Accurate Images of Japan: Finally.

One of the most important aspect of my job as a teacher of Japanese history is dispelling the erroneous images so many have of the Japanese and Japanese culture. With films like "Memories of a Geisha," and "Last Samurai," Hollywood is no help at all... until now.

Finally, it looks like a film on Japan is about to be released that will finally set the record straight. I think this will be a critical component to all my classes from now on. I'm so relieved.

The GOP's triple false axioms

The GOP launched a new front in its battle to appear multicultural with the decision to have Bobby Jindal do the Republican response to the president's address to congress.

I bring this up because the only thing novel about this Republican sound bite was the race of the person giving it. Other than that, it was the same old set of false axioms about governments being inherently dysfunctional, lower taxes being manifestly good, and that national health care is, well, bad for our health.

Government institutions can and often do fail to function effectively. But precisely the same thing can be said about capitalist institutions (companies). No one proposes shrinking or disposing of those, let alone "drowning them in the bathtub." Moreover and most important, some governments DO function effectively. Born, raised, and educated in the US, I now divide my time equally between Australia and Japan. While these systems are not perfect, I can say without equivocation that state and local institutions in my two adoptive homes work exceptionally well. Very, very few people in Australia and Japan would suggest that governments are inherently dysfunctional. Because they are not.

On taxes, I'm consistently struck by how unhappy people are about paying taxes. I understand this on a very superficial level. Who wants to give money to someone without getting something handed right back? But the fact of the matter is that if we did not pay taxes, our lives would be less safe, less comfortable, and even more unhealthy. More bridges would collapse, fewer levies would be built, fewer towns would have libraries, the streets would have more potholes, and on and on. There'd be less control over pollution and even less financial oversight. I know this again from living in societies where we pay far more taxes than in the US but where far fewer people complain. Why? Because we feel we get what we pay for. That and because we realize tax money that goes to programs we don't use personally improves society as a whole, thus benefiting us profoundly, albeit indirectly.

Finally, a word on the tired GOP claim that "health care decisions should be made by doctors, not government bureaucrats." This notion is purely disingenuous. Under the currently dominant HMO system, doctors are not deciding who gets health care and how. Company bureaucrats are, and they're single priority is profit, not people's welfare. In fact, I think the GOP is most resistant to precisely the idea of doctors, not companies, making decisions about health care. Under a single payer nationalized system, government bureaucrats don't, in fact, make decisions about who gets what health care. They just pay. It's not rocket science. It's not abstract. It's a simple fact. Try living in Australia, Japan, or someplace even more exotic: Canada. The GOP is lying to us about this.

It's time to push back against these false GOP axioms about government, taxes, and health care.

But what do you think?