from demokratia to dermokratia.

The New Yorker reports that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago) recently told Der Spiegel, “If you take an unbiased look at the situation, there was a rapid decline of living standards in the nineteen-nineties, which affected three-quarters of Russian families, and all under the ‘democratic banner.’ Small wonder, then, that the population does not rally to this banner anymore.”

In that same article, titled The Tsar’s Opponent: Garry Kasparov takes aim at the power of Vladimir Putin, David Remnick writes, “Who can prove to (Putin) that stability and prosperity demand democratic politics? Without the trappings of democracy, China is hoping it will become the world’s biggest economy. Oil-rich and liberty-poor Iran and Venezuela are ascendant. And Russia itself is growing richer; with the foreign debt gone, a multibillion-dollar stabilization fund has been established as a hedge against lower oil prices. For the first few years of Putin’s reign, there were several liberal advisers in his retinue, but once oil prices began to rise, from around twenty-five dollars a barrel to more than three times that, and analysts determined that such prices were sustainable, a more assertive statist policy took hold. Liberal advisers were fired or marginalized, kept on only as decoration for Western eyes. And few complain.”

Finally, there’s this ignominy: “In today’s Russia, demokratia as it emerged in the nineties has been derisively called dermokratia: ‘shit-ocracy.’ The notion of liberalism, too — a belief in the necessity of civil society, civil liberties, an open economy — has been degraded.”

Clearly, much has changed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nor do recent developments — the Iraq War and the US’s go-it-alone approach in the world, as symbolized by John Bolton’s combative UN tenure, our failure to ratify or improve the Kyoto treaty on climate, and our renouncement of the World Court — bode well for the spontaneous blooming of democracy.

Democracy is in need of a make-over, and Americans can lead in this by practicing what we preach. This means conducting elections in which the results are undisputed (a paper trail is required). Ridding ourselves of the outdated and anti-democratic electoral college (popular vote = president). Less corruption and more accountability in our government (jail-time usually gets people’s attention). And true campaign finance reform (either public financing of elections, or anonymous donations to eliminate any quid pro quo).

We’d also do well to address the growing divide between rich and poor in this country. One percent of Americans now hold 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. If Americans truly believe in democracy, we’ll find ways to rebuild our middle class. We’ll either lead by example or watch democracy continue to become marginalized both here and abroad.

living in a box.

Cardboard “housing,” Tokyo, late 1990s

I lived in Japan during the boom times and left before the bust. And bust it did. The photos here paint a depressing picture of just how bad times became for some Japanese in the 1990s. Recession brought with it a seismic realignment in the relationship between workers and employers. College recruitment slowed to a trickle, women were discouraged from entering the workforce, and lifetime employment began to be phased out. Suddenly millions of Japanese became “arubaito” — part-timers.

Tokyo is not a city in which one wants to be without a steady income. At the recession’s inception, the city remained the most expensive in the world, and before long blue- and white-collar workers alike found themselves struggling to pay their bills. The most unfortunate of these, primarily day laborers, a.k.a. construction workers, lost their jobs and then their homes. Increasingly, Japanese commuters began encountering these unfortunate souls in their subway stations. One of the largest of these stations, Shinjuku, became home to several hundred of the newly dispossessed living in cardboard boxes. These elaborately painted boxes and the suspicious fire that eventually destroyed them — killing four — are documented at the links below.

I read about the Shinjuku box-dwellers from time to time throughout the 1990s, but I remained unaware of their fate until stumbling across the story on Pink Tentacle recently. Coincidentally, I now live close to a city that’s engaged in its own initiative to roust the homeless from public spaces. Housing costs in northern California are on a par with those of Tokyo ten years ago, and safety nets are no more adequate.

There’s no one solution to homelessness. Good people inside and out of government continue to look for answers. Our media tell us that Americans don’t want or can’t afford a safety net on the scale of what northern Europeans offer. Some still revel in the image of Americans pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, assuming that everyone has boots to begin with, and no demons or addictions to overcome.

You can find more photos of Shinjuku Station’s cardboard house paintings here and here.

An explanation of the effort to paint and photograph the structures is available on artist Take Junichiro’s website. Excerpt: “A group of painters painted them. Leading the group was Take Junichiro, who is also the person who made this website. Once during the painting process Take was arrested and forced to spend 22 days in jail. The painting continued even after his arrest, but finally came to an end when the underground kingdom was destroyed in a huge fire. After the fire, the authorities started reconstruction on the tunnels so that the homeless could never occupy them again. They succeeded in kicking the homeless out of the west exit underground. This website was made to call attention to the paintings on the cardboard houses… The photographs here are the work of photographer Sakokawa Naoko and others who sympathized with what we were doing.”

More on the homeless in Tokyo is available here, in an article from the period of the cardboard house paintings. The fire and its aftermath were the subjects of this article in The Japan Times.

is that you, rob riggle?

I try to refrain from political entries because I know how polarizing they can be, and it’s not as if it’s an under-served market. However, yesterday I stumbled upon a website that related Christiane Amanpour’s displeasure with the job that CNN did in the run-up to the Iraq war. The website quotes her as saying, “My station was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News.”

Shortly after reading this I came across an anecdote about the Iraq war in September’s Mother Jones magazine. It would be amusing if the subject matter weren’t so serious and the transgression so at odds with what is expected from a major news organization. Immediately it called to mind both Amanpour’s comment and my own qualms about our traditional media. The Mother Jones article is written by Ted Genoways. The reporter relating the anecdote is Iraq war reporter Ashley Gilbertson in his forthcoming book Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. (Why’d he choose that title? The acronym may be a clue.)

Genoways writes, “Gilbertson describes how he and another reporter were nearly blown to pieces by an errant Air Force bomb in northern Iraq in the late days of the American invasion. They finally withdrew from the front because, as Gilbertson himself concedes, ‘The risk was too high, the payoff too low.’ And yet when he returned to his hotel in Erbil, he switched on the television and found Fox’s correspondent ‘crouching in front of sandbags, wearing a flak jacket and a helmet. He was supposedly on the front lines, reporting via a scratchy video phone. He had to whisper, he said.’ But as Gilbertson studied the screen, he could discern, over the correspondent’s shoulder and above the sandbags, the ‘distinctive architecture of our hotel.’ Fox’s man in the field was reporting live from a foxhole he had built in his hotel room. The outraged Gilbertson dialed the correspondent’s in-house phone and then hung up, allowing just enough time to send a single ring over the airwaves.” (Emphasis mine.)

Elsewhere in the article, Genoways tells how he was in Kennedy Airport this June at the same moment the networks were blanketing the airwaves with coverage of the JFK bomb plot, showing a frenzy of security activity presumably occurring at JFK at that very moment.

“The problem,” writes Genoways, “was that none of what the TV showed was actually happening. The terminal was quiet, calm, overtaken by the usual lassitude of travel, but nothing more.”

After seeing similar reports on CNN’s website, Genoways noticed a tiny credit reading “File photo.” This led Genoways to conclude that what he was witnessing in the media reports may have been the reaction to an earlier terror scare but could just as easily have been footage taken when the terminal was packed with people riding out a snowstorm. When the media plug in old file images with little or no notice to viewers, the breathless reporting they engage in can create a heightened and even false sense of alarm.

Which leads us back to 2002-03 and the run-up to the Iraq war and the need to demand more from our media. That website I mentioned back in paragraph one? It includes a petition to the major networks insisting that they not be browbeaten into banging the drum for war with Iran. It’s only a petition. But for what it’s worth, I signed it yesterday.

can you dig it?

Famous Lucilles in history include Lucille Ball. Lucille the guitar (a series of guitars, more accurately). And Lucille Rollins, the late wife of saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins.

I grew up loving the music of Sonny Rollins, but I couldn’t have told you his wife’s name if I hadn’t read the September issue of Vanity Fair. The issue includes a brief Q&A with the 77-year-old Rollins, whose friend and fellow musical pioneer Max Roach died last week of undisclosed causes. A few snippets of the interview are reproduced here.

What is your most treasured possession?
When I lost so many prized possessions on 9/11, I learned a lesson: possessions are not “where it’s at.”

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?
Probably thriftiness.

What is your greatest regret?
Not saying some things to departed associates.

Which living person do you most admire?
I’m afraid that I don’t admire people that much. Maybe my plumber.

What is the quality you most like in a man?
Listening more than talking.

Who are your heroes in real life?
Anyone whose life is lived giving more than taking.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
Probably “You dig?”

doing the ton.

The Isle of Man TT race celebrated its centenary in June. Motorcyclist memorialized the occasion with a long feature in its September issue, out this week. A couple of excerpts here:

“The phrase ‘doing the ton’ is typically associated with the Rockers movement, as cafe racers gathered at the Ace would drop a coin in the jukebox, then sprint down the motorway to the roundabout and back. If they returned before the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun was done playing, they’d averaged better than 100 mph.

“A more heroic feat was that achieved by Bob McIntyre during the 50th Anniversary Isle of Man TT in 1957. Riding a Gilera 500cc four, the hard-riding 28-year-old Scot became the first racer in history to ‘do the ton’ around the legendary 37.73 Mountain circuit. His best lap was at an average speed of 101.03… He was sadly killed in a short-circuit race at England’s Oulton Park in ’62. But as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the TT this year, we remember McIntyre as the manliest man at Man – the first racer to ‘do the ton’ at the island.”

Motorcyclist points out that no racing circuit has claimed more lives than the Isle of Man TT. They also explain how frightened many professional riders were to race there. Finally, in 1976, all of the top 500cc riders refused to compete, after several horrific accidents in the preceding years.

The safety concerns haven’t gone away and the racers haven’t stopped pushing the limits. This year’s TT saw the fastest lap ever, at an average speed of 130.35 mph, by John McGuinness on a Honda 1000.

So, why am I writing this, aside from having a love of both motorcycles and the expression ‘doing the ton’? Motorcyclist‘s long tribute to the TT touched off the remembrance of a Welsh friend who raced there many years ago. At the time I was too young and unaware to understand the significance of this accomplishment – the courage my friend must have possessed, along with a certain rashness and (he’d admit it) foolhardiness.

As best as I could make out, Derek had five loves in life: coffee, cigarettes, motorcycles, his Japanese wife, and cats. So many cats that his Japanese home did double-duty as an animal shelter. Tall and bone-thin, with a sardonic manner and a good heart, Derek spoke frankly and had little use for pretense. He never rattled. Plus he had a great sense of humor.

Derek is now deceased, a victim of illness, not of road-racing, so I can’t talk to him about what he felt as he traversed the 38 miles of the Isle of Man Mountain course at high speed. But the Motorcyclist article has helped me to imagine it. In doing so, it’s brought me a little closer to an old friend, and enabled me to perform my own brief tribute to him.