hyaku
10-30-2000, 08:36 PM
Not sure where to put this one as it's not really budo related except for some comments suggest we go back to the pre war system. I thought it might be of interest to readers who like things Japanese.
GW Bush may be gaining on Dan Quale in the foot in mouth stakes, but don't get too complacent.
There is another challenger:
The resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's chief aide over a sex and drugs scandal is just the latest problem to hit a troubled leadership.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa is the second minister to quit in disgrace in three months.
But Mr Mori has assured his own place in the headlines for an astonishing series of gaffes, from recalling Japanese wartime militarism to urging voters to stay in bed.
Indeed, Mr Nakagawa's departure comes amid Mr Mori's latest verbal indiscretion concerning a murky initiative on how to secure the release of citizens allegedly kidnapped by North Korea.
Last week Mr Mori said Japan had proposed to North Korea that it arrange for the 10 missing citizens to be "discovered" living in a neighbouring country.
His revelation sparked a storm of protest, with even some of his own colleagues calling for his resignation.
Mr Mori's first six months in office have been characterised by his gift for political incorrectness. But he was upsetting people long before taking power.
His speech in Japan's second city of Osaka back in 1998 is unlikely to have won many friends.
"Lowbrow sex industries are always created first in Osaka," he told a party seminar. "Excuse my language, but it is a spittoon."
In January 2000 he did little to endear himself to Aids sufferers in what he intended as a self-effacing joke about his first election campaign in 1969.
Mr Mori quipped that the voters could not have vanished faster if he was an Aids patient.
The following month he used the millennium computer bug scare to illustrate differences between Japan and its major ally, the United States.
"When there was a Y2K problem, the Japanese bought water and noodles. Americans bought pistols and guns," he said.
"If a blackout happens there, gangsters and murderers will always come out. It is that kind of society."
Mr Mori even put his foot in it in his first news conference as prime minister in April, when he referred to China using an old word now considered derogatory.
But his most notorious slip-up came a few weeks later when he called Japan a "divine country, with the emperor at its centre".
The comments evoked memories of a brutal imperial Japan that invaded Asia in the name of an emperor-god in the 1930s and 40s.
Mr Mori later criticised the opposition for endangering Japan's "kokutai", an archaic term used for a Japanese nation-state ruled by a divine emperor.
And just days before the 25 June election, Mr Mori told wavering voters - an estimated 40% of the electorate - to stay in bed on polling day.
Hyakutake Colin
GW Bush may be gaining on Dan Quale in the foot in mouth stakes, but don't get too complacent.
There is another challenger:
The resignation of Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's chief aide over a sex and drugs scandal is just the latest problem to hit a troubled leadership.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hidenao Nakagawa is the second minister to quit in disgrace in three months.
But Mr Mori has assured his own place in the headlines for an astonishing series of gaffes, from recalling Japanese wartime militarism to urging voters to stay in bed.
Indeed, Mr Nakagawa's departure comes amid Mr Mori's latest verbal indiscretion concerning a murky initiative on how to secure the release of citizens allegedly kidnapped by North Korea.
Last week Mr Mori said Japan had proposed to North Korea that it arrange for the 10 missing citizens to be "discovered" living in a neighbouring country.
His revelation sparked a storm of protest, with even some of his own colleagues calling for his resignation.
Mr Mori's first six months in office have been characterised by his gift for political incorrectness. But he was upsetting people long before taking power.
His speech in Japan's second city of Osaka back in 1998 is unlikely to have won many friends.
"Lowbrow sex industries are always created first in Osaka," he told a party seminar. "Excuse my language, but it is a spittoon."
In January 2000 he did little to endear himself to Aids sufferers in what he intended as a self-effacing joke about his first election campaign in 1969.
Mr Mori quipped that the voters could not have vanished faster if he was an Aids patient.
The following month he used the millennium computer bug scare to illustrate differences between Japan and its major ally, the United States.
"When there was a Y2K problem, the Japanese bought water and noodles. Americans bought pistols and guns," he said.
"If a blackout happens there, gangsters and murderers will always come out. It is that kind of society."
Mr Mori even put his foot in it in his first news conference as prime minister in April, when he referred to China using an old word now considered derogatory.
But his most notorious slip-up came a few weeks later when he called Japan a "divine country, with the emperor at its centre".
The comments evoked memories of a brutal imperial Japan that invaded Asia in the name of an emperor-god in the 1930s and 40s.
Mr Mori later criticised the opposition for endangering Japan's "kokutai", an archaic term used for a Japanese nation-state ruled by a divine emperor.
And just days before the 25 June election, Mr Mori told wavering voters - an estimated 40% of the electorate - to stay in bed on polling day.
Hyakutake Colin