JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
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- Corporate Business English Trainers
- ACT Systems, Inc.（株式会社アクト・システムズ）, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥269,500 ~ ¥280,000 / Month
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- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
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- FT English Teachers for Kids - Osaka
- Kohgakusha Co., Ltd. （株式会社興学社）, Osaka
- Salary: ¥255,000 ~ ¥275,000 / Month Travel Expenses, Encouragement of Japanese learning*
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jeancolmar
Quite right, Christian cons have contributed greatly to the dumbing down of the US.
Posted in: Conservatives lost more than an election
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jeancolmar
Good for Madam Sarkozy. She is the small good thing in an otherwise not good thing in having her husband as President.
France does need to get to it with regard to ending racism. Hate speech is outlawed in France but that is by itself not enough.
Posted in: French say 'Yes, we can!' too, to ending racism
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jeancolmar
Baldwin is not a good writer. And on top his not been a good writer he is not a particularly good thinker. In fact he is clueless. The only thing interesting about him is that he belongs to a fringe of the American right-wing. He opposes the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq but he is an Isalmophobe. He opposes the Patriot Act but also opposed a woman's right to choose abortion. He is a pro-gun nut who favors private militas. He is also a fundamentalist Bible-beater who hates Martin Luther King for theological reason and because King had a better sex life than he has. He was a member of Moral Majority. He supports profiling. He is the sort of right-wing "libertarian" who in the end would be as totalitarian as Bush if he had the power.
But he doesn't. He is an eccentric with a small following. He is probably not that well funded. Not as well as the neocons.
Anyway, this last election was won not over ideology but mostly over the economy. Not even over Iraq. People's stomachs spoke. The Republicans were seen as the chief instigators of the mess by a critical mass of voters. If the economic crisis hadn't hit McCain just might have won. And, yeah, the US might have bombed, bombed, bombed Iran.
No one in power is as pure as Chuck. If they were they wouldn't be in power.
Posted in: Conservatives lost more than an election
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jeancolmar
Work in Japan has always been of a sweatshop nature with longer hours of unpaid overtime. There were compensations in better times for the better paid workers who had so-called lifetime employment (in reality up to the age of around 50) and who accounted for only 17% of the workforce. Well, things have changed. It's not only the ongoing Japanese recession leftover from the burst bubble of the 1990s but also the fact that there is now a labor surplus, except in certain low-paying and high stress areas like social welfare, because Japanese companies have moved manufacturing overseas. What is left to a great extent are the "MacJobs" --low-paying service work. The earmark of the Mcjob is the fake promotion to manager, whereby the companies don't have to pay you overtime.
To make things worse, Japan has a cast system, meaning that once you are off the good nursery school to high school to good university to good company track you are screwed. You are are also screwed it you fall off the track somehow. To steal a line from F. Scott Fitzgerald, there are no second acts in Japanese lives.
Japan has always been a Kani Kosen, only now has gotten worse with more and more workers being stuck with unbearable working conditions and lousy wages. This is happening simply because the capitalists can get away with it. They can get away with it because the Japanese have been passive and submissive to the system way too long.
Posted in: Modern working conditions a throwback to '20s, '30s
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jeancolmar
Rightist idiots ran the US for eight years and the mess they have made is plain to see. Now those types will be left to sputtering away in the gutter.
Posted in: Bush, Obama to meet on Monday as transition accelerates
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jeancolmar
GOP RIP. Let's hope. The world is breathing a little easier with the defeat of John McCane.
Posted in: Republicans in tatters, look to regroup
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jeancolmar
My verdict is that Hiromi has nice breasts. Let's stop beating around the George W Bush and just say it. Oh yes, the citizen judge system. A very good idea and long overdue.
Posted in: Jury bra
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jeancolmar
Whatever Obama's color, he is going to be a welcomed antidote to Bush and the neocon crowd.
Posted in: Around the world, Obama victory sparks cheers
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jeancolmar
Cigarettes causing fires or otherwise burning people is unfortunately quite common. My deepest sympathies to the victims and their families and friends.
Posted in: Cigarette sets German bus ablaze; 20 dead
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jeancolmar
It's been a good day. Glad Obama won. The eight year horror show is about to come to an end.
Posted in: Obama sweeps to victory, says change has come to America
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jeancolmar
Maybe Obama has relatives in Japan he does not know about. Kenyan influence on Japan? Or Japanese influence on Kenya?
Anyway, congratulations to Obama city.
Posted in: Obama city residents delighted over presidential victory
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jeancolmar
The most interesting thing about this thread is the number of personal tales of poverty and unemployment. A recent posting by nisegaijin caught my eye. This is a poster who was thrown into the social snake pit of unemployment and managed to slither out. It should surprise no one that a person like this might have little compassion for his former fellow suffers. They were his enemies while he was trying to escape. Poverty and unemployment creates more monsters than saints. The "Wretched of the Earth" stuff is nice for slogans and inspiring songs, but it is most likely not the down and outs who will bring change but that fairly stable but dissatisfied part of the working class.
But if the day that the truly down and out people organize and shake the foundations of this rotten society ever comes it will be a day of miracles. That will mean that they have somehow transcended the snake pit and embraced a higher conscience. It could happen in Japan for all we know.
Thank you for the kind words, WMD and stanoue. Must add that I am only a professional journalist in my dreams. In my waking life I'm an ordinary joe just trying to make sense of things.
Posted in: Japan's burgeoning class: Working poor
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jeancolmar
First off, I said I am for "socialism" not "Communism." I also said that in the absence of the pure form I was for systems that were somehow influenced by socialism.
I too found the business about not having social insurance odd. It is still required, is it not? Here is where I'd like expert information.
I believe that poverty is essentially systemic, not personal. There are indeed people who end up poor because of wrong choices, but their chances of being permanently in poverty are cut if there are enough safety nets.
The surge of homelessness and working poor people has overwhelmed Japan. The system does not know what to do about it and pretty much lets it go.
The Little Engine that Could anecdotes are fine and dandy as long as you realize that they are stories about good luck and nothing else. There are lots of anecdotes about hardworking people who have no luck for reasons beyond their control.
And thanks for the good word, Starviking.
Posted in: Japan's burgeoning class: Working poor
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jeancolmar
One of the more shocking things this article touches on is that apparently many of the working poor cannot afford to pay into the health care system. The evidence presented is only anecdotal and therefore useless. I do happen to understand the situation because I was there in my younger and less prosperous days in Japan. I had to pay it. Only there were months when I could not pay it. I wish someone would follow up this business. I know that day laborers are often deprived of social welfare and universal health care simply because they do not have permanent address. But this is different. I really want more information about this. Does Japan in fact not have universal health care after all?
This is an okay but not great article because it happens to rely way too much on anecdotes. While poignant, it is hard to impossible to verify the authenticity of anecdotes. What information it does present in terms of statistics is shocking enough.
I must point out that poverty in Japan in the midst of Japan's prosperity is not new. The Japanese countryside has always been semi-depressed (hence the huge migrations to the city centers). The collapse of industries like mining and shipbuilding has also created poverty. The Japanese day laborer is a national archetype. (Who knows why the sunflower is the symbol of the day laborer?) Also the underpaid temporary worker has long been with us. There are unions for temporary workers, who about a decade ago represented 17 percent of the workforce. (At that time the workers with so-called lifetime employment also equaled 17% of the workforce.) What should be apparent is that the condition of the Japanese working class has gotten worse. This is in part for the prolonged economic slump after the burst bubble and also in part because it is easier for the capitalists in this country to exploit people, in spite of the so-called labor shortage. Japanese companies have outsourced production to others countries (mainly Asia) where labor is cheaper and the LDP government has brought in foreign laborers, who are the first to be fired, as an article in the Japan Times noted.
I must note, in answer to certain posters, that I too "worked my ass off" to achieve the comfortable success that I have, and am still working "my ass off" as I write this. I do, however, admit that I had certain advantages, like an education and an extremely happy marriage to a bright Japanese woman. I can modestly claim to be not lacking in brains; but I have to admit that much of my success came about because of pure good luck. I do not think that I am different from most successful people.
I am saying all of this as a preface to the following: People who claim that poor people only have themselves to blame for their poverty are either grossly ignorant or dishonest. It is an old argument that is brought up by the right-wing types and it is bogus. Yes, I know the rags to riches tales--what is often missing in them is the element of blind luck.
Anyway, to be anecdotal--hey, this is free copy--there are plenty of "successful" people who are incompetent and lame-brained. I mean managers, public servants, doctors, teachers and, yeah, capitalists. I have had to deal with them all at some point in my life. There is no moral reason for them to be successful as there is for the poor person who hands out tissues for a living to be unsuccessful.
There is one thing I can say about Japan. In this conformist country once you are down it is very hard to get back up. If you fail to get a good post right out of high school you are probably going to be dead meat. University grads have a little more latitude but not that much. If the industry you have been working for all your life shuts down your chances of staying in a permanent hole are extremely good.
To once again use the elegant expression utilized by one poster, I am an old hand at working my ass off. I am in that way no different from the person whose job it is to hand me tissues as I pass on my way to work. Only I happen to get more goodies. I am also a Socialist. I believe we do not need the idle rich or CEOs. Workplace democracy would be better for all concerned. But if real socialism is not possible, then I am all for systems that have been influenced by socialism and social democracy--places like Canada, France, Scandinavia and the the like.
There is no excuse for anyone being poor in a country like Japan.
And since I have to "work my ass off" on a pretty steady basis, I must apologize in advance for the quick and dirty proofreading this missive is going to get from me.
Posted in: Japan's burgeoning class: Working poor
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jeancolmar
"If it would have been obama, screams of racism would flood from the American media non-stop. But because it is Mrs. Palin, it's ok."
For once, ironically, RR got it right, sort of. Why? Because the US has a long and bloody history genocide against African-Americans. If it had been the other way around, that right-wing WASPs were the victims, then, of course, the hanging Palin doll would not have been okay. As it stands, I think anything that smacks of advocating violence against anyone is not really okay. McCain stuck in the chimney is fairly harmless. The hangman's noose as a symbol is not harmless. I'd have the Palin doll coming out of a toilet or something.
Posted in: Effigy of hanging Palin prompts visit from feds
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jeancolmar
I mean a rocket scientist. But geologists are pretty smart too.
I wonder if you remember how many people volunteered for military service after 9/11. It is a fair guess that there are plenty of volunteers now in that village and in Syria that want to fight the Americans.
Unless outrage follows outrage this sort of momentum is hard to sustain. By the time Bush launched his illegal and unnecessary war against Iraq the momentum had flagged. Today, most Americans hate this war and few want to fight in it.
If the US really wants to stop foreign fighters in Iraq it would do well not to repeat this sort of outrage in Syria and elsewhere.
Posted in: Eight reported killed in U.S. attack inside Syria
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jeancolmar
Look, it does not take a rock scientist to see the obvious. You kill innocent people in their homes and the people who represent their friends and family and--importantly--their nation become your enemy. It is easy to take advantage of people who are angry as Bush did and as Islamic extremists have done. Whether people are Syrians or Americans they are pretty much the same when an enemy strikes them.
The people the Americans killed in Syria were ordinary civilians, including a guy and his sons.
Posted in: Eight reported killed in U.S. attack inside Syria
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jeancolmar
This is nothing short of murder.
The US went into Syria and killed innocent civilians. This was only meant to terrorize and not to kill any assumed jihadists.
You know what effect this raid will have, I hope. This once ordinary village will start producing jihadists. Before this act of murder the villagers may have only heard that the US was evil, but it had nothing to do with them. Now experience will have convinced them that the US is evil and must be fought.
It's like the 9/11 effect.
Posted in: Eight reported killed in U.S. attack inside Syria
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jeancolmar
Terrrible.
Posted in: Arkansas anchorwoman dies in hospital after beating
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jeancolmar
There is only one way Palin can redeem herself and the Republican Party. She's got to strip off all those expensive clothes in public and throw them at the audience.
Then she would really draw the crowds too.
Maybe she could strip to the "Star Spangled Banner" to keep it all patriotic. In the Bible Belt she could strip to "Jesus Loves You This I Know."
Palin then could go to Iraq and Afghanistan and strip for the troops.
She might start a Republican striptease movement that would tip the scales to McCain.
The Democrats have no way of countering a stripping Palin. Who wants to see Joe Biden strip. Even a stripping Hilary couldn't compete with a stripping Sarah.
Of course, McCain will have to change his slogan from the dull "Country First" to something else.
Posted in: Palin denies accepting $150,000 in designer clothes