Wow. That’s horrible. Atsushi and I watched the initial reports on CNN yesterday. Certain physical-labor jobs can only be made so safe–my father’s gotten into a few scrapes at the steel plant over the years, and that’s not a few hundred feet underground–but modern detection and rescue equipment is very sophisticated. With that and the memory of the PA incident a few years ago, I wasn’t really all that worried (despite the regularity of reports of high-casualty disasters from the PRC). My thoughts are with the families.

Added later: CNN’s thoughts are with the families, too, though for what appear to be slightly different reasons. I’m copying the link in the parenthetical even though it won’t work from here:

It was about three hours after the first news — at roughly 3 a.m. — that Hatfield, the CEO of International Coal Group, announced that 12 of the 13 were dead. (Watch relatives weep over ‘a miracle taken away’ — 3:21)

Egads. I’m all for candor, but there’s something to be said for keeping a decent cover on your exploitativeness, even if everyone recognizes that being pushy is part of your job.

There’s this new phenomenon that’s totally sweeping Japan. Read here at Reuters and be the first on your block to know.

See, this new phenomenon involves…it’s like, Japanese society is aging, right? And husbands are retiring and then hanging around the house all day and being like, “Mama, where’s my beer? I TOLD YOU A HALF-HOUR AGO I WANT A BEER!” And the wives are like, “You don’t have the energy to shuffle into the kitchen yourself? It’s not like you’re working fourteen-hour days anymore, buddy. I’m practicing my calligraphy.” And sometimes things get all, like, escalate-y from there:

With a new law set to come into force in 2007 allowing ex-wives to claim half their husband’s pension, domestic media are warning of a possible divorce boom.

The number of Japanese couples parting ways has risen rapidly over the past 20 years to a 2002 peak of 290,000, while divorce among those married more than 20 years has increased even faster.

Now figures are drifting downwards, but many commentators speculate that women — who initiate the majority of divorces — are holding out until 2007.

Some Japanese women see their husbands as an obstacle to enjoying their sunset years.

With few hobbies or friends to turn to, many Japanese retirees, often nicknamed “wet leaves” for their tendency to cling to their wives, spend their time at home.

What’s more, they expect their spouses to wait on them as they did when they were bread-winners.

“This was my problem. My husband reached retirement and didn’t know what to do with himself, so he was always in the house,” said Sayoko Nishida, author of a popular book called “Why are retired husbands such a nuisance?”

Now, at this point, you may be thinking, Gee, Sean, I’m kinda feeling like I’ve heard that somewhere before. If so, it may have been here. No? What about here? Way back here? It’s hard to tell, since those are just the publications that are available on-line, and people have been talking about the divorcing-seniors problem in Japan FOREVER.

I’m not saying these things should be covered once and never again; the new family laws certainly are going to have an effect, and that’s something reporters are justified in asking experts about. But phrases such as “set to retire in the next few years” and “speculate” give a sense that we’re at the leading edge of a development that we can only guess about, when in fact we were learning about the 粗大ゴミ (sodai gomi: lit., “bulky trash,” also used as a derogatory term for husbands who just sit there doing nothing around the house after retirement) issue in Japanese classes when I was in college more than ten years ago.

In other words, there should be all kinds of information, both hard and anecdotal, to talk about: how the middle-aged children react, whether enterpreneurial types are devising services for baffled and newly-single men, what it is about the Japanese family dynamic that makes it impossible for so many couples to talk over their new situation and make the necessary adjustments without splitting up, and what the counseling industry has found is the best way for couples to prepare for and work through the problem.

Instead, we get a desultory retread of the most rudimentary divorce rate and life expectancy stats, a few generic quotations from women moaning that their husbands can’t boil water, and a few more from men grousing back that they devoted their lives to working for the money their wives used to run the household. None of this does much to enlighten those who don’t know much about Japan, and it’s yawningly familiar to those who do. In this case, the reporter also took the assertion that men have “preferred” to devote their lives to their jobs at face value, hinting that she may have a poor understanding of the tremendous pressure on men to work long hours. And the one actually new twist–that women will be able get half their husband’s pensions if they divorce them once the 2007 law goes into effect–is only dealt with in a couple of passing sentences. Sheesh. Where do bloggers get the idea that anyone can be a journalist, huh?

Prime Minister Koizumi’s neighborliness was on display this morning, as was his diffidence:

Regarding the PRC and ROK, the Prime Minister said that they have taken advantage of pilgrimages by Japanese government officials to chill relations with Japan: “Foreign governments are interfering in what is for us a matter of the heart. I cannot comprehend their posture that this is a diplomatic issue; there can be none of this closing off of avenues of discussion,” he said, criticizing the positions of both nations for using the Yasukuni Shrine pilgimages as a reason to cease head-of-state visits.

He also revealed that “an understanding of the crucial importance of the Japan-US alliance and international cooperation” would be a condition for post-Koizumi [power within the LDP]. He indicated that his successor as prime minister would be expected to continue with not only his structural reforms but also his approach to diplomacy.

At the same time, he pointed out that “it is extremely important for top leaders to gain the support of the citizenry. At the same time, they must gain the cooperation and trust of the members of the Diet. We have reached the era in which both are vital,” and revealed that he thinks the selection of a prime minister by leaders of an intra-party alliance undesirable.

Party politics since the War has often meant that, while voters obviously selected members of the Diet, much real power even in that body lay with unelected LDP officers.

The ROK foreign minister has weighed in already:

South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Ki-mun Ban addressed a press conference on 4 January, voicing opposition to Prime Minister Jun’ichiro Koizumi’s statement on the same day criticizing the PRC and ROK for refusing to conduct head-of-state visits with Japan because of the Yasukuni Shrine pilgrimage issue: “We want the leaders of the Japanese government to listen to the point of view of neighboring nations and come to a correct perception of history.”

Foreign Minister Ban sought effort from the Japan side, citing the Yasukuni Shrine issue, the Takeshima (Kor.: Tokuto) Island territorial dispute, and the history textbook issue: “The most important thing from the standpoint of maintaining ROK-Japan relations and cooperation in the Northeast Asia region is for the Japanese government to exert itself to adopt an posture in which it has a correct perception of history and can gain the trust and respect of neighboring nations.”

DPJ leader Seiji Maehara chimed in, at least as far as the Yasukuni Shrine issue goes, at a press conference in Mie Prefecture: “[The Prime Minister] is losing opportunities to improve relations with other countries. It’s irresponsible.”

Added at 17:00: The Mainichi also has an English report of the Koizumi speech (including this line that wasn’t in the Nikkei: “The United States is the only nation in the world that sees an attack on Japan as an attack on itself”) and a report on the US government’s thoughts on Japan’s interactions with its neighbors:

The United States has asked Japan to reconsider its policies on Asia because of concerns about deteriorating Sino-Japanese relationships after Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine, diplomatic sources have said.

U.S. President George W. Bush also asked Chinese President Hu Jintao during their summit meeting in Beijing in November last year to discuss issues of history with Japan in connection with the Yasukuni problem, U.S. sources who accompanied the president on his Asian tour said. In reply, President Hu simply said the U.S. presence in Asia was important for China.

Bush and other top U.S. politicians are apparently afraid that Japan will become isolated in Asia as Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan’s Class A war criminals are worshipped, continue to antagonize and infuriate China and South Korea.

Here’s a question for people: Which of the following is the more important to you?

1. living by your principles
2. making other people like you

Because the thing is, they’re both worthy goals, but you can’t prioritize them equally all the time. You can and should listen to others without assuming you already know what they’re going to say. You can and should resist the temptation to put words in their mouths just because you heard them from the last few proselytizing [conservatives/liberals/heteros/homos/Atkins dieters/Steely Dan fans] you got into a tussle with. You can and should avoid second-guessing people’s motivations and spinning out speculative narratives about their inner emotional lives (a pet peeve of mine, that). All of which is to say, you can and should be civil.

But that doesn’t mean making nice at all costs. Something Camille Paglia wrote a decade ago in her “No Law in the Arena” essay impressed me greatly when I first read it, even though it clearly wasn’t intended as one of her trademark rampaging-diva climaxes. She was talking about rape activism specifically, but her point has wider applications:

What I call Betty Crocker feminism–a naively optimistic Pollyannaish or Panglossian view of reality–is behind much of this. Even the most morbid of the rape ranters have a childlike faith in the perfectibility of the universe, which they see as blighted solely by nasty men. They simplistically project outward onto a mythical “patriarchy” their own inner conflicts and moral ambiguities.

It’s hard to have a discussion with people whose view of reality starts with the fallacy that people naturally get along swimmingly, and that therefore whatever friction arises is only there because you–you evil [liberal/conservative/homo/hetero/carb consumer/only-owns-Gaucho-er]–artificially brought it in from an alien realm. Living, breathing people in a free society have deeply-held beliefs that are at loggerheads with other people’s deeply-held beliefs. People also have internal conflicts that are hard to resolve. That doesn’t make human empathy or the impulse toward kindness less real; it just means that it’s not the only force we need to factor in when discussing our interests.

It also means that we have to deal with people on their own terms. No one’s personality comes with a line-item veto. I don’t see why LaShawn Barber should not write what she thinks about homosexuality in order to get a rep as the nice black female conservative any more than I plan to stop being a flaming homo in order to get more social conservatives to pay attention to what I’m saying about Japan-US relations. People who only like some aspects of a given blog are free to skip the posts they don’t feel edified by; if the stuff they object too carries sufficient weight with them, they can decide the rest of the blog isn’t worth it and skip the whole thing. People who freak the hell out at the possibility that they might applaud 80% of what a blogger writes and be outraged at the other 20% should probably skip reading blogs altogether and take up PlayStation. Those who are secure in their identities and convictions don’t shrink from criticizing that which they believe reprehensible (or plain inaccurate), but they don’t have a nervous breakdown over its very existence.

Open conflict is a part of life in democratic societies, and it has the advantage of sifting out and sharpening the best among competing ideas as well as the disadvantage of making life less harmonious. (See also Eric and Grand Stander) The alternative is rule by the collective, in which you the individual are peremptorily informed which tradeoffs will make you happy and then expected to live with them. The tendency of people from such societies to scramble aboard the nearest boat to America the minute they get the chance should indicate how attractive that option really is. In a classical-liberal society, we can’t stop people from trying to impose their estimation of our dignity and worth on us–sometimes loudly and publicly–but we’re not obliged to go along with it. Are there really people who don’t think that’s worth the compromise?

Don’t answer that.