim… So I applaud your caution.

But, darn it if I don’t have a few simple questions:

In what manner shall I inquire to this little seven-year-old girl’s father about this young ladies’ Social Security number? If the father asks, “Why?” How shall I explain that we (Homeland Security and I) are working together to protect her freedom by invading her privacy? And from whom are we protecting her? Are we protecting her from an over-weight Hello Kitty?

Also, I’m not sure, but I do think something like a Social Security number like this is private information, is it not? Aren’t people running around these days involved in identity thefts that are sniffing for that sort of information?

How does making an arbitrary limit of one pound stop anyone from sending dangerous materials?

Also, how does providing you with a Social Security number relate to protecting people from terrorists?

Hmmm… I’ve been thinking about this and figure that I must be just too dumb to see…

Oh, and my final question to Homeland Security:

If my seven-year-old sends the envelop to his seven-year-old girlfriend, sealed with a kiss, will that require extra postage or a DNA check?

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

Culture is the sum of all the forms of art, of love, and of thought, which, in the course of centuries, have enabled man to be less enslaved ~ Andre Malraux

Generally speaking, I think most people like new experiences and would love to be introduced to the "next big thing." It wouldn’t matter if that next big thing were cinema, a new restaurant, an actor or a musician. But, in this case, I suspect that many people — especially self-professed music lovers — will be quite disturbed by what I am going to introduce to you today. Indeed, some people will find today’s introduction upsetting.

That is, everyone excepting teenagers; they will go crazy over this.

Why? Because you’ve never met anyone like the person I want to introduce you to today. If the plans laid out for this person come to fruition then something truly frightening is heading our way in the form of a cultural and social revolution.

Move over Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, roll over Beethoven; the next superstar of music has been born and she is going to revolutionize the way we think about music and ourselves… And, no, I am not talking about Lady Gaga. "Artists" like Lady Gaga will pale in comparison to the cultural impact that this lady will bring.

The artist that I wish to introduce today will not only reshape our culture, she is also going to reshape the music business and music publishing for decades to come, perhaps even for centuries.

In one-hundred years from now, when artists like Lady Gaga, Madonna, Britney Spears, even the Beatles are long since forgotten, I suspect today’s artist, or her prodigy, will still be going strong. Big claims? Read on.

Even though this artist is unknown in the west, many of her videos on YouTube have well over a million views. Some over two million! That’s not bad for someone who has no recording contract and is only three years old.

Very well done for someone who is not even human.

Meet Hatsune Miku. She is the next generation of superstar musician. Hatsune Miku is Japanese; but she is not a woman. She is not even a human; Hatsune Miku is an android. You read correctly. The next superstar of music is not of flesh and bones.

Hatsune Miku

This is the far-flung future and it’s already happening today.

Hatsune means "first sound" and Miku means "music" or "future." Get it? Hatsune Miku means, "The First Sound of Music’s Future." She is called a "Vocaloid." She is a voice synthesizer… In fact, many of the numbers she does feature her voices as instrumentation as a sort of Science Fiction a cappella. She is a synthesized vocal device that was developed by Yamaha Corporation of Japan.

Here is what Wikipedia says about "Vocaloid":

Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer application developed by the Yamaha Corporation that enables users to synthesize singing by typing in lyrics and melody.

Hatsune Miku was "born" August 31, 2007 and she is being touted as the next superstar of music. She does everything and is the embodiment of everything that pop music aspires to be.

She can sing, compose music, play all instruments and doesn’t need an agent or a manager. She is the ultimate rock star. She is the ultimate Pop Idol. And she doesn’t even really exist. See one of "her" videos here.

This will revolutionize advertising, the music industry and, in turn, our culture and society.

I know it is difficult for most of us to get our heads around a concept like Hatsune Miku. She is not a cartoon with a human singing. The voice and music are 100% synthesized. The "creator" inputs lyrics into the device keyboard, uploads it, and then others can add animations, alterations, and score from anywhere in the world. So, regardless of what it sounds like, there are no human vocals here. This is a robot singing.

Is this still difficult to understand? Maybe it’s easier to understand if I explain this way: Do you remember the girl named Rachel in the movie Blade Runner? Well, I write, "girl" but was Rachel really a woman or was she an android? Do you remember, at the end of the movie, thinking, "Wait a minute, is Rachel human?" I did.

Well, that’s what I think when I hear Hatsune Miku "sing."

Hatsune Miku is causing a sensation now in Japan and in Europe, especially France, where her songs have been picked up and are covered by real-life musicians. Some of the most bizarre stuff is on karaoke in Japan too!

The cultural impact of Hatsune Miku cannot be overstated. This is a real revolution in music. If real humans playing instruments in the traditional sense, since the dawn of time, were to be considered Music 1.0, then perhaps we would think of remix DJ’s sampling music as Music 2.0. Then, maybe we could take the logical progression one step further, and consider Vocaloid music or Hatsune Miku as Music 3.0.

The impact of Hatsune Miku and soon to be coming "artists" like her will surely change the world as we know it.

Of course there will be "musicians" who will scoff at what I have written here as nonsense, but mark my words; Hatsune Miku is a music revolution that is coming your way very soon. If you are a musician, take heed of what I’ve written here, and be ready to embrace it.

Hatsune Miku has several videos on YouTube. Some even have over two million views.

If it is any consolation, I guess Hatsune Miku probably does have some things in common with most of today’s pop Diva’s; she doesn’t bother to brush her hair nor even wake up in the mornings either.

But, at least, it doesn’t seem like Hatsune Miku has an attitude or drug problem.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

It is the unusual person, indeed, who can shake off the troubles down at the company or office and leave that luggage outside the front door when they come home to their loving family.

Could you inadvertently be taking this stress out on your children? Have you found yourself getting a bit short-tempered recently? Have you gotten angry with your wife and kids and shouted or raised your hand only to later regret that you couldn’t control yourself better? Have you considered that this bad temperament at home could be due the inability to control stress from work? And that this stress is affecting you 24/7 whether you want to admit it or not?

Today’s short article will be about a simple and quick way that I guarantee will help you to control your stress and temper at home and become a better parent. All you need to do is spend 2 minutes a morning, every morning, writing down some quick notes in a notebook. And, no, 2 minutes is not a lot of time compared to what happens when you lose your cool and make a scene.

I used to have a bad temper, and I would get mad and shout, sometimes even raised my hand to my children… But since starting this method, that I will recommend today, it has been well over 2 years since that last happened. I haven’t even raised my voice once…. Every time that I did get irritated, something in my subconscious kicked in and I immediately calmed down. This worked for me and several other friends that I have recommended it to. It will work for you. Let me take a moment now to highly recommend a book that has actually led to all of this. This book helped me greatly at work (and now at home) since the first time I read it and that is Brian Tracy’s Goals!

In Goals! Tracy talks about how, if you are to succeed in life that you need to write down your goals in order to be able to achieve them. “Sure!” A lot of people say they’ve heard this or know this, but few actually do this. Trust that writing down your goals down does help your subconscious to actually remember and activate your brain to achieve those goals you set forth for yourself.

I write down my goals every day religiously in the morning when I wake up and, not only does doing so help me to achieve them, it also helps me to relax and stay much more focused through the day. Who doesn’t want to stay more focused in this day and age when our “in-box” includes, for most people, several e-mail accounts that are constantly filling up as the day goes by and consistently altering our priorities? Add on an Internet world filled with Social Media like Facebook and Linkedin accounts to attend? Twitter is no longer for just sending messages to your friends, but it too, has been co-opted into the business world and your boss orders you to use them, or blogs and SNS, to get the company message out…

How in the world can anyone today get ahead of the pile in the “in-box”? Any person in their right mind would be stressed.

Goals! promises that you will “Get everything you want, faster than you ever dreamed.” Sounds like grandiose claims but let me point out that writing down your goals and purposes is like having a sort of road map to where you want to go. When you write them down, they enter your subconsciousness and they cause your inner brain to focus upon the Law of Attraction. If you do not write down where you want to go — if you do not have a map — then how will you know where you are going?

The publishers write:

Why do some people achieve all their goals while others simply dream of having a better life? Bestselling author Brian Tracy shows that the path from frustration to fulfillment has already been discovered. Hundreds of thousands — even millions — of men and women have started with nothing and achieved great success.

Here Tracy presents the essential principles you need to know to make your dreams come true. Tracy presents a simple, powerful, and effective system for setting and achieving goals — a method that has been used by more than one million people to achieve extraordinary things. In this revised and expanded second edition he has added three new chapters addressing areas in which goals can be most rewarding but also the toughest to set and keep: finances, family, and health.

Using the twenty-one strategies Tracy outlines, you’ll be able to accomplish any goals you set for yourself — no matter how big. You’ll discover how to determine your own strengths, what you truly value in life, and what you really want to accomplish in the years ahead. Tracy shows how to build your self-esteem and self-confidence, approach every problem or obstacle effectively, overcome difficulties, respond to challenges, and continue forward toward your goals, no matter what happens. Most importantly, you’ll learn a system for achievement that you will use for the rest of your life.

One of my goals is to become a multi-millionaire. Laughable? Maybe. But at least I have a road map and I am consciously working on that every day… And since I do have a road map, it alleviates a huge amount of stress and worry from my shoulders.

I may not be a millionaire yet, but I really do have proof that this works! I have evidence that Tracy’s philosophy and ideas in Goals! are successful. I have shown myself that actually writing down goals are critical to achieving them. And my proof stands in something that, for me, is much more important than the Rat Race and making money: it’s being the best, most wonderful dad I can be.

It used to be my #1 priority in life was to always make more money. I always thought about how to increase my cash flow and I constantly worried about the economy. What a fool I was. My children were growing up around me and all I could think of was money. Then, one day, a few years ago my son said something foolish and I got a sudden flash of extreme anger. Later on, while my son was sobbing, I quietly considered and reflected upon my actions, I regretted them; I wondered if I had overreacted. I wondered if stress was clouding my thinking.

After deep consideration of that incident, I realized that the most important thing for me was not money. By far the most important thing for me was to be a great dad to my son. How could I have thought differently?

Now my #1 priority goal that I write down in my pocket notebook every day is; “I am a kind, loving and patient father and husband today and every day” (with today’s date added). Then, I write my next 9 goals, which have to do with making more money and being successful at work.

Folks, trust me. This really works! Since starting this habit, I have caught myself several times with a flash of irritation — that before would have caused me to get angry or upset at my son and perhaps raise my voice — but since I started writing down every day my goal of being patient and kind, my mind recalls that goal within a split second and has killed that flash of anger instantly its tracks. It is truly amazing.

Why ruin what could be a good learning opportunity with your children and a possible great memory with an outburst of irritability? What for? Life is too short to be getting upset at the small stuff all the time.

As the great writer C.S. Lewis wrote in Chronicles of Narnia, “Life is difficult, so let us be good to each other.”

Writing down my goals every day has truly helped my family to have joy, love and peace. Your family can have it too. All you need to do is write down your goals every day. You’ll be glad you did.

Don’t you and your family deserve it?

My friend Roger Marshall inspired this article.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

“Hope springs eternal in the human breast…” ~ Alexander Pope

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.” ~ Albert Einstein

Have you ever wondered if you are stupid? I have.

I think if you asked the average person, “What percent of the people are stupid?” they’d most likely answer 70—90%. Most people think that most other people are mostly stupid. I think that’s mostly correct.

When it comes to stupid humanity, I guess I must be one of the stupidest. I reckon that I am stupid because I am not interested in the things that seem to interest most people: Television, professional sports and political elections.

I have no television in my home and, most recently, I missed out on all the excitement of the World Cup; though I did get a chance to view some chat boards where some very intelligent people were debating — I believe you young people today call it “flaming each other” — about whether or not soccer should be called soccer or football; or whether or not it is a true “man’s sport”.

How incredibly happy and content these people must be. I do wish I had the time and flexibility in my life to be concerned with such important matters. But I don’t. I have to try to do mundane things like try to make enough money to eat and pay for a roof over my head.

Besides television programs and professional sports games (manly or otherwise), I also greatly missed out on our last political election here in Japan where, in a recent article, I regretfully lambasted and mocked a former actress and pop singer named Junko Mihara who, to my great surprise, actually won her race and is now a fully fledged member of the ruling class.

The only thing that I did get right in those confused scribblings about now-Councilor Mihara was when I wrote that “she’s just as qualified, if not more, than 99.9% of those clowns we have out there.” Dear reader would already know that most of the idiot politicians we today have are just the spawn of other politicians so all we have to do is to look at North Korea (or the Bush family) to see how political inbreeding usually leads to political birth defects.

Yes. A teenybopper pop star and actress in Japan is just as qualified as any politician. I stick by those remarks. This woman made her career at the very difficult business of show business. Now that she’s paid her dues by allowing us to buy her records, CDs and rent her DVDs, the people, in turn, have given her the right to rule over us.

It was the will of the people to voluntarily give up this right.

I often disparage my own country and, according to my wife, criticize Japan far too often. I do. I like to complain, especially about stupidity.

The part that really amazes me about Junko Mihara winning her election here in Japan is that it seems to me that it mirrors American politics, society and American stupidity in general. Verily, American stupidity has a difficult time trumping Japanese stupidity.

There is an old saying in Japan, “When America sneezes, Japan catches cold.” You had former actors elected to high public office: Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, to name but two. Now, in Japan, we have Junko Mihara. I look forward to the day when Madonna or Eminem grace us by taking up the torch towards political office and becoming leading American politicians.

The other thing about Junko Mihara winning that interests me is how she won. In pre-election polls, it seemed that she didn’t have the chance of a snow cone in hell of winning. This is interesting because a few other celebrity stars and a couple of famous Tokyo Giants baseball players didn’t win. But Junko did. And now she is part of the upper echelon and elite; free air travel, free bullet train rides, free transportation, a different health care and taxation system than the rest of us dogs.

But, yes, under the free will of the people, the people voted her in. People voluntarily, in a sense, gave her the keys to their house and secret 4-digit-code to their bank accounts.

How could a person like Junko Mihara have won an election? How could the average person even care about this enough to vote? (Unless almost everyone who voted works for the government in one way or another.) Ah! That’s the interesting part. That’s the part where this whole charade really looks like a reflection of American society and politics. You see, Junko Mihara ran with the LDP party; what I like to call the old-old guys ticket. Those are the guys who messed things up so badly over these last decades that the public was in an uproar. The people had had enough! Japan was heading in the wrong direction. The people wanted change and so a nationwide vote was called and, the scoundrels that they are, the old-old guys got trounced and booted from office.

Never again would those conniving dastardly fools of the old-old guys party lord over the Japanese islands. The people wanted change. The people got change. Forever. They elected the new-old guys, the Socialists.

That was 10 months ago.

The new-old guys who won that election came in and promptly started reneging on election promises (sound familiar?) and running the government like they were carrying heavy furniture and stumbling down a darkened stairway. The last straw was when the new-old guys said that to help balance the budget (instead of cutting spending) that they were going to double sales tax to 10%!

(Hint: Running on a campaign platform where you expect people to get excited about your election by telling them that you are going to raise their taxes is probably a bad idea. Read my lips: Say, “No new taxes” — until the election is over.)

Junko Mihara ran on the old-old guy’s ticket. The old-old guys are against whatever the new-old guys want to do — so they were against raising sales taxes, and presto! Junko Mihara wins her election. Well, of course she won. She was running against some moron who was telling people in public that he was going to raise their taxes. My dirty sneakers could have beaten that idiot in an election.

Future political wannabes should keep that in mind that when thinking about running for political office to wait to run against someone stupid enough to have a promise of “raising taxes” as part of their platform. They say, “Raise taxes!” You say whatever is the opposite and you will win.

And you know what’s going to happen in Japan in another one or two years time? The old-old guys are going to screw things up just as bad as they did before and the people — who have memory spans of about 1.5 seconds — the same as a pigeon — will get upset and vote in someone like the new-old guys again.

Now, this story must be really sounding familiar to you Americans who do have some memory capacity. I remember, not too long ago, that idiot George Bush having a 90%-some approval rating. Then he and his cronies mucked things up so completely that the people got sick and tired of it. The people wanted change. They got change.

“Go Obama!” One of my dim American friends, and former Bush supporter, said to me just after the election.

“How old are you?” I said, “Don’t you even remember a few years ago? We go through this political election nonsense every few years; they all promise to change things, but nothing ever changes. Bush was going to bring a different way to Washington. Before him was Clinton; he promised “Change” too. Don’t you remember? Carter, Reagan, Bush I? Now Obama. When will you ever learn?”

“Give Obama a chance!” My friend insisted. I sighed.

It reminds me of what Albert Einstein said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Yes. Insanity. Now, in Japan, with the elections just held and the new-old guys getting trounced by the old-old guys we have our change too. Just like you do in America.

Sadly, perhaps Charles Barkley is right.

Note: No offense to the good: Chris Christie, Ron Paul and Peter Schiff.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

"The rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families…" ~ George Eliot

"People wish their enemies dead, but I do not; I say give them the gout!" ~ Mary Worley Montagu

Stand up. Say it loud. I’ve got gout and I’m proud!

Hello… My name is Mike Rogers and I have gout.

You know, I think gout has been getting a bad rap all these centuries. I mean, if gout was good enough for the aristocrats during the Renaissance and enlightenment, and has always been good enough for the kings, queens and other royalty then it should be good enough for you and me. Why should only the rich people have all the fun?

I mean, think about it. When shopping at Wal-Mart, have you ever once heard, “Shoppers, in aisle 16, we have a sale on ice-packs, walking canes and Dr. Scholl’s “Gout-Out”? No you haven’t.

That’s because poor people don’t get gout.

James Brown probably had gout. I figure that’s why he was always limping around on stage

Gout has the image of gluttony and mountains of food at glorious feasts at the King’s table with the wine flowing freely and enough victuals to feed an army of nobility. Yet, at our feast, there’s only you and me and the Knight’s of the Round Table chasing gamine maidens waiting at our beck and call.

“Bring me more wine! More meat! You knave!” I command as I take one gnaw on yon Turkey leg and discharge the half-eaten bone to the floor. I wipe the gravy off my face on my tunic when I spot another tempting damsel soon-to-be in distress.

“Stop ye, young varlet and come hither to me at once!” I shout as I spill another vat of wine on myself…. But fear not! There’s plenty more where that came from.

Yeah. Gout has gotten a bad rap over these last, oh, say, 4 to 500 years, so I’m going to change that all negative press with this one article.

The way I see it is that gout, like a hangover, is a sort of trophy… In fact, having gout is better than a hangover because hangovers go away in a day or two… Gout is forever. The reason why hangovers and gout are so good is that they are trophies; they are proof of a great night and a great life. The worse the hangover or the gout, the better the recent parties.

Gout is better than a hangover because gout is forever

However, whereas a hangover might be proof one of good night, gout is proof of years of over-eating, drinking, gross over-indulgence, lack of exercise, decadent living and just plain irresponsible behavior.

Wow! Just makes you wish you were having a gout attack right now so that you can relive all those memories and years of excess in the next 4 days with your foot elevated and hurting somewhat. Oh dear! Did I say, "hurting somewhat"? I meant to say, hurting quite a bit… Uh, did I say "hurting quite a bit"? No, what I meant to say is HURTING LIKE A MUTHA %*!?&! HURTING SO MUCH YOU CAN’T BELIEVE IT!

Man, do those gout attacks ever hurt! They feel like you broke your foot bone or something in the middle of the night… I’ve had gout attacks that were so bad that I couldn’t walk without a cane or some help; I couldn’t sleep a wink without a bunch of painkillers.

If you’ve had a gout attack before then you can attest to what hellacious pain they can be.

The first time I had a Gout attack was in February of 2009. I was staying at a friend’s ranch on the beach in New Zealand and, of course, I was eating and drinking to extreme excess every night. Then, one morning, I woke up and my foot hurt like it had been run over by a Sherman tank! I thought I was going to die! The pain was excruciating!

But, still, that didn’t deter me from fishing. I hobbled down to the ocean and waded up to my waist (which really felt good on my foot) and I sucked it up like a real man every day. Caught my limit too! I mean, we have to consider what’s more important here; is it my quickly deteriorating health or my heading down to the beach to catch fish?

Then the second time I had a gout attack was in early December of the same year. I had to fly up to northern Japan to meet some big shot executives from a Chinese Airlines and arrange their TV/newspaper promotion in Japan. By the time the promotion ended, my foot hurt so bad from gout attack that I could hardly walk.

When I checked into the airlines, the girl at the check-in counter saw me noticeably having trouble not looking like a spastic. She then asked what was wrong and I whispered to her, so that no one else could hear, that I had gout. She looked genuinely concerned and said, “Oh, you poor dear! My father suffered gout too!”

So, instead of my flying back to Tokyo in Economy Class, that kind young lady put me in First Class. How lucky I was. I began thinking that maybe this gout thing isn’t so bad after all.

Later on, I was trying to quietly enjoy the flight (though my foot was killing me) when I saw one of the flight attendants smiling and looking right at me. I straightened my tie and smiled back but then I figured that since I am near sighted, she was looking at someone else. I tried to get some shuteye and peeked at her to see if she was looking at me anymore. She was! After awhile, I noticed that she kept looking straight at me and smiling over and over again. My heart sang. I thought, “The old boy’s still got that magic!” I gave her a mischievous grin and she smiled back.

Oh, stay my beating heart! I’m old enough to be her father… er, older brother, I surmised. Then while I was picturing holding hands with her and running madly in love up some faraway sandy beach laughing together, she started walking up to me.

I braced myself. I wondered if my breath was OK. Maybe she wanted my phone number. Maybe she’ll be lonely tonight in Tokyo? Great, but what will I tell my wife?

She came directly to my seat, offered me a blanket and said, “Mr. Rogers?” I jumped a few feet in the air. How did she know my name? And her English was perfect! She continued, “Mr. Rogers, can I have your phone number?” I smiled knowingly at her as I pulled out a piece of paper from my pocket, wrote down my number and, with a half-wink, I handed it to her.

“What’s this?” She said.

“Silly," I whispered while slowly flashing my bedtime eyes to her, “You asked for my phone number.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Rogers," she replied, "There must be some misunderstanding. I didn’t ask for your phone number, I asked, u2018Is your foot feeling better?’ I’m sorry my English is so poor.”

My face turned beet red. I told her that I was fine and acted like I was sleepy so she would leave me alone. She walked away, out of my life forever, and behind the curtains where the other stewardesses were… A minute later I could hear them giggling.

I’ll bet they were giggling at my expense too. Talk about poor service! I’ll never fly on that airline again!

Later on, when I got home, I told this story to my wife (well, not all of it) and she accused me of trying to pick up the stewardess in First Class.

Coffee, tea, or me? Watch out for Gold Diggers prowling the airplanes!

“Stewardesses are always looking for eligible men in First Class as those are the rich ones.” My wife scowled.

“Yeah, right, dear. I responded in my calmest, most mature manner. "As if a young stewardess is going to date a guy who is at least 30 years her senior, why, I was old enough to be her father! Not to mention that my baggage includes one hellacious case of gout. My, honey, you sure do have a wild imagination." I chuckled.

After that little episode, I decided that I had better go to the doctor and do something about this gout business. At the doctor’s they game me some blood tests and told me to come back a few days later. I did and as I, and the doctor, suspected I had gout.

The doctor told me that I also had high cholesterol. He told me that he wanted to put me on various drugs to control these problems. I resisted but he then told me that if I do not take medicine for gout, it could cause kidney damage and all sorts of other problems so I relented.

What a mistake that was!

The doctor told me that the medicine he was prescribing for me was the standard gout medicine. (Hey! I am not a doctor!) He also told me that this medicine was powerful stuff and that my body had to get used to it first so I wasn’t supposed to take full dosages, but to build up to a full dosage over a two-week period.

I was to take the pills and cut them into quarters and take one quarter every day for eight days. Then, after that, cut the pills in half and then take another half every day for another eight days. Once I did that, I was to start taking one full pill every day after that. Simple. Right? Sure, but things didn’t work out so well.

On December 12th, I started taking the quarter pills and increasing the dosage as the doctor prescribed. Finally, after doing this religiously every day, on December 30th, I was up to a full dosage; one pill a day in the mornings.

For New Year’s we were invited by my wife parent’s to stay at their house in the country. So, coincidentally, we were at their home from the 28th of December. Things were going fine, but by the evening of the 30th, my right knee started to hurt. I thought nothing of it and went to bed. The next morning I took my medicine, as usual, and, once again, by the evening I noticed that my right knee was really starting to hurt a lot.

The next morning was “Happy New Year!” We all got up and did the traditional Japanese New Year things that people here do; go to the shrine, eat rice cakes, visit family and relatives… Of course, I took my medicine again.

But darned if my right knee wasn’t really hurting badly that New Year’s morning. It felt as if I had twisted my knee doing some sports but I hadn’t done anything for the last few days except get out of bed. By 5 pm that night, my right knee was killing me. It had suddenly swollen up like a grapefruit and I just couldn’t take the pain anymore so off to the emergency room at the local hospital I went.

It just so happens that, when I got to the hospital, there was a doctor who was a specialist on gout on duty and he attended to me. He said that what happened to me was a fairly common reaction of some people to the gout medicine I was taking. He used a syringe to pull about 200 milliliters of liquid out of my knee and gave me a bunch of painkillers. He also told me to stop taking the medicine and go back to my regular doctor and tell him what happened.

What a miserable New Year’s Day that was!

Well, a few days later, I did go back to my doctor. He told me that he wanted me to take the same medicine, but only this time, he was going to give me another medicine to prevent the side effects of the first medicine!

Hold your horses there cowboy! I thought. That’s when I decided that there had to be a better way; and that, actually, is the point of this article.

I remembered on this very web site reading about how a raw food diet can cure and help alleviate the problems and pains of many diseases and ailments. So, I ordered the book, The Live Food Factor, and tried it. I went 70% raw for the first two months. I also got great tips from the Beating Gout web page.

I’ve stopped drinking alcohol and I now eat raw foods at least two meals a day. I also try to drink at least three quarts of fresh water every day. I found the advice in the book The Live Food Factor wonderful and I recommend it to you. Even though I eat raw at least twice a day, I can tell you that I do feel great. I take no gout medicines and my cholesterol levels are completely normal too. I have also cut my blood pressure medicine dosage by two-thirds and plan on quitting altogether when I get the courage up to eat three raw meals a day.

It has been now seven months and I have had three blood tests that show that my uric acid is well within safe levels and I haven’t had any trouble with gout at all. On top of that, I’ve lost 22 pounds in six months and feel great!

If I feel this great with two raw meals a day, I bet I’d feel even better on three. But, for me, raw food is not a religion; I do go to business lunches and dinners and do have to eat out with clients sometimes. So, of course, I do look forward to eating delicious cooked food sometimes too. In fact, since I don’t eat cooked food all the time, it makes it that much more special when I do.

You don’t have to shorten your life or the quality of it by taking drugs prescribed by Big Pharma. I suggest a little self-control and eating healthy. I think the Live Food factor has advice that can be helpful for many people. Perhaps you can benefit too?

This article may have started out as a joke, but gout is no laughing matter.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

I blew it with my last article. What a total blooming fool I was. I had written about how I, as a foreigner in a foreign land, didn’t want the right to vote. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have been so blind not to see?

Now I want to vote. In fact, I’d like to vote several times; to even stuff the ballot boxes to make sure the candidate I wanted wins the election, or as, she would say, in her cute Japanese accent, “…the erection.”

I haven’t felt this alive, this wondrous, in years. The last time I was this excited and enticed about the voting process was when the last issue of vital national importance was at stake: the US Postal Service had that Elvis Presley vote for which Elvis memorial stamp We the People of the United States wanted. You remember? The one where they had two Elvis stamps to vote for. One was the young, virile, handsome Elvis and the other was the old, fat, dumpy looking donut-plumped Elvis.

Artist’s rendition of US Post Office Elvis Presley stamp voting form

I remember my good friend Tom Chartier pointing out this stamp vote idiocy and laughing out loud about it. “Let’s stuff the ballot boxes with votes for the fat cheeseburger Elvis!” he snorted as his devil horns appeared on the side of his head. I tittered along, and then we spent the next few weeks going to the post office as much as our idle selves could handle voting for fat Elvis.

Of course, young handsome Elvis won. Never underestimate the romanticism of the average American. Nor the ability of the Post Office to waste time and public money on nonsense promotions that mean absolutely nothing excepting the gullible American public will get all excited about them.

My team lost that vote, but this time, I’m sure, I have a winning ticket in the latest elections in Japan!

Ladies and gentlemen, let me announce the next great political movement afoot in Japan; something that might even rival the excitement of your Ron Paul Revolution in the States! Junko Mihara is running for political office. I’m on the Junko Mihara express train because she is the perfect best! Woo! Woo!

Just who is Junko Mihara? I’m glad you asked that question because, if you are into the real political arena as much I am, then you are in for a real treat.

Jun-chan, as her fans affectionately call her, was a famous J-Pop Idol teenybopper singer who turned actress and appeared, under a different name, in some good movies as well as questionable ones that raised eyebrows (among other things). Now she’s running for political office in Japan’s House of Councilors election in a few weeks’ time.

Like I said, if I could vote, I’d be stuffing the ballot boxes for her every chance I got.

In most elections, who cares when it is one old geezer versus the next old geezer? I certainly don’t. Those are always, "Same old, same old."

The regular oldies are always boring the daylights out of us by claiming to be different than their counterparts when, in all actuality, they are all the same. They always claim to have done this or to have done that. They always ask us to look at their past, to judge them by their record. But their records are always cloudy and hard to judge.

Junko Mihara is different. She is a breath of fresh air. I don’t have to judge her by what she claims is her record; I can judge her by her discography and buy her CDs and DVD’s on Amazon. Amazon has sales rankings built in, and ratings by other customers, so I can determine if this is what I want before I buy it. Heck, she even has several that have five stars! That’s good enough for me.

No more of this flip-flopping nonsense. Junko Mihara’s records stand on their own.

Who could forget her smash hit song, “Do-Ra-Mu” (I think that translates to “Drum”)? Watch the video here.

Or how about those classic songs from her greatest hits album, Junko Mihara: The Perfect Best? "Sexy Night," "Sani Side Connection" (I think that’s supposed to be “Sunny Side Connection”) or, my personal favorite, “Datte Fall in Love Totsuzen,” which translates into something like, “But, Fall in Love, Suddenly.”

Wow! I’m sure even you loser Austrians would want to vote for a politician like this, if you could, as, in my opinion, she’s just as qualified, if not more, than 99.9% of those clowns we have out there.

Junko has it all. It is public knowledge that she is divorced twice. That shows me honesty. It shows that she just divorces rather than tries to hide her antics; she likes younger men, like some politicians. (And, in all honesty, you would divorce your second husband too if he suddenly changed his name to “Happy Happy” on the advice from some quack fortuneteller!) And her platform is to protect women and children. Who could argue with that?

Just look at the massive crowds she’s drawing to her political stump speeches in this promotion video.

Whereas you guys in the States have people with fuzzy past records that can’t be proven — like where Obama was born, or where he went to school — I can just go to any record store, DVD shop or online retailer and buy proof of Junko Mihara’s past records, CDs, and DVDs.

That, my friends, is why I am voting for Junko Mihara in this next election… I mean, if I could vote. But I can’t so, well, never mind… I just can’t win when it comes to politics.

But at least I can still listen to Junko Mihara’s records.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

But what motivates politicians? That’s what I’m pondering today. What does motivate these glorious people to do the wondrous work they do for the good of the little folk, like you and me? What motivates them to sacrifice for the good of all of us?

The obvious answer is that these great people are placed upon this earth with a mission from god. They walk among us mere mortals to help solve our deepest dilemmas and to heal the pain of strife. They are uniters, not dividers, of course. They are here to bring us change.

They all probably secretly wish that they were rock stars or famous actors and actresses with chauffeurs and millions of adoring fans. But, they aren’t, and they haven’t the talent to be so — nor do they have the drive to work so hard at something as difficult as Show Business — so the next best thing to being a rock star and not having to work at a “real job” is to be a politician and to act like they are important and are doing something useful.

Oh, my. There’s my selfish negativity showing through again. When will I ever learn and be able to share with my fellow man for the greater good like our politicians do? Why can’t people all learn to love one another?

I guess I just don’t have the stuff to be a good politician…

But, as with the great leaders of the past, our politicians today — these giants among mere mortals — often have a heavy burden to carry. They have their one identifying key issue that sets them apart from all the rest. All the great presidents and political leaders have them. They all have their defining issue. They all have their hot potatoes.

I figure that’s why the current president, Barack Obama, has lost so much popularity, there just isn’t anything important enough going on right now for him to really sink his teeth into. He hasn’t found any important steamy potato issues by which he can identify his presidency yet. I hope he does soon find an important issue to tackle. It makes things so much easier for politicians if they can do so.

It’s like Anthony Gregory once said to me, “Let’s rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic as it’s going down!” Genius! I hope that Obama finds his true calling and latches onto a politically over-cooked potato as soon as possible. What president Obama desperately needs to help his flagging popularity is his very own piping hot potato. He needs something really important happening so that he can attack the true issues in real time! Damn the chives and butter! Full speed ahead!

My hero George H.W. Bush and me at an Amway convention in 1995

Here’s an idea: How about something important like passing a law that makes it illegal for, say, space missions to the moon to have left-handed gay pilots, who hated their father, yet loved their mother, and didn’t have fish for supper, or something like that?

I’m sure that’s the kind of hot button issue that any politician would love. I know I can identify with that.

Who could forget the great George Bush the First who selflessly laid down his political career and his lips so that he could stop the scourge that was wrecking havoc on our great republic? Remember how George, one of the good guys, fought tooth and nail to stop the bad guys from burning the flags of this great nation? Oh, the nights of sleep I lost and the fingernails I chewed over that crisis… Thank god that we had George to lead us then.

Or remember that presidential guy who started that war in Albania because of the sex scandal? I can’t remember his name but he kept us on the edge of our seats as he continually denied that Albania didn’t, or did, have the weapons he claimed that they didn’t have… Or they did have… Or something like that… See? I could never make a good politician. This sort of thing hurts my head.

I can’t remember what political party this guy worked for, but he did a damned fine job!

In Japan our politicians are not to be outdone by the west. They, too, have a heavy cross to bear.

Why, just yesterday I was out by Shibuya in Tokyo and I saw a political van in front of the station with a guy with a loudspeaker blasting away about a truly terrible scourge that is gripping the nation of Japan. This problem strikes fear in the over three to four people in the entire populace who even care. No, it’s nothing like the government red ink that’s nearing 200% of GDP that’s going to bankrupt the nation and send half the aged population into economic disrepair; that’s nothing. No, it’s nothing like those idiots actually wanting to raise our sales tax from 5% to 10% (that includes 10% tax on basic foodstuffs like rice, eggs, milk); that’s nothing. No, it’s not the issue of banning men’s beards in the workplace either (but now we’re getting close).

No, it’s none of these unimportant minor issues.

The issue that these politicians were so vehemently against ranks right up there with the most important of deck chair arranging in history. These Japanese politicians have designed their entire political platform around a hot button issue that absolutely must be on the lips of every Japanese person of all ages; this brave political party has taken up the most blazing of over baked potatoes in Japanese history. They wish to deny the right to vote amongst legal foreigners in this country; a right that legal foreigners in Japan do not currently have.

“I against giving the right to vote to those five or six people who wouldn’t vote anyway!”

I, for one, am against this political party and their platform; for since I am a legal foreigner in Japan and do not have the right to vote anyway; I do demand the right to voluntarily not vote.

I also believe that we should tax all foreigners living in other countries.

So, in this important issue, count me in… or out… or in. Whichever the case may be.

(No offense to two politicians I do respect: Ron Paul and Chris Christie.)

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers Archives

In Japan, we have too much trash. In Japan, we have too much government. Don’t even get me started on the last part!

I cannot believe how inept some of those people can be — the homeless, I mean, not the government. I can believe any stupid thing the government does. Those people never cease to amaze me as to just how totally useless they can be. On the other hand, some efforts by some homeless people can be mighty impressive in comparison. (By the way, please note that “impressive” and “government” are two words rarely seen in the same sentence.)

Anyway, the other day, my wife and I were driving my six-year-old son to school. We always drive along while listening to audio books like Cricket in Times Square, Harry Potter or Narnia on the CD player. While my son is still little, I want to spend time with him, so I drive whenever my schedule permits. I find the morning drives very refreshing and positive.

It was trash day that particular day and so the roads were lined with trash bags awaiting their morning pick up. We stopped at a red light and I looked over to my left. There I saw something that just about ruined my day. There was this homeless guy with a bicycle loaded up with a mountain of empty trashcans. This guy had been digging through a trash pile a moment before but was now being hassled by two old government workers. The homeless guy looked like your typical un-showered and disheveled Tokyo homeless. The government workers are always easily recognizable from a distance; they are usually old retired guys, there are always at least two of them, and they wear green uniforms.

I thought it ironic that the two old retired guys, in the service of the government, wasting my tax money, disturbing the pleasant view of my early morning drive, would be hassling an old homeless guy who wasn’t bothering anyone as far as I could see.

I complained to my better half (as I always do whenever I see a policeman or government worker), “Why don’t these people get a job?”

My wife glanced at the row going on over the trash, “Who? You mean the homeless?”

“No! I mean those other two losers. Why don’t they go out and get a real job!”

My wife goes silent. She knows better than to say anymore at this point as she knows what will happen if she gets me started on this subject. So, don’t even get me started on this!

The current problem, as the local government has described (made excuses for) to Japanese people, like my wife, who have then explained it to me is, “…the homeless people are messing up the public trash, not cleaning up after themselves, and invading people’s private property, so it has now become a crisis so we have to protect the public and stop them.”

Is that hilarious or what? The government people complain about the homeless invading people’s private property, by digging through their trash, and not cleaning up after themselves? Look who’s talking! They claim they have to protect the public from the homeless? They call that a crisis?

So, let me translate this for you. I have already told you we have a problem with the government. So, don’t even get me started on that. That is pretty much straightforward. We also have a problem in Tokyo with homeless people digging through our daily trash to find the diamonds, rubies, crystal chandeliers, gold bars and nuggets, pieces o’ eight, silver chalets and empty aluminum cans (not to mention Top Secret documents) that we all throw away on a regular basis. (You and I wink and nudge each other knowingly.) These criminal homeless elements then take our precious trash and turn it in for riches beyond their wildest imaginations…

The trash pile near my house

Well, maybe not quite that much. But they can turn in a few cans and get a penny or so for their efforts.

The official version of the problem with the homeless people digging through our trash is that after pulling out the empty cans, the homeless don’t clean up after themselves and they leave a mess…This, according to our friendly bureaucrats, makes the locals unhappy. It makes the locals unhappy because it causes them to have to go out and sweep up in front of their houses and shops after the trash man comes and goes. Like they do anyway.

This a true story about how the Tokyo Metropolitan government — as well as my local Setagaya government (Setagaya is a ward of Tokyo) — has hilariously messed up the handling of the trash situation even more than you can imagine. This case stands as a shining example, a case study, to all people, the world over, of the brilliance of the people who reign over us.

But first, let me give you some history, some background to this rubbish.

Besides Tokyo being a very clean city; Tokyo is a very crowded place. What to do with all the trash that such a crowded city produces has been a problem for decades, if not a hundred years. They’ve dug holes and dumped the trash in them; they’ve used trash to fill in the seas to reclaim vast areas with landfills taken from the Pacific Ocean; they’ve even built huge multi-million dollar, obsolete, incinerators.

They’ve tried everything, yet, with this crisis, the trash continues to grow. I mean, the refuse that people dispose of, not the government… Well, they’ve both grown… But in this example, I mean to say, that because of so many people, the trash problem continues unabated… Just like the government problem…

Oh never mind. I hope you understand that what I mean to say is that we have a problem. Government or trash, which is worse? You decide.

Sometime around 1985, the little Einstein’s who run the Tokyo Metropolitan Government announced that, as official policy, they had decided that they would no longer pick up any trash unless it was in a government-approved trash bag, readily recognized by markings on the bag and sold at stores. Of course this caused uproar. People were angry that they needed the government-approved trash bag as, of course, the trash bags cost money. Whereas before people were throwing away their trash using used vinyl bags they had received from the grocery stores, they now had to buy the government-stamped and -approved bags from the local market. This increased the numbers of bags in the trash as people still threw away the used vinyl bags from the store, but now they put them inside of the government-approved bags.

When people started complaining, the government claimed that the new trash bags would help cut down on garbage. Hilarious! These people can actually say this sort of thing with a straight face too.

Now think about that for a minute. How is it possible that having an extra bag to throw our trash into would cut down on the amount of trash we produce? Good question, right? I mean we’ve increased the number of trash bags.

Government approved trash bags

At that time, beside my regular job, I was a part-time reporter for some dumpy Tokyo free paper and I “smelled” a story in this trash business so I decided to investigate. I went to the local ward office and started asking “investigative journalistic” type of questions. When I inquired to the lady at the local office how it was possible that having an extra bag would cut down on our garbage, she replied, “They are bio-degradable when hit by sunlight.”

“What about all the bags that won’t be at the top of the trash that can’t be hit by the sun in order to break down?”

She gave me that “deer-caught-in-the-headlights” look and said, “These are bio-degradable.”

Along with having the extra trash bags that would magically cut down on the number of trash bags and our trash, the government also dictated that we had to start separating our garbage into cans, plastics, bottles, batteries, etc. This was also a major headache, but hey, with all the trash, the environmental disaster and all, everyone had to do our part. So I, like everyone else, eagerly started separating my trash.

OK, well, I wasn’t so eager, but if you didn’t separate your trash, they wouldn’t pick it up for you and you’d have to take it back. So we separated it.

Burnable refuse was collected on Wednesdays and Saturdays; non-burnable and plastics were collected on Thursdays; and papers, cardboard, newspapers and magazines, cans and glass bottles are collected on Tuesdays. Pet Bottles were collected once a month on a day I could never remember so we stopped buying things in Pet Bottles or threw those away when we went back to the store.

The plan, at the time they made it, was that the Tokyo Metropolitan government was going to implement even more rules in the near future on how garbage would be separated and handled so that Tokyo could be the model city for the entire world on how garbage is to be handled.

We’d show those Europeans and Americans! Just think of it. Tokyo! My Tokyo was going to show the entire world how to handle trash… It gave me goose bumps. It made me all proud and tingly all over. I hadn’t felt that tingly all over since, I think I was 12 or 13, I found a Playboy magazine under my dad’s bed for the first time.

Well, we all got used to this little arrangement with our trash as it went on here in Tokyo for about 15 years. Then, about 5 or 6 years ago, a scandal hit the news and it was learned that, in spite of us having to separate our garbage, the government was collecting it and burning it all together — at the same time anyway — or burying it in one festering pile. So, it didn’t matter that we separated our trash. Those clowns were throwing it all together, plastics, papers, cans, Cheese-Whiz, you-name-it into the incinerators and burning it all together anyhow.

Well, you can imagine that some people got a tad bit upset and some bureaucrat heads rolled (meet the new boss, same as the old boss) because it was learned that there was some sort of shenanigans going on between some bureaucrats and our trash services as money was changing hands, favors being given, etc.

When this became public knowledge, the government excuse was something like, “We haven’t the money yet to build for facilities to handle different kinds of garbage yet, but we wanted the local people to get used to the idea of separating their garbage. So that when we do build these facilities, the public will be ready.”

You can imagine just how much this news pleased me.

Sadly, though, I became disillusioned with the whole thing; my dreams of Tokyo being #1 and global-trash-dominance; my part in single-handedly helping to put a stop to Man-made Global Warming. While all that time, the Three Stooges were burning all the garbage at once, in the same place, like they’ve been doing since the 1950′s.

But this story doesn’t end here. It gets better.

A few months ago, in my effort to keep separating the garbage anyway (environmental crisis and all that, you know) I asked my wife where I was to throw away an empty Pet Bottle that I had just finished. She told me to put it together with the burnable trash.

“What?!”

I gather that now even the government has even grown tired of trying to keep up the faade of doing something useful and, in an effort to cut expenses, they cut down on trash collecting expenses. Not to mention the fact that they haven’t anywhere near the revenue necessary to build the new multi-million dollar facilities that they were planning to build way back when. This means, now, that they want your trash, burnable and all, in one bag.

Ah, the smell of fresh burnt Polyethylene Terephthalate in the morning during my drives to school! It smells like… It smells like… Victory.

We are still encouraged to separate cans and glass and papers — items that are useful and have a value to recyclers — but the regular trash (and whatever) goes all together. This important point, I believe, leads us to why the government will hassle the homeless.

Now, that you have a sufficient background on this trashy tale, dear readers, take my hand (I washed it) and let’s journey back to today. And how, on a road nearby my house, on that wonderful trash day morning, some poor homeless guy, digging for cans in the trash is accosted by the trash police.

You see, the idea of separating our trash, blah blah about the environment, or whatever, is not really about being more efficient and wasting less, it is about expanding government and taxing us more for less. It is a question about control. If history is any example, it is a story about government bureaucrats arranging sweetheart deals that involve kickbacks or “gifts.”

The homeless, on the other hand, lost and with little hope, struggle to survive every day. Some of these enterprising sorts have actually got the gumption to get up early and go out and load up a cart or bicycle with a few kilograms of empty cans once a week.

The government doesn’t want these homeless people picking up the empty cans and taking them into the recycling centers themselves. They claim that it is because the homeless do not clean up after themselves. The government is making a problem out of this where one shouldn’t exist.

I suspect that the real reason the government is making a fuss is really because the government wants the money for the aluminum cans for themselves. I also suspect that the trash pick up company has some sort of “sweet-heart” arrangement with the government in that they made the deal that as long as the government puts their thumbs on everyone’s head and insists that all separate the garbage, the trash company doesn’t have to do it, and that saves them time and money when they can easily take the goods to the recyclers themselves.

So what does the government do to stop these homeless from getting to the empty cans before the garbage-man does? How does the government prevent these dastardly homeless from taking the cans and recycling them for a few cents each? What could possibly be the most inefficient and least cost-effective way to deal with this problem? What would be the most incredibly stupid way to handle this crime wave?

I thought my idea was best when I joked to my wife that we should construct barbed wire fences around the trash areas, hire a bunch of guard dogs, and erect spotlights and machine gun towers. But no! That’s no good. They say that Tokyo streets are too narrow for that… Losers.

How they can load up a mountain of cans on those bikes and still ride them is truly a wonder to see

Well, to stop the homeless from stealing aluminum cans and trading them in for a few pennies each, the obvious governmental solution would be to concoct some plan that would cost far more to implement than the aluminum cans could ever be worth and create a bunch of “jobs” at the same time to boot! (I’d like to point out here that my "plan" fulfilled all these requirements and was much more "fun.")

The government has started patrolling the garbage piles on trash day. I kid you not. In Setagaya Ward, on trash day, there must be anywhere from 4 to 8 government marked patrol cars, with two old guys in uniform in each, driving around in them. These old guys drive around the ward and are on the lookout for the homeless stealing aluminum cans.

Can you believe these idiots? My idea was a complete cynicism. But! At least in my idea at least the guards got to wear cool uniforms like the SS or something. Who ever heard of guards in wimpy green uniforms? And what of the cost of starting up these patrols? Surely one month of patrolling must cost much more than a year’s worth of cans!

Talk about tripping over the dollar in order to pick up the penny. Spending far more money patrolling the garbage than the garbage could ever be worth? Are these people mad? This is really what the Setagaya Ward office government of Tokyo actually has done…Brilliant. Just brilliant.

But on a positive note, we no longer have to buy or use the government approved trash bags anymore either… But don’t even get me started on that!

Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send him mail] was born and raised in the USA and moved to Japan in 1984. He is the president of an Internet & Cross Media advertising/marketing agency and a media production company named Universal Vision. He writes about marketing, the Internet and Social Media at the Modern Marketing Japan blog. His book, Schizophrenic in Japan, went on sale in 2005.

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