The thing about bipartisanship is that both sides must want to be bipartisan. If Obama tries but the Republicans resist, it’s not Obama’s failure. He said he’d reach out, not that he’d somehow persuade the other side to cooperate. He’s kept that promise. The Republicans stiffly declined.
In addition, [the Democrats] have reformatted the bill — they’ve made it a PDF file when they posted it. Now, for those of you that don’t use computers, basically what that means is that it cannot be keyword searched. A PDF file is essentially a picture of a page. And, so, you can read every page, but you cannot keyword search it. It’s not a text file as legislation normally is as posted on these public websites. They don’t want anybody knowing what’s in this; they want it happening as fast as possible so nobody can know what’s in it.
How dumb can this guy be? We know he uses Macs (he claims to have four “maxed-out” Mac Pros), which are even more PDF-savvy than Windows machines. And here he is claiming that you can never search a PDF. Despite the fact that opening up a PDF on a Mac means you are looking at the tool bar which prominently features a search window:
True, if you scan a page as an image, you can’t search it for text. But the vast majority of PDFs are not scanned. Anyone who has opened more than a few PDFs in their lifetime, in fact, would expect the ability to search for text. And indeed, the specific PDF which Limbaugh was referring to was not scanned, and is easily searched for text.
In fact, publishing it as a PDF means that there is a greater ability for more people to read and search the document, as PDF files are a universal format, easily available to everyone. PDFs preserve the fonts and other formatting, making sure that you can view the document exactly as it was designed.
Not to mention that although the document in question is 575 pages long, it is not beyond the realm of possibility for people to read the document. Rush makes a point that one would have to be a speed-reader to get through the bill, without realizing that one can assign a group of people to read sections of the bill and then report on it. Surely, between the hundreds of Republican Senators and Representatives in Congress, they could scrounge up enough staffers so that one person could read only a small number of pages and report on it; a very thorough reading could be finished within an hour.
What probably happened here was that Rush was thinking of the Republican rush to ram the “Patriot” Act through Congress several years ago; he is, after all, describing a Republican tactic. The final “Patriot” Act bill, rewritten by Republicans, was introduced late at night and was put up for an immediate vote, not a next-day vote; Democratic lawmakers had no time even to have their staffs examine the bill. Right-wingers often suffer from projection issues like this–deny or defend their own dishonest tactics and then naturally assume that the opposition always will act the same way without checking to see if they actually are.
So, Limbaugh wins the Computer Illiteracy Award of the Week, in addition to a variety of other partisan, blowhard, and dimwit awards which he regularly claims.
You gotta love this: Al Jazeera reporter goes to interview Mullah Zaif, the former ambassador to Pakistan for the Taliban, which shunned many things western, including most of its technology. The man walks in, sits down… and whips out his iPhone. Yep, his iPhone. Then he proceeds to rave about it: “I’m addicted. The internet is great on this, very fast.” He then proceeds to show it off for the reporter. Really, I had to double check the web site to make sure it was really Al Jazeera and not some satire site. Even had to inspect the photo closely to make sure it wasn’t a Photoshop job.
Is Apple converting the Taliban with its subversive seductiveness?
Strange that I have heard a lot about today being the 200th birthday of Lincoln and the 200th birthday of Darwin, but not about today being the 200th birthday of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Both were born on February 12, 1809. I guess that Darwin is still toxic enough to many (fundamentalist Christian) Americans that there is a reluctance to show any kind of relationship between the two.
Author’s Note: Often times, when something is a hot-button topic, it will get badly distorted in the news. The tale of Yoshi Hattori is an excellent example. Many (especially in Japan) still believe that this friendly Japanese teen rang a doorbell, smiled in greeting, and was shot down by a crazed, gun-weilding maniac. So much went unreported–Hattori’s impaired vision, his habit of running up to friends, and especially the chain of events as seen from Rodney Peairs’ perspective–that the story as it’s usually told gives a completely distorted perception of the actual chain of events. This fact was especially disturbing to me at the time, as I was particularly sensitive to how non-Japanese were portrayed in Japanese news and entertainment media. So I dug into the court files via Lexis-Nexis and found out the facts for myself, leading to the blog post below.
Interestingly, this has led to quite a bit of commentary–43 comments so far–many condemning Peairs, some stating greater understanding. If there is one point I would make to readers, it is that I never claim that what Peairs did was in any way justified–but rather, in the full context of the situation that night, what he did was understandable. He still made the mistake of stepping outside, and that made him responsible. But, unless I am missing a whole lot, it does not make him into some half-crazed gun nut eager to find a reason to shoot someone.
Also of note around the same time:
- The Saga of Pigeons Born on My Balcony (Before I learned how to stop them (only netting worked), a pigeon laid two eggs in a nest on my balcony in Inagi. The page linked to shows their hatching and entire childhood, which took only a matter of six weeks.)
“Hattori Revisited,” Posted June 30, 2003
I wanted to touch on this story as a tangent to the greater current issue of press unreliability and the distortion of truth. It came up in a conversation I was having today having to do with how the view of our world is skewed through the reportage of the mass media. In “Bowling for Columbine,” Michael Moore pointed out how U.S. television overplayed images of black criminals and underplayed white ones. A current version of that in Japan is the kind of crimes committed by members of the U.S. armed forces based here, and how they are amplified in the press–things like a pizza delivery guy getting pelted by a toy plastic pellet gun wielded by someone on an Okinawan base–hardly news, but it gets national coverage because the perp was from a U.S. base.
What might have been the definitive example for Japan-U.S. media distortion, however, was the case of Yoshi Hattori, the young Japanese exchange student shot to death by Rodney Peairs. When it occurred, I was a student at San Francisco State University, and wanting to get the straight details on the case, I accessed the college’s LexisNexis account, and found court transcripts and other records which told a much different story than I’d heard popularly–and which put the incident in a completely different light than how it was represented in the press.
When I ask people to recall how young Hattori got shot, the general recollection was that Hattori went to the wrong address, was met by an aggressive, paranoid homeowner who raised a gun and yelled “freeze”; that Hattori thought he said, “please,” and walked towards him, and then he got shot. That is the general story that was released in the media, and if you do a search on the story on the web, you will find that even today, the story persists.
But it is far from the truth. Vital facts were left out; the story was abbreviated, and was not told from all perspectives. Here’s what I was able to piece together so many years ago from the materials I found.
First off, you should be made aware of two important facts that contribute to a completely new understanding of the case, facts which make the incident and some of its indirect causes far more clear. The greater of these two revelations was that Hattori wore contact lenses, but not on that night: he had lost one lens, and so went without. In other words, his eyesight was impaired. One would think this a fact of great importance to the case, but the press did not touch on it at all. The second fact was the friendly, almost puppylike nature of Hattori himself: when he saw his friends, he had a tendency to run up to them in greeting. This comes into play later as well. You should also know that Peairs’ neighborhood was a high-crime area; that police response time was around 30 minutes (indeed, the ambulance that came for Hattori took that long to arrive). This contributes to Peairs’ state of mind about whether he should handle the matter himself, or wait for law enforcement to arrive.
Here’s what occurred that night, October 17, 1992. Hattori and Haymaker, on their way to a Halloween party, unknowingly arrived at the wrong address (two numbers in the address had been transposed). They walked up to the house and knocked (rang?) at the front door. Mrs. Peairs did not answer immediately because she was putting the kids to bed. She wondered who was at the door that late in the evening, in that neighborhood, with no visitors expected. By the time she got to the front door, no one was there. Hattori and Haymaker, wondering why their friends did not answer, had decided to try the carport door.
Now, a carport is like an open garage, and the door for it is not as “public” as the front door. In terms of personal space and perception, the carport door is somewhat more of an “inside” door, a door strangers do not come to. It is similar to a stranger coming to your side or back door at night–it makes you feel a little insecure. The two boys thought it was OK because they believed it was a friend’s house. But when Mrs. Peairs, just having opened the front door to no one, heard the knocking at the carport door, it was far more worrying to her. She went to the carport door to see who it was.
However, by the time she got there, the boys, again wondering at the delay, had moved away from the door. When she opened the door, Hattori reacted as he did when he greeted new friends: he ran to the door to greet them. From the perspective of Mrs. Peairs, however, this was an entirely different event. She opened a private door to her home, saw two young men–one dressed as a bloody accident victim, the other as a disco star–and suddenly one of them ran at her. Her understanding of context–night in a high crime area, nobody expected, putting the kids to bed, strange youths who ditched the front door and came to an inside door–this made Hattori’s playful greeting run appear frightening. So she freaked out. She slammed the door, ran to her husband, and told him strange young men were at the carport door, and one ran at her, so get the gun!
It is important in understanding what Rodney Peairs did to know that Peairs did not answer the door originally, had not seen what had happened, and did not lay eyes on either boy until he stepped out into the carport with his gun. He entered the situation knowing only what his wife had told him: that strange youths had come to the carport door and one had rushed at her. This left no room for doubt in his mind; he could not possibly know it was a friendly exchange student. Rather, his understanding of the local context along with his wife’s frantic explanation and plea gave him only one clear understanding: young punks outside were threatening his family. Angry and perhaps afraid, he got his gun and went to the carport door.
And here was the critical error, the one that, more than anything else, caused the tragedy to occur–at least the only knowing error: Peairs went out into the carport. What he should have done was to make sure no one had come inside, locked all the doors and windows, called for the police, and waited inside with his gun, using it only if someone tried to enter. Going out and confronting thugs may be in accord with the macho code, but it is tactically unsound and generally unwise.
So Peairs stepped out, expecting that he was dealing with some kind of criminal element in his carport. By this time, Haymaker and Hattori had moved out beyond the parked cars in the carport; Haymaker was trying to explain to Hattori his suspicion that they were at the wrong house; Hattori still hadn’t gotten the idea somehow. Then they heard Peairs call out to them, and say “Freeze!” Peairs raised the gun in plain sight.
Here’s where the missing contact lenses came into play. Most people wonder, even if he didn’t understand “freeze,” why Hattori didn’t see the gun. The missing contacts were why. He couldn’t see. To Hattori, a friend had walked out, and Hattori rushed to greet him. But in Peairs’ context, a clear warning had been given, and a gun had been displayed in plain sight. And yet, one of the young thugs he perceived in his driveway started to run right at him, holding some dark metallic object (it was a camera) in his hand. To Peairs, it could not have been more clear at the time. He fired his gun, and Hattori soon died.
Knowing the whole story makes a difference. With all of these facts stated, the Peairs’ actions are far more understandable. There was still a tragic error and the fault was Mr. Peairs’, but one can see now that Peairs was not the violent, paranoid gun nut he was made out to be in the press. Context and perspective are crucial for a clear view. The public, especially in Japan, was outraged when Peairs was cleared of wrongdoing in criminal court; if one knew the true story, one would not be surprised at all. Although Peairs made the error of stepping outside and was ultimately responsible for Hattori’s death, what he did was within the law, especially under Louisiana’s “shoot the burglar” statute.
Returning to the thesis of this entry, the distortion by the press was obviously a factual one, but also there was the element of degree: the Hattori story remained in the press for years, and for the first 18 months, Japanese papers ran stories on it several times every week. But, like the stories about U.S. military personnel in Okinawa, the story was run way out of proportion to its actual importance.
One day’s second-page layout in the Daily Yomiuri exemplified the imbalance in ironic splendor. I saw it fully a year and two months after the Hattori incident, with Yoshi stories still running regularly. There was a 6-inch article on the continuing Hattori saga, about a planned film project called “The Boy Who Loved America”–talk about your bitterly ironic titles. But right next to it was a 2-inch piece about a death that had occurred just the day before. Somewhere in the Kansai region, a hunter had accidentally shot and killed a 62-year-old woman who was in the hills looking for wild vegetables to use during the New Year’s holidays. The story, though fresh, ran just for that one day, and only got those two inches.
Reading these two articles together, it occurred to me that the Kansai story was in many ways identical to the Hattori story. A man, legally owning a gun and using it for legally allowed purposes (hunting, defending one’s home), mistakes an innocent, on a holiday outing, for an acceptable target, shoots and kills them. The Kansai killing took place in a country where guns are as rare as gun deaths–and yet the incident barely made a ripple in the press. But the Hattori case, already more than a year old, demanded a story three times the length of the new story.
This is not what one could call “balanced reporting.” But then, this is my contention: that the media does not balance, despite their claims to do so. They print what sells. They cater to stereotypes, reinforcing them.
Don’t trust what you read. Don’t trust that you’re hearing all the pertinent facts or perspectives. Don’t trust that anything is presented in proportion.
So how do we get the big picture? We don’t, and that’s what is important to realize: in this information age, we expect that it is possible to get all the facts, but it never is. When you regard an issue, keep in mind that you do not and will never know the whole story. Most people forget this and believe their conviction to be a virtue.
Gallup asked Americans:
Of course, the Republicans will not react to this; they will continue to threaten the filibuster and bully their way to steer a hundred billion dollars or more of the stimulus away from education and infrastructure building and toward their precious tax cuts instead.
As Obama is set to address the nation in a prime-time press conference. I suppose it’s too much to hope for to expect Obama to have an “American President” moment and take the opportunity to tell Americans that he tried everything he could to placate and compromise with the Republicans, but that after exhaustive attempts at bipartisanship, all he got were one or two Senators and no Representatives from that party, at the cost of too many valuable aspects of the bill, and so he plans to revert the bill back to its original form and will call for a straight up-or-down vote, and every American please contact your representatives in both houses and urge them to allow the straight vote, NOW.
Yeah, I know, it’s fantasy. Obama will almost certainly praise Republicans for trying, Kumbaya and all that, and will simply push for the bill as it is presently formed for immediate passage. Backtracking in that fashion would be gutsy but not Obama’s style.
What we’re getting is better than nothing, but it’s galling that so much of value had to be cut in order to get even the minimal approval of the party which so many Americans–even conservatives–feel is wrong and off-track. It just doesn’t feel right. Hopefully, Obama has learned his lesson and will not give up anything up front ever again, will start from a better negotiating position in the future, and will be tougher on the Republicans and play a harder game. One can hope.
Among the Republican calls for tax cuts (PDF file of the GOP proposal):
Repeal the alternative minimum tax so that wealthy people can avoid paying even that much.
Keep the capital gains and dividends tax rate at 15%, so that wealthy people who make most of their income that way can use it to maintain low tax rates.
Lower corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, because Exxon and the other oil corporations need to keep as much of their massive eleven-digit profits as they can in order to keep their Cayman Island accounts healthy.
Lower the highest tax rates on regular income for the the wealthy from 35% to 25%.
And here’s the topper: Repeal the estate tax under $5 million, and cut it to 15% for estates above $5 million. Currently, estate taxes apply to estates worth $3.5 million and higher, and are taxed at 45% above that amount. Republicans have been shooting for the $5 million/15% for some time now, meaning it’s not “stimulus,” it’s simply one of their desired goodies.
Fact is, tax cuts to the rich is not stimulus; it didn’t pump up the economy when Bush tried it before, and it won’t work now. These tax cuts are simply yet another giveaway–this time a $3 trillion giveaway over the next 10 years–mostly to people who don’t need them. Just pile it on top of the $700 billion we just fed the super-wealthy, and all the other cuts they’ve gorged on, which only helped feed their greed which led to this crisis in the first place.
That won’t stop Republicans from pressing for even more tax cuts for the rich, on top of all the recent huge tax cuts for the rich, at a time when revenues will be plummeting and the middle class, more and more, will not be helped by tax cuts on income they aren’t making.
Here’s a prediction: if the Republicans got these tax cuts and they didn’t work, what would they would ask for next? Just a wild guess here, but I’d say they’d call for more tax cuts for the rich.
Don’t you need to have a job for tax cuts to help you? I think that Republicans are kind of missing the point about what “stimulus” is here. Or else they aren’t, and their whole idea is not to help those who are losing their jobs and their homes, but simply to help those who are comfortable, which, after all, has long been the GOP mission.
In Japan, QR codes are used quite a bit, so I thought I might give my impressions of the various free QR code reading apps for the iPhone. There are several free QR code readers out there, and they work with varying results. One problem often encountered is the fact that the iPhone’s camera is not intended for macro use and close-up images blur too much–so unless the QR code you want to scan is relatively large, the iPhone won’t be able to handle it. That said, here are the reviews, from worst to best.
The next worse I tried was 2-D Sense. It allows for the use of a wide range of code types and has fairly customizable settings. You also are given then chance to rescale the code for better reading reliability, something all the apps I tried save for iDecode had. However, although it was able to scan larger QR codes (it had trouble with medium-sized ones that other readers could handle), I couldn’t make it save the codes or go to the site that was revealed. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but after trying several times, I couldn’t make it work. Additionally, if there is a failed scan, you have to retake the entire photo to try again. To top it all off, it crashed once while I was trying to use it. It got a little further than iDecode and shows promise, but ultimately failed to do the job.
Barcode [iTunes link] was one of the first readers made available. It has a nice, customized code target area which makes pretty clear exactly where the code should be when you zoom and adjust the image you took. It reads to code reliably, and saves results you want. There are options for recognizing email addresses and phone numbers from QR codes and then sending email or dialing a number, but I could not get them to work.
The best I tried, however, was BarcodeS (plural, emphasis on the “S” mine) [iTunes link], not to be confused with “Barcode” (singular). Barcodes worked the fastest and most reliably. Additionally, it can read QR-coded phone numbers and call the number up, something that Barcode failed to do for me.
One more point in favor of Barcodes: there is one QR code I found which, in almost all readers I tried, yielded an error in the URL it expressed; almost all readers got a long string of junk following the URL, which had to be pared down in Safari. All the other readers I tried got the junk URL, but Barcodes alone successfully weeded out only the working address. If you want a simple, easy-to-use, and reliable QR code reader, then Barcodes is probably the best–but it might be nice to have Barcode as a backup, especially if they ever get the phone & email thing worked out.
Both Barcode and Barcodes have the ability to scan images saved in your iPhone’s photo album, so you can snap quick pictures on the go (or with better-quality photo apps like Darkroom) and then scan the QR code later.
In the days when Republicans controlled Congress and the Democrats occasionally resorted to the filibuster, Republicans called it everything short of treasonous, screaming bloody murder whenever it was even hinted at. Undemocratic, they called it–denying a straight up-or-down vote. So hideously wrong even if used rarely, it required the threat of the “nuclear option,” in which they would do away with the procedure once and for all.
Now? The Republican use of the filibuster is such standard practice that they actually brag about anything needing 60 votes to get through Congress, as if the filibuster were an automatic stage for every bill passing through. Republicans not only like the filibuster now, they see it as indispensable and a vital tool for Democracy, and have used it more than any other Congress in history.
How much do you want to bet that if Republicans regained full control of Congress tomorrow, they would instantly turn around and again attack the procedure as something vile and traitorous, as if they had been against it all along? It would not be surprising at all–that’s just the way Republicans roll: attack something inconvenient and then embrace it when they find use; skewer an opponent for doing something and then turn around and do it themselves in spades. And then unashamedly claim the moral high ground and label the other side as flip-floppers.
When I saw the news story that Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher was going to Israel as a war correspondent to report on the conflict in Gaza, I was a bit taken aback until I saw that it was for Pajamas Media, a right-wing blogging group. That would make sense, as a right-wing celebrity he would appeal to that audience.
However, just a few days ago, I saw a headline reporting that Joe would be addressing the Republicans in Congress, that he had been asked to advise them on political matters, including the stimulus bill. When I saw that one, I first presumed that I had stumbled upon a satire site’s story, like The Onion’s–those sometimes make their way in to Google News’ lineup. But no, this was for real: the GOP had honestly asked Joe the Plumber to address and advise them.
This is what amazes me about conservatives: not just that people like Wurzelbacher and Sarah Palin could become so popular during the election–that I can kind of see because of their sudden popular appeal despite their massive failings (common with right-wing stars)–but that they can persist in their popularity even after having failed so badly. Building a reputation upon fraud after fraud, misstep after misstep, gaffe after gaffe, and then losing the battle to boot should be enough to shunt one aside into to shadows of obscurity. But apparently, both Joe and Sarah continue to “send little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America,” entrancing those of the conservative persuasion.
But the Republicans in Congress? Asking for professional political advice? Are they truly that shallow, that stupid?
Let’s not forget how Joe shot to stardom: he lied. When Obama happened to walk down his street, campaigning one day, “Joe” saw an opportunity to score points for his favored candidate. He approached Obama and began with a lie: “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes about 250, 270, 80 thousand dollars a year. Your new tax plan’s going to tax me more, isn’t it?” Truth is, the company’s income was not in that range, Joe started with “$250,000” only because he knew that was the point at which Obama’s tax plan would start taxing people more; Joe immediately adjusted the number to $280,000, probably realizing that at $250,000, there would no additional taxes–if you watch the video and realize that he’s making these numbers up, you can pretty much see how transparently he is fictionalizing here. He was also lying about “getting ready to buy” the business, based upon the fact that he did not have the financial means to do so. In short, he saw an opportunity to confront Obama with a guy who would pay more taxes under Obama’s proposed tax plan, and lied to make it happen. He had probably seen McCain’s gaffes represented as “gotcha” moments and wanted to score one of his own on the opponent.
After that, all kinds of interesting information came out about the man. He was not really a plumber, not officially, and wound up losing his plumbing gig when the state discovered that he was working illegally. He owed back taxes which he had never paid. And it turns out that in real life, Joe would have benefitted a lot more from Obama’s tax plan than he would have from McCain’s.
But never mind reality, the right wing suddenly had an fictional ideological archetype, which is much better. Joe was suddenly the everyman downtrodden by oppressively high tax rates, the struggling worker being beaten down by socialist liberals trying to “spread the wealth.” John McCain realized this instantly, and suddenly it was “Joe the Plumber” this, and “Joe the Plumber” that.
Never mind that Joe’s statements were painfully grating and sometimes even borderline racist; never mind that Joe’s opinions on various matters were outlier extremist, often hypocritical, and pathetically easy to shoot down; never mind that Joe was capricious, sometimes criticizing McCain; never mind that Joe was visibly an opportunist, hiring an agent and vying for book deals and Country & Western contracts; never mind even that Joe was ultimately ridiculed and dismissed by most people, and contributed to McCain’s loss. No, Joe was an icon, and that excused a lot. Kind of like a big TV star–someone you don’t mind so much is on drugs or being let go so easily after an arrest, you just like the fantasy they represent and so you’re willing to overlook the personal foibles.
I’d expect that from fans and loyalists. But professionals? Representatives and Senators? When the GOP asked Joe to address them, they were not asking him to do PR–they were asking him to lecture and advise them. Seriously. As if they truly felt that the man had a wisdom that he could impart their way, that he could give them sound counsel on how to approach serious political matters. They were not using him to appeal to others, they genuinely believed that he was someone with better knowledge and sense than they already possessed. They bought into the imagery that much. It’s as if the Democrats asked the Obama Girl to address the DNC on foreign policy. Astonishing.
But that’s where the Republicans are right now: grasping at starbursts and sly winks, believing in failed icons like a terminal cancer patient putting their hopes into faith healers and psychics, because that’s all they have left.
Oh, this is rich. For years, Republicans in many states (though Florida seems to be the champ here) try their damnedest to purge Democrats from the voter rolls by creating inflated “felon” lists, taking in anyone who has a name similar to convicted felons, an act which targets a large number of minority voters who are non-felons. When Democrats protest, Republicans deride them for courting“the felon vote” or “the criminal vote.”
Well, guess what? Norm Coleman, in Minnesota, is pushing and pushing hard for the vote of a prisoner’s absentee ballot to be counted. While it’s true that the man was not a convicted felon at the time and he was given the wrong type of absentee ballot in jail, the smear against Democrats is applied for courting the votes of people who never even committed a crime. And here’s a Republican wanting the jailhouse vote, even when technically the vote was invalid. Key point: were Al Franken to court this voter, Republicans would explode in a fit of ridicule and scorn at those criminal-loving Democrats.
Author’s Note: If you’ve read this blog for a while, then you are probably aware of what little respect I have for the Japanese police. Despite a good reputation overseas (gained by ludicrously inflated conviction rates), they are surprisingly ineffective and all too often inept. Far better at collecting fines, giving directions, and ignoring crimes they feel it’s not likely they can solve, even the Japanese people themselves generally don’t respect them too much.
This has been illustrated in other stories in this blog, such as when a cop just stood by and watched while three gangsters grabbed a man near a police station, tossed him into their car, and then sped off, or the time Japanese cops arrested a guy who doused himself with gasoline to set himself afire, and then gave him a cigarette lighter upon request, leading to a predictable result.
The article below outlines how Japanese motorcycle cops specifically strut around mainly for show, but don’t actually do what they should be doing, which is enforcing laws to make the streets safer.
Please read the postscript at the end.
Also of note in this blog around the same time:
- “In Case You’ve Been Depending on the U.S. Media…” (A report on how the Jessica Lynch story was virtually a fictional made-for-TV movie produced for public consumption, and how the mass media bought into it fully.)
“Seasonal Fair-Weather Daylight Enforcers,” Posted June 4, 2003
Oops.
The guy at right is probably not as ashamed as you might think, depending on his particular crime. There’s a very good chance that he was pulled over for something that was safe, reasonable, and yet still illegal.
Japanese traffic police are an interesting breed. If we were to class them as we would a species of bird, we would note that they have a very specific range–in this case, primarily along major thoroughfares, especially at intersections or at the exits of underpasses. Their “diet” is primarily motorcycles or other two wheeled vehicles; they might occasionally snack on cars or vans, but they never, ever go after trucks, no matter what crazy thing one might do. And they are most definitely diurnal; you will never see one out after dark. In fact, they never go out when it rains or snows, either; they apparently have a very delicate constitution.
OK, ornithological analogies aside, Japanese motorcycle cops are not exactly doing the job they are supposed to be doing, which is–and I’m making a big reach by presuming this–protecting public safety on the roads. In fact, their mandate is likely closer to what it is for most police in Japan, which is to make a good show of law enforcement without really getting involved, except for high-profile cases.
As I mentioned, Japanese traffic cops have poor habits for enforcement. First, they only venture out onto the big roads, like Koshu-Kaido, Ome-Kaido, and so on. With the multitude of smaller roads and blind corners where traffic disobedience can present real dangers to the public, you might think they would normally patrol these areas as well, but they don’t. Even on the bigger roads, they hang out at major intersections and at the exits of underpasses only. Why? Because it’s easy to catch people there. Seriously. That’s where people slow down, making it easier to pull them over. Also, you can find people violating technical rules there more often, rules that do not necessarily endanger anyone but make for juicy traffic fine fodder.
One example: I knew a guy who rode a 50cc scooter. At one intersection, he got into the right turn lane (in Japan, you drive on the left, so a right turn at an intersection means crossing the opposite lane of traffic), and he got pulled over. The officer gave him a ticket. Why? Because in Japan, if you are riding a scooter under 51cc and you make a right turn at an intersection with two major lanes of traffic and a third turn lane, it is illegal. Why? No good reason whatsoever. They just made the law that way. If you know how Japanese traffic works, you will know that there is no earthly difference between a 50cc and a 70cc scooter making that same turn. A 50cc bike is allowed to drive in any lane of traffic, no matter how many lanes there are. When you go from the rightmost lane into the right turn lane, you slow down, meaning 50cc vehicles have no problem there. Making the turn itself is no problem. There is no part of that maneuver which is not perfectly safe for a 50cc vehicle. But the police can write lots of lucrative traffic tickets for it.
Another profitable spot is at the exit of two-lane underpasses. Why? Because such underpasses always have lanes separated by a yellow (no-cross) line. Why is it there? I can’t think of a logical reason. But bikes will often cross it, and they’re easy to catch on the straightaway or traffic light right after. Also, the cop can hide easily there, as he can at the intersection.
In addition, they go after motorcycles far more often than any other vehicle, far out of proportion to offenses committed. And I have never seen them pull over a truck. One time I saw a truck make a sudden and extremely dangerous lane change, over a no-cross yellow line, no less. A traffic cop was right there, watching. He did nothing. A minute later, a motorcycle crossed the yellow line, in a completely safe way. He got pulled over.
There is also a season, by the way–traffic campaign seasons, multi-week stretches (usually 2 or 3 times a year) when traffic cops are at intersections and underpasses everywhere, writing tickets like mad. Why the sudden enthusiasm? They get paid extra for every traffic ticket they write.
Traffic cops seem to have a good union, because they are never out at night, nor do they come out in inclement weather. Which are, naturally, the times when traffic violations present greater dangers than usual due to lack of visibility and control. But I concluded long ago that cops in Japan are more about show than safety. One example: I have only seen one speed trap (a guy seated on a folding chair with a radar setup, in radio contact with traffic cops at the other end of the street) set up in my years in Japan. It was along a riverside road. The road itself is ludicrous: half a kilometer long, the river on one side, a huge building on the other; no intersections along that stretch, no houses, no pedestrian traffic, just a nice, long unbroken straightaway. So of course the speed limit is 30. That’s Kph, not Mph. It comes out to just under 20 mph. Someone would have to be insane not to “speed” there. They put up the trap there precisely because of that, and because it’s easy as pie to stop people. Does it help public safety? Not in the least.
On the other hand, there is a small street I sometimes walk on, one of those very narrow two-lane streets you often see in Japan, but this one with lots of blind corners and heavy traffic. A straightaway, no stops signs or lights for a 200-meter stretch. People crossing the street all the time, cars coming out of the blind intersections. The speed limit on that road is 40 kph (25 mph), and people speed quite often. It’s one of the most dangerous streets I know of. Furthermore, there is a large police station right smack at the end of the street. And yet I have never seen a speed trap there, nor any cop watching traffic. Go figure.
This all jibes with what you hear about Japanese police in general. Someone stole your wallet/purse/whatever? Sorry, we can’t help you, in fact don’t even bother us by filling out a report. Bosozoku (hot rodders on scooters and motorcycles) racing up and down your street at 2 a.m., endlessly revving their engines at artificially-enhanced noise levels, breaking traffic laws left and right? Don’t bother us.
But if you see a guy on a 50cc scooter going at safe speeds making an orderly right turn on a 3-lane street, by all means, report it immediately. We don’t want a menace like that going unchecked.
Update: I have encountered two more speed traps like those mentioned here. Both were in almost identical circumstances–not dangerous at all, but well-placed to catch safe drivers in technical illegalities. But I have also seen two instances recently which made my eyes pop: a truck and a taxi (not at the same time–different days) pulled over and ticketed. I have never seen that before, either one. Not because they drive safely, especially not taxis, but, I believe, because cops give them a break, either because they share a common background or simply because taxi and truck drivers depend on driving for their livelihood.
Postscript: My past year and a half in Ikebukuro has made one thing clear: you get a lot fewer tickets living in the city. As I note in the above blog post from 2003, the police love to lay in wait on long, wide, deserted stretches of countryside road where it’s absolutely safe to go fast and yet the speed limits are set ludicrously low. Before moving from the more rural area of Inagi, I got so many tickets that I went “mentei” (on probation). However, since I moved to Ikebukuro, I have not gotten a single ticket. Why? Not because I drive any differently, I drive exactly the same as before–safely. The difference is that in central Tokyo, the police almost never set up traps like they do outside the city center. I have seen one speed trap in Ikebukuro (not very effective–it’s right after a major 90-degree turn, where few would be able to speed), but that’s it–I saw speed traps all the time out in the countryside. And motorcycle cops just don’t stalk you on Meiji Blvd. like they do on Route 20.
More evidence that it’s all a scam, more about raising revenue as easily as possible, and not even the slightest about traffic safety.
Coleman: I won the election by a few hundred votes! That’s a solid enough victory that Al Franken should just give up and not ask for a recount!
Greek Choir: By law, with this margin, a recount is mandatory.
Coleman: Okay, then let’s make sure it’s honest; here are the parameters by which the recount should be carried out. We fully agree to these provisions.
Greek Choir: The recount is finished, and Franken has won, by a slightly larger margin than you had before.
Coleman: What?!? Hey! Franken stole this election! The recount parameters were unfair! In fact, if someone wins an election by such a small number, that’s within the margin of error and so the whole thing should be scrapped and a new election should be held!
Greek Choir: And then you’ll agree not to sue everyone?
Coleman: Only if I win.
Postscript: Some say that Coleman is stringing this out only to keep Franken out of the Senate for as long as possible. If so, how petty can you get? Not to mention, at the cost of the people of his state–one less Senator, especially when a large spending bill is on its way, could cost Minnesota dearly.
Obama and the Democrats could have rammed the stimulus bill through the House loaded with everything they wanted and squat for Republicans, and then played hardball in the Senate, laying out a public campaign attacking Republicans if they tried to filibuster an up-or-down vote–and it probably would have worked. That is, without any doubt whatsoever, exactly what the Republicans would have done were the situation reversed. We know they would because they did do exactly that, repeatedly, in the past.
Instead, Obama went way out of his way to include Republicans; he even left pride behind and showed up at the Republicans’ doorstep, gave them large amounts of face time and more than a little respect; he quickly eliminated programs from his stimulus that Republicans complained about, like family planning provisions, and gave Republicans several key elements they demanded, like increased tax cuts, despite their limited effectiveness in situations such as this. In short, Obama did exactly what Republicans have steadfastly refused to do: he was bipartisan and more than fair, considering that he won the election and has powerful majorities in both houses. More than fair considering that Republicans, with less power, did little more than spit on Democrats under similar circumstances just a few short years ago.
So, how did Republicans respond?
They took the considerable leverage and media exposure that Obama handed them in good faith and used it to grab everything they could and then bash Obama with smears and petty whining. In the House, they demanded and got more than they reasonably could have hoped for, and then ganged together and refused even a single vote for the bill. They then demanded more, some even dictating that Obama’s bill be scrapped and their own be put in its place, called the Democrats names, and accused them of all kinds of nasty political maneuverings–and then somehow, in the midst of all this, claimed the “bipartisan” mantle for themselves. For Republicans, “bipartisan” apparently means “give us everything we want and then let us eviscerate you.”
Sorry, but these people are beyond obnoxious. Obama extends them a hand, and they punch him square in the face.
You ask me, the Republicans just set the tone. They deserve no respect, zero. Take back everything offered to them, pass the bills America needs by appealing directly to the American people–taking a hard stance and forcing the GOP to play out each and every filibuster to show up their selfish obstructionism and political game-playing–and treat them with exactly the respect they have earned.
Until they are ready to act like adults and not like snot-nosed little brats, they can sit at the card table and whine all they want.
Unfortunately, Obama is unlikely to do that until the Republicans abuse him a whole lot more for a whole lot longer. He will probably continue to treat them with far more respect than they deserve–and the danger is that the American people will come to disrespect Obama for that. Let’s hope that Obama is smarter than that, and knows when to play hardball when it is required.
Remember before 2007, when the news networks had mostly Republicans as guests on prominent talk shows and Democrats seemed few and far between? The networks claimed that it was because Republicans controlled the White House and had majorities in the House and the Senate. The stated message was that more Democrats would be similarly featured in greater proportion were the situation reversed. In fact, network representatives said that more Democrats were favored when Clinton was in office. However, that wasn’t true–guests’ party affiliation was more or less evenly split in the late 90’s. However, you could argue that while Clinton held the White House, Republicans held the Congress, so an even split was justified.
Well, the situation is now truly reversed–in fact, Democrats now have a much stronger presence in D.C. than the Republicans ever had at their peak. So, are Democrats now dominating the talk shows?
ABC’s “This Week” – Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
CBS’ “Face the Nation” – Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
NBC’s “Meet the Press” – Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and John Kerry, D-Mass.
CNN’s “State of the Union” – Govs. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn., and Jennifer Granholm, D-Mich.; Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and John Ensign, R-Nev.
“Fox News Sunday” – Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.; Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee.
Almost evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, with Fox News tipping it rightward, as can be expected.
Were claims of a “Liberal Media” true, then Democrats would have dominated even when Republicans held power; that Republicans still get the mic more than Democrats even when Democrats now hold a far stronger position is not really a great argument for the media being tilted to the left.
I would even be tempted to say that the media seems to be tilted pretty noticeably to the right–but that couldn’t possibly be true, could it?
One of the highlighted “news” articles at Google News came from the right-wing American Thinker blog, with the eye-catching headline, “Obama’s Hypocritical Law,” referring to the Lily Ledbetter Act. The charge:
In a windfall for trial lawyers nationwide, President Obama struck a blow for employees who want to sue their employers for alleged pay discrimination. However, an inconvenient report from CNSNews.com last September indicates that candidate Barack Obama paid the women on his staff 78% of the salaries of his male staff members from October 2007 through March 2008. Coincidentally, this is almost exactly the same pay disparity that President Obama himself decries in the “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act” he just signed into law Thursday.Two questions arise: 1) Will the mainstream media pick up this story of presidential hypocrisy? 2) Will any of Obama’s female staff members sue him for discrimination? Sadly, the answer to both of these questions is most likely NO.
If you follow the link to the cited “inconvenient report,” however, you find out that the “report” is little more than right-wing spin from a conservatively-biased news site. A complete reading of the story demonstrates how the article’s headline and thesis are critically flawed: the analysis did not take into account differing job positions. In fact, the third paragraph in the story even said plainly, “Women occupy seven of the top 10 highest-paid positions on McCain’s staff, and five of the top 10 highest-paid positions on Obama’s staff.” The writer of the article clearly did not mind the fact that the data rather plainly contradicted his thesis, even though that contradiction was clearly stated in the article.
The Lily Ledbetter Act addresses the illegality of men receiving higher pay for the same position. Clearly, the discrepancy in payment on Obama’s staff (if it is indeed as reported) is not, as suggested, a result of violating that principle, but simply due to differences in how much different positions are paid.
Reading through the comments to the Thinker blog post, however, you get the usual right-wing knee-jerk replies–everyone uncritically accepting the flawed premise without checking the information, reinforcing their erroneous presumptions. This is how conservatives often lather themselves up into indignant umbrage, proving to themselves how unfair the system is to themselves and how dishonest the other guys are. Had the ideological reverse of this been up on even as slanted a site as DailyKos, it would have been shot down as unfounded by its own liberal audience within minutes. But then, we’re less gut-based and more fact-based.
I posted a response in the comments, which are moderated. It’ll be interesting to see if they let it pass, and how people there react to it.
Missed a day! Quite appropriately, the streak of blogging ended at 2009 days.
Author’s Note: this blog post is more in the vein of how the media has been complicit in lying to us. This brought back some memories, including that I still got a newspaper delivered back then–something I long ago dropped, since there’s more than enough coverage on the web.
Some other blog posts from May 2003 that you may want to check out:
- “How Nice” (When I discovered a very good example of Christians incapable of seeing non-Christians as moral)
- “Bush’s Record” (Most of his misdeeds before taking office)
- “Yakitori You Don’t Want to Miss” (Great yakitori at Akiyoshi Yakitoriya)
- “And Here Comes the Payoff” (Media Corporations being rewarded by the Bush administration)
“Has Anybody Noticed?” Posted May 14, 2003
Today in the Yomiuri there were some Washington Post articles, as there are every week. As I read some of these gems from what is supposed to be the bastion of “the liberal media,” I wondered how anyone could believe in such an outrageous mischaracterization. The media have become shills for the government, driven by the success of conservative networks, good ratings for being flag-waving patriots, and the knowledge that conservatives back telecommunications laws and policies that benefit media conglomerates.
This morning’s examples include three articles. One was a “reproach” against Bush’s honesty, but it’s kind of hard to see it. While calling Clinton and Gore outright “liars,” the story goes soft on Bush, saying he is “flexible on leveling with the public,” and saying things that are “not exactly true,” but “necessary.” Ooooh, that’s biting. Bush’s record on lying makes Clinton and Gore look like George Washington with the Cherry Tree.
The other two articles refer to the so far not-found WMD (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq. But instead of asking where they are and why did you lie to us, the articles basically speak of ways we might be able to uncover them better, and if we don’t, it doesn’t matter anyway. I got a very different perspective in Europe on my Spain trip, when I picked up a copy of Britain’s “The Independent,”, which had the banner headline, “So where are they, Mr. Blair? Not one illegal warhead. Not one drum of chemicals. Not one incriminating document. Not one shred of evidence that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction in more than a month of war and occupation.”
A slight difference, wouldn’t you say? Something most Americans are unaware of or are unwilling to accept is that we are being systematically lied to and misled. No, this is not paranoid conspiracy-buff territory. The evidence is pretty glaring, especially if you have an international viewpoint.
Take, for instance, the April 9th toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad’s al-Fardos Square. First we were told that it was Iraqi’s but when the pictures came in showing marines draping the U.S. flag over the statue’s head and using a winch to pull it down, the story got revised. Still, news reports told us that huge throngs of Iraqis watched, cheered and danced when the statue was pulled down, and we saw tight shots (left) of the crowds that made it look true. ABC News reported that “hundreds of Iraqis then cheered and waved an Iraqi flag as a Marine tank tow truck pulled the statue to the ground. A frenzied mob roared and jumped and danced on the fallen statue.”
This was repeated again and again over the major networks, seen everywhere by everyone. Pretty convincing stuff. Except that later on, if you were diligent enough to leave the networks and get on the Internet, you would have found out a few galling facts. First of all, the tight shots were framed so as to hide the fact that only a hundred or so people–many of whom were marines and reporters–populated the large square; the photograph below shows the whole square, and as you can see, it looks rather deserted in reality.
Next, we learned more about the staging of the event. The flag marines draped over the statue’s head turns out to have been the same flag that flew at the Pentagon on 9-11. Flags like that one don’t just happen to pop up at places like that. And as it turns out, neither do “frenzied mobs” of Iraqis. One photo shown widely in the press of a jubilant Iraqi turned out to be none other that Ahmed Chalabi, a U.S. military chosen puppet leader. Other Iraqis who “spontaneously” appeared at the scene have been photographed with Chalabi in the past.
Remember how we saw frenzied mobs of Floridians in the 2000 election aftermath who succeeded in shutting down the recounting process in some parts? Remember that we later found out that they were not only not Floridians, but they were paid staff of Washington D.C. Republicans sent down to disrupt legal state processes? the Iraq statue story is the same kind of thing. And again, the fake image gets broadcast everywhere, while the truth, learned later, is barely heard anywhere. But with the Baghdad incident, the press was without doubt a willing accomplice to the fraud.
But that’s not an isolated incident. Here’s another recent example. Last March, Bush held a sham “press conference” that was effectively scripted. Reporters were not allowed to filter in, but rather were escorted in one by one, to demonstrate White House control. Reporters unwilling to throw softballs were relegated to the back rows, and even Helen Thomas, for the first time in more than 30 years, was not seated front row and was not allowed to ask any questions. White House Communication director Dan Bartlett announced publicly that he knew what the questions were going to be and that only those reporters would be called upon; Bush had a list of 17 reporters whom he knew would ask questions he wanted to answer, and stuck tightly to the list when calling on reporters. No one was allowed to stray from approved topics, and no follow-up questions were permitted; when one reported tried to, Bush shut him up, blurting out, “This is a scripted–” and then stopped short, after which the press corps, mostly in the back of the room, laughed (Listen for yourself).
And the press sucking up to Bush not just because of the war–otherwise how come the press was so light on Bush even before the war? Especially during the election process. Remember how we were scandalized when we read incessant coverage of Clinton saying he “didn’t inhale”? The endless stories on Whitewater which turned out to be nothing? The incredible number of stories about Monica? Small-time stuff compared to Bush.
Get this: Bush is a convicted drunk driver, has a reputation for being a long-time coke addict which he accentuated by claiming he’s been drug-free since 1974, just after, coincidentally, he went AWOL from the National Guard where his dad got him into a celebrity unit and was trained on a jet that had been taken out of service and would never be used in Vietnam. He has three felony SEC violations that were never prosecuted (his father was president at the time), and “borrowed” $180,000 from one of his companies, which later forgave about $340,000 in debts to “unnamed executives.” And to top it off, as Governor of Texas, he lied under oath–not about an affair, but about an investigation into one of Bush’s cronies, a Robert L. Waltrip, owner of a chain of funeral homes. Bush himself was named as a defendant, and he signed the affidavit to avoid being involved in the trial–and he lied. There are at least half a dozen other skeletons in his closet that are less blatant, each one more around the level of Whitewater.
If Clinton had even a fraction of this kind of dirt, the media would have gone into frenzy mode. He was impeached in the Senate and pilloried in the press for lying under oath about an affair, and yet Bush has not been touched by the media despite the fact that it has been proven that he lied under oath in a serious case of political and financial corruption.
This does not happen with an impartial press.
Over the past decade, Republicans have shown that they do stick tight to one principle above all others: do anything and everything to grab more power. To win an election, get it any which way, from smears to pandering; disenfranchise voters from the other party, trick them into not voting, try to get them disqualified by any means. In blue states, demand justice by dividing the districts and electoral votes “objectively” and “fairly,” but by all means claim that this is not needed in red states.
If you lose an election, do everything you can to tie it up or reclaim it. In Minnesota, Coleman knows he’s lost, but is tying up the seat in court for as long as he can–if a Republican can’t have the seat, then simply remove his people’s right to have a Senator for as long as possible. Recalls, recounts, whatever works. If you win by even a single vote, claim victory and say that a recount is not needed and is somehow robbing the people; if you lose by a small margin, call for recounts and court battles till the cows come home.
By this principle, we now witness Republicans, roundly slapped back by angry voters stung by GOP mismanagement, desperate to get seats back. Recognizing that this is hard to do by honest means, Republicans are looking eagerly forward to an alternate means: gerrymandering. Already they see the 2010 census as favoring them, with blue states losing population and red states gaining–and when the time comes for redistricting after the census, the GOP wants to be in place for controlling how that works. With the recent Supreme Court ruling that even non-census gerrymandering is A-OK, they are ready to be as shameless as they can be is shaping those districts.