Japan's health minister calls women 'birth-giving machines'

Japan's health minister described women as "birth-giving machines" in a speech on the country's falling birthrate, but later retracted the remarks, news reports said Sunday.

"The number of women between the ages of 15 and 50 is fixed. The number of birth-giving machines (and) devices is fixed, so all we can ask is that they do their best per head," Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa said in a speech Saturday, the Asahi and Mainichi newspapers reported.

Speaking to Kyodo News agency later in the day, Yanagisawa apologized saying the language he used was "too uncivil."

Japan's birth rate was 1.26 babies per woman in her lifetime in 2005, a record low and far below the level needed to keep the country's population steady.

Japan is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world. They are masters at "minimalism", because it addresses the needs of its culture. Conversely, they are dependent on the world for the raw resources needed for production of the goods they trade with the world.

The government has been scrambling to implement measures to persuade couples to have more children.

A proposal adopted in June calls for increasing child care, promoting greater gender equality, and encouraging companies to be more flexible in allowing staff time to take care of family responsibilities.

But the high cost of raising children, as well as the lingering notion that women should quit their jobs after giving birth, has meant many opt to have few or no children

You know, just when I think we're making progress against males' stereotypical attitudes toward women, we see that we haven't progressed past "baby-makers".

Just when I think we're making progress on a every woman's right to make her own decisions and not have religion derail the train of progress, we see that another group/society/culture wants to send us back into "our traditional roles"—wombs on two legs. (Not to mention, save Japan from a loss of taxpayers???)

Just when I think we might start to address overpopulation and its attendant crush of problems,

• we see Europeans worried about "muslim production" (they might be right),
• Americans worried about the "brown people's population explosion" (pot-kettle/kettle-pot, "go forth and multiply" stupidity of christianist women),
• Mormons/Quiverfulls/Catholics,
• Womb Transplants and more…

and now this insulting and insane MAN!

This shit has got to stop!

Somewhere between overpopulation and "The Children of Men" is a happy medium. Can we please find it and work toward it?

FWIW, by Buffalo Springfield

Last week, a songwriter here in Nashville asked our DFA group, "Where are OUR war protest songs? They're being written and recorded—but the radio still won't play them!"

Let's be honest about that: The MSM is too heavily invested in supporting the administration of President Godsend to allow it. That same MSM also own most of the radio stations, with corporate policy prohibiting stations from playing anything NOT on their playlists…

In large part, you can thank Bill Clinton for that. His odious "triangulating, third-way politics" sold us out. You can argue, 'til you're blue in the face, that he didn't know what would happen, that he didn't see the ramifications of selling out to BigBroadcast companies—I, personally, don't buy it!

Now, I absolutely detest the GOP for smearing him, for continuing to blame Clinton (and his penis) for everything that has gone/is going/will go wrong. But, as a Dem who voted for him twice and worked on both campaigns, I have the right to be critical—the GOP doesn't!

So, when he dies (please, gawd, not soon!), I want his epitaph to read: I have two big regrets—NAFTA and Media De-regulation. And I'm sorry for both!

—-

Oh, yeah, and Paul Krugman? On Truthout.org, I started reading Paul Krugman's NYT piece, Surging and Purging. I wondered why I was not taking it in—until I listened to the song running through my head. It was different that the one driving me crazy last night (Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody). But I couldn't remember the name or the artist. Googling*tm* found the answer…

Read the very first line:

There's something happening here, and what it is seems completely clear: the Bush administration is trying to protect itself by purging independent-minded prosecutors.

Now I can go back and start Krugman's post again…

School Board members adopted a three-point policy that says teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view."

The requirement to represent another side follows district policy to represent both sides of a controversial issue, board President Ed Barney said.

What is purported in this movie is, 'This is what is happening. Period. That is fact,' " Barney said.

Students should hear the perspective of global-warming skeptics and then make up their minds, he said. After they do, "if they think driving around in cars is going to kill us all, that's fine, that's their choice."

Asked whether an alternative explanation for evolution should be presented by teachers, Barney said it would be appropriate to tell students that other beliefs exist. "It's only a theory," he said.

Creationist-believing parent, Frosty Hardison, told the Federal Way (WA) School Board:

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. … The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

The father, clearly in the throes of religious fervor, sent an email to board member David Larson, an attorney, to propose the moratorium.

The Federal Way incident started when Hardison learned that his daughter would see the movie in class. He objected.

Hardison and his wife, Gayla, said they would prefer that the movie not be shown at all in schools.

"From what I've seen (of the movie) and what my husband has expressed to me, if (the movie) is going to take the approach of 'bad America, bad America,' I don't think it should be shown at all," Gayle Hardison said. "If you're going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don't think the video should be shown."

Scientists say that Americans, with about 5 percent of the world's population, emit about 25 percent of the globe-warming gases.

Science vs irrational religious belief! In a parallel universe, it would just be the plot for a popular sitcom:

Crazy, irrational father of seven, overreacts and goes to school to throw tantrum, causing acute embarassment to his children and headaches for school administration. Cries of "Daa-aad!" abound. Crazy mother takes Valium and sleeps through this funny crisis! Watch as the father sees himself lampooned on the Daily Show, with John Stewart! Emmy material, for sure!

Alas, this is the universe we live in: Xianist father disrupts quality education by imposing his religious beliefs on the entire school system of Federal Way, aided and abetted by questionable school board policy.

…teachers who want to show the movie must ensure that a "credible, legitimate opposing view will be presented," that they must get the OK of the principal and the superintendent, and that any teachers who have shown the film must now present an "opposing view."

Asshat Frosty Hardison knows that his "opposing view" is not "credible, legitimate" so he shuts the down the whole show instead! WOW! There it is, in a nutshell: I can't make you believe what I say, therefore, you will not hear what they say!

Equivilation in action, folks!

Why do we even bother…

Update: See Seattle PI again, U.S. is still in denial over global warming

(Why don't we have newspapers like the PI on the Right Coast? Or am I being unfair?)

From the blog, Halfway There, the post Saucing the Goose highlights Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn Rule"—but neither one see the Truth:

Take a gander at this

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders is one of the less loony members of the political right. I realize that's a very low bar, but Saunders has been known to depart on occasion from the list of official Republican talking points. Today, however, Saunders spins very reliably to the right as she welcomes the Democratic renaissance in Congress. As she identifies several rhetorical points raised in past political debates, it seems that only the left exhibited any mendacity or hypocrisy; right-wingers were reliably on the side of the angels:

Ring out the old bromides, by Debra J. Saunders

There are certain arguments that partisans repeat as if they are holy and certain—until the arguments are no longer convenient. Here are some bromides and political arguments that were broadly used in the last few years, but now have outlived their usefulness, so you probably won't hear them much in 2007:

The Pottery Barn Rule: You broke it, you own it. There was a time you couldn't go a day without hearing an Iraq-war opponent invoke former Secretary of State Colin Powell's famous warning about sending U.S. troops into Iraq. Apparently these folks never really believed in the rule, because they now want America to disown an Iraq mired in chaos.

We liberals should have recognized that Secretary Powell was enunciating a cosmic truth when he used the apocryphal Pottery Barn Rule as a metaphor for the danger of an invasion of Iraq. As the scope of Bush's miscalculation became apparent, we chimed in with “We told you so, dammit!” and the war apologists snapped back with “Yeah, we screwed the pooch, but now we're all stuck with this sorry dog!” I guess staying the course is supposed to make things better. Does Saunders really believe that? Does she think any anti-war protester believes that? Or ever believed it?

What most men know about the Sacred Shopping can be written on a single piece of toilet paper with a leaky Sharpie!  Perhaps the more sensitive Colin Powell did understand the Pottery Barn Rule—but every man who parrots it hasn't a clue. 

It's got a nice ring to it, it sounds profound (and it is a truism, a corollary to the "bull in a china shop" maxim)—but they don't see the whole picture:

You turn too quickly.  Your purse (or briefcase or elbow) knocks a china tea pot to the floor and it shatters.  The manager (a) goes crazy and demands you pay for it, and you do—with or without a big scene; or (b) the manager is nice about it but you still insist on paying for it, because you're nice, too.

Many men think that's the end of the story.  Either way, the pieces are swept up.  And thrown away…

…unless you are George Bush.  His idea is:  If we stay in that shop long enough, the pieces will mend themselves—if we throw enough money (and military) at it!