RIP Japanese Rule of Law

Contrary to what the English-speaking media would have you believe, the biggest issue with the so-called "war bills" that got passed into law less than a day ago is not about Japan's national security or about war and peace. The English-based media outlets have been focusing on the "historical" nature of the new laws that would now allow Japanese military engagement overseas for the first time since World War II. And I am not denying that it is this aspect of the law that has been controversial and the focus of protests by the "peace-loving" Japanese people who have not exactly been known for their political activism. But this focus has had the unfortunate effect of masking an even bigger problem that every person who believes in democracy and the rule of law should find disturbing.

Both the media's and the Japanese people's focus on Article 9 (the reason that the Japanese Constitution is often called the "peace constitution" or "pacifist constitution") has driven the discussion away from the fact that Prime Minister Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) achieved the effect of a constitutional amendment by mere legislation. This travesty does not even reach the question of whether Japan should have a greater ability to engage in military operations. We should be talking about whether Japanese political leaders truly respect the rule of law and the democratic structure provided for by the Japanese Constitution. But all the media and even the Japanese people (other than constitutional scholars and legal experts) want to talk about is Article 9 and whether or not the law violates that particular provision.

Brief Thoughts on the Depiction of Teenage Sex on Non-Teen TV Shows

I recently burned through the 48 episodes of Lie to Me (thank you, Netflix), which I have discovered is yet another good show cancelled by FOX. The dig at FOX is obviously my bitterness over Firefly and Dollhouse, and Lie to Me does not come close to the glory of the Whedonverse, but today is not the day to talk about the show itself. One thing that struck me about the show was the treatment of the main character's teenage daughter's love life. And that's what I want to look at today.

To those who do not know about the show, Lie to Me is a slightly different process show that centers on Dr. Cal Lightman (played by the one and only Tim Roth), whose private company contracts mostly with law enforcement to assist in investigations. Cal has a teenage daughter, Emily, whose custody he shares with his ex-wife. Emily is not exactly goody two shoes (having a fake ID and being sexually active), but in general, she is a good kid and is treated as such. The show does a really good job of treating her as a normal, non-problematic teenager with nothing more than the average issues teenagers deal with. Cal is not exactly happy about the fact that Emily is sexually active, and he does get upset when he found birth control pills and discovered that his ex-wife knew about it and didn't tell him.

Where Were You When the Towers Fell?

I was halfway across the world from the East Coast. I didn't even live in the U.S. at the time. And I didn't even have plans to do so again until the day after when my mother simply said my father just got a transfer order to New York and we were going with him because as a family, we didn't have any other choice.

That is the gist of my 9-11 story. As someone who had lived in the U.S. as a young child and had loved the country and so many of its people, I can't say it wasn't personal to me. We turned on the TV that evening (in Japan, it was nighttime) after I got home from my ballet lesson and saw black smoke billowing out of the first tower. My mother called my father (a journalist) to make sure he was watching this at work. And while she was still on the phone, the second plane crashed into the second tower on live TV.

As the night went on, and we heard about the Pentagon and the other plane, I was worried. Worried about our family friends who lived in Northern Virginia and worked or went to school in D.C. And another who lived in Jersey, not too far from the city. But as shaken as I was by an attack on a country that I felt had formed part of my identity, I was still an ocean and a full length of a continent away. It could never have been as personal as it was for so many of the people I would meet in the following years.

My father moved to New York that January. My mother and I waited until I finished middle school (which goes through 9th grade) in March (the school year starts in April) and joined him in moving to the suburbs of the city that was still reeling from the effects of 9-11. And I was thrown into a community that was full of people who at the very least knew someone who was there or knew someone who had lost someone. As a teenager torn from my comfort zone into a new to town in a small and tight-knight community (at least I spoke the language and was familiar with the culture), I was grappling with a host of other problems. But I still remember feeling like an imposter when we were assigned to produce some piece of work regarding the personal experiences of 9-11 around the time of the first anniversary. I remember hearing about the Japanese girl who moved back to Japan with her family because her father died in the towers. I didn't even know her or experience her pain vicariously. I lived in the New York suburbs in 2002, but I wasn't there in 2001. I wasn't there, so how can I claim it to be personal?

And I can't. At least, not to the degree that so many of my friends do. But I do remember where I was, what I was doing, and what I felt when the towers fell. It's a hell of a lot more personal to me than to the children who learned about 9-11 in textbooks. It was a life-changing event. It was a world-changing event. It was the event that reminded everyone in the world what determined hate can do to even the most powerful nation on earth. Never forget? In addition to the memories of those innocent and brave souls lost that day, let's never forget that last part either.