Obsidian Wings

Welcoming October

by liberal japonicus

Seems we are due another open thread. Seems an approrpriate continuation to note that October was the eighth month, but turned into the 10th.

Any other date related trivia to share?

Daylight

by JanieM

From the Wikipedia page on "Permanent Time Observation in the United States":

Permanent standard time is considered by circadian health researchers and safety experts worldwide to be the best option for health, safety, schools, and economy, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, National Sleep Foundation, American College of Chest Physicians, National Safety Council, American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Canadian Sleep Society, World Sleep Society, Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, and several state sleep societies.[10][11][4][12][13][14][15][16][17] Permanent standard time is supported by advocates for school children, including the National PTA, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National School Boards Association, and Start School Later. They cite both the health benefits of circadian alignment, and the safety advantages regarding morning commutes.[10][18][19][20]

From a BJ commenter just now:My impression is that a major constituency against year-round DST is parents who don’t want their kids to have to wait for the morning school bus in the dark.

There is an elephant the size of Jupiter in all this advocacy and logic ----- but I will leave that for the comments.

Open thread.

[Edited to add a link to Wikipedia in the first line.]

The Abe legacy and other stuff from over here

by liberal japonicus

Something that might interest some, the Asia-Pacific Journal has a nice collection of articles on the Abe legacy. All of them are from a left of center perspective, so you aren't going to get anything about what a great statesman he was. It is an interesting comparison between Abe, who will have a state funeral, (and currently, the governors of Okinawa, Shizuoka, and Nagano prefectures will not attend) and the reported unity over Elizabeth's death. I don't mean to imply that Abe and Elizabeth is a fair comparison, and the Brits have an edge when it goes for ceremony, but there is nothing here in Japan similar in any way to what is happening in the UK. This also invites a tangent on just what mourning the Queen means. It would be facile, but mistaken I think, to believe that it represents a push towards unity and an opportunity to put aside talk of division in the UK. I mean, even if it were, I feel certain that Truss' tin ear will screw that up. But I do think what you are seeing, which I think doesn't really have any recent parallel, is the sound of a course change, though where that course may go, I'm not really sure.

In fact, here in Japan, now that Abe is gone, the wheels seem to be coming off. An official was arrested in the Olympics bribery scandal and reports in the Japanese media relate claims that he received direct assurances from Abe that he would not face consequences, all of which vanished after Abe's death. Sapporo is trying to get the 2030 Winter Olympics, but because of the scrutiny of the Tokyo bid, they are turning things way down, so they may not have a chance.

A few other interesting bits and pieces
I mentioned that Okinawa's governor, Denny Tamaki, who was just recently reelected for a second term and has stood on a platform of opposing US basing in Okinawa. This piece gives some background on that.

Also, this may interest some, about the problems Japan's new Digital Agency is facing. Anyway, have at it and tell me what I have missed.

When Shooting Yourself in the Foot...

by wj

...be sure to use a gun rest on your knee.

A bunch of Republican candidates for various offices, especially statewide or national offices, were very adamant during the primaries on the subject to their absolute "pro-life" stances. Having won their primaries, they are now busy scrubbing any mention of abortion from their websites, deleting tweets, etc. It's enough to make you think that they are not so lost to reality that they fail to realize it's a general election loser.

But then this week, Senator Graham helpfully introduced his deceptively titled “Protecting Pain-Capable Unborn Children from Late-Term Abortions Act”. Basically, it would create a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks. (Note, as recently as last month he was saying that the issue should be left to states.) It does provide at least nominal exceptions for the life of the mother, for rape, and for incest -- although the hoops required to justify one of those can be daunting.

Republican leaders are freaking out. Because, after all, this makes it far, far harder for Republican candidates to dodge talking about their stances on abortion. Hard to waffle on a straight Yes/No question about "Do you support this bill?" Talk about a boneheaded political move on Graham's part. But maybe it's more important to him to grab headlines than to be part of a Senate majority.

To preserve my reputation for boundless optimism, let me speculate on this. As we saw in Kansas, abortion is a serious loser, even in red states. And red state legislatures are enacting a variety of draconian laws restricting (or flat out banning) abortion. I'm thinking that some of those legislators, who otherwise would be in quite safe seats, may discover that they are in nothing of the kind. Perhaps even to the point that some of those legislatures end up with far smaller Republican majorities. Or even, not majorities -- which could led to some de-gerrymandering, making an even playing field more possible. A long shot, I know (I'm not totally lost to reality). But just imagine if they actually have trashed their position that badly....

Also, because we are overdue, Open Thread.

An elegy for Lilibet

by liberal japonicus

I have a short essay that I send to foreign friends teaching at universities in Japan when they lose a parent, and here is a bit of self-plagiarism:

Japanese culture generally accords a great amount of respect to death and the process of grief. Oftentimes, these are related as quaint behavior of the Japanese. For example, because 4 or shi (四) is a homophone of shi (死) or death, not only is it avoided in numbering hospital floors (where death is more of an issue) but also with sets of household objects, such that zabuton or houseware are not sold in groups of four. Other general etiquette rules such as one should never stand one's chopsticks in a bowl of rice or pass food from chopstick to chopstick because these are part of Buddhist funeral rites, and the impression one gets from a litany of these kinds of observations is one of quirky Japanese behavior. Yet, rather than viewing these as quirks, they actually are part of a larger fabric of social customs and beliefs about death and the place that it holds in the Japanese mind.

I think this is true, our Western rituals for death are scattered and disjoint, but in Japan, a relatively set approach makes it easier. The Guardian also had this piece that made a similar point about funerals in Korea. However, with the increasing possibility of a funeral for Queen Elizabeth the II (Lilibet was the nickname her father gave her), interestingly enough, while I think that the UK has a similar loss of ritual, the machinery and preparations for the Queen's funeral are massive and overwhelming, with absolutely nothing left to chance. This is a Guardian long read about all the things that have gone and will go into the funeral of the Queen.

The question will be what the bells and the emblems and the heralds represent now. At what point does the pomp of an imperial monarchy become ridiculous amid the circumstances of a diminished nation? “The worry,” a historian said, “is that it is just circus animals.”

If the monarchy exists as theatre, then this doubt is the part of the drama. Can they still pull it off? Knowing everything that we know in 2017, how can it possibly hold that a single person might contain the soul of a nation? The point of the monarchy is not to answer such questions. It is to continue. “What a lot of our life we spend in acting,” the Queen Mother used to say.

The whole piece is fascinating, and it strikes me that as our own individual rituals of death become diffuse, the hyper-planning of the Queen's funeral moves to fill that space. The article observes

For a long time, the art of royal spectacle was for other, weaker peoples: Italians, Russians, and Habsburgs. British ritual occasions were a mess. At the funeral of Princess Charlotte, in 1817, the undertakers were drunk. Ten years later, St George’s Chapel was so cold during the burial of the Duke of York that George Canning, the foreign secretary, contracted rheumatic fever and the bishop of London died. “We never saw so motley, so rude, so ill-managed a body of persons,” reported the Times on the funeral of George IV, in 1830. Victoria’s coronation a few years later was nothing to write home about. The clergy got lost in the words; the singing was awful; and the royal jewellers made the coronation ring for the wrong finger. “Some nations have a gift for ceremonial,” the Marquess of Salisbury wrote in 1860. “In England the case is exactly the reverse.”

What we think of as the ancient rituals of the monarchy were mainly crafted in the late 19th century, towards the end of Victoria’s reign. Courtiers, politicians and constitutional theorists such as Walter Bagehot worried about the dismal sight of the Empress of India trooping around Windsor in her donkey cart. If the crown was going to give up its executive authority, it would have to inspire loyalty and awe by other means – and theatre was part of the answer. “The more democratic we get,” wrote Bagehot in 1867, “the more we shall get to like state and show.”

I can imagine some might disagree with my use of elegy in the title, since the event hasn't happened, but the wikipedia entry for elegy has this:

An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy, "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead"

So a catch-all for your thoughts about this and anything else you might have.

Meanwhile, Across the Pond

by wj

We spend so much time discussing politics in the US, it seems like it past time to talk about what's happening elsewhere.

In particular, in the UK. They have finally got a new Prime Minister. No doubt our members in Britain will have something to say on the subject. And it won't hurt the rest of us to educate ourselves on the subject as well.

And we're overdue for another Open Thread (to the extent that we pay attention to that). So let's do that here as well.