Monday, October 1, 2012

LDP's New Leader Shinzo Abe Eats Curry Rice with Pork Cutlet Super Fast, Supporters Say It Proves He's Now Fit to Lead Japan


Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda's new cabinet is already a farce and a joke among many in Japan as "inventory clearance sale" of the Democratic Party of Japan.


The Liberal Democratic Party may not be far behind when it comes to being a joke. Its "new" leader Shinzo Abe, former prime minister who threw away his job after one year ostensibly because of his chronic stomach ailment (ulcerative colitis), was so eager to prove to the general public that he was now fit to lead Japan again that he ate a huge plate of curry and rice with pork cutlet on top (3,500 yen per plate, or US$45) in front of a camera and netcast the whole event one hour before the leadership election, according to Shukan Post Seven (10/1/2012).

I looked for the video but couldn't find it. (I wouldn't have imagined that a plate of curry and rice with pork cutlet on top could cost that much.)

Abe was second in the first round of voting, but won the second (and final) round. The Shukan Post Seven in another article says it was because of the net-savvy supporters of his, successfully trashing the opponents by flooding the offices of LDP representatives who were supporting the opponents with phone, fax, and email messages like "Why do you support so-and-so, instead of Mr. Abe?" His supporters disclosed on the Internet the names, addresses, and contact information of the party members who endorsed Abe's opponent, urging net citizens to flood them with protest.

Well it seems that one or two such supporters even came to my blog in defense of his/her weak-stomach hero the other day.

His supporters have apparently been swarming the net (social media like Twitter in particular) attacking people and the media who mocked his performance of eating 3,500-yen curry and rice, accusing them of the bias against Abe.

So, in the coming general election, the choice will be: LDP under Mr. Shinzo "I can eat a whole plate of pork cutlet curry now" Abe, or DPJ under Mr. Yoshihiko "Fukushima achieved cold shutdown state, and oh by the way I ditched the zero nuke policy for Obama" Noda, or whatever the party of the boy-wonder of Osaka City, who sets off police on the citizens asking him to reconsider the disaster debris burning in Osaka City.

A new low for Japan if that's even possible, but my bet for the election outcome is the third one, out of sheer disgust with the former two, unless the small parties can form a coalition (which I doubt very much) to fight these dominant parties.

There's one person I'm keeping an eye on in Noda's new cabinet, Seiji Maehara.
His ministerial portfolio is national strategy, economy and finance, and administration of nuclear policy. (Now, who needs the prime minister, if there's Mr. Maehara?) He could wreck havoc, and give an "in" to the boy-wonder on the national stage. Sure enough, the boy-wonder is squawking already, saying he has "high hopes" Mr. Maehara, and that he thought Japan would change for the better ("better" for him and his kind) if only Mr. Maehara's policies were implemented.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

No, these are not new lows, just business as usual.

JAnonymous said...

Katsu Kare 3500 ! Wouldn't that be an awesome name for some Ultraman foe ?

What use is a cabinet anyway ? In the cambridge american dictionary, they say : "a piece of furniture with shelves or drawers that is used for storing useful things or showing decorative things".

Definitely the second one !

Anonymous said...

Yeah as if Japan can still afford "business as usual"...

m a x l i said...

No matter if Mr. Abe becomes Prime Minister or not, he can still eat all rice, peaches, mushrooms, lettuce, milk, pork and beef of northeastern Japan and all pacific fish and so help Japan to recover. Maybe he is even able to eat radioactive disaster debris?

Anonymous said...

I'd like to think the poster says, "Look I can fit my fist up my butt, I'm ready to govern the unwashed masses". Abe isn't under any pressure who cares if he can eat stuff without wearing a diaper that's the kind of thing people in nursing homes brag about.

"If elected I vow not to poop myself or to wear an adult diaper"!

(The crowd goes wild with applause and adulation)

Anonymous said...

"Well it seems that one or two such supporters even came to my blog in defense of his/her weak-stomach hero the other day."

No, simply pointing out that you can't be bothered to read the newspaper. Which you didn't.

Had your brave anonymous commenters bothered to do the same, they would have discovered that the same curry dish sells for about 3,700 yen in the Asahi Shimbun cafeteria.

Anonymous said...

OT: Got a laugh out of this. NHK has posted video at
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20121002_10.html
It's an Atomic Energy Agency meeting.
At 26 seconds in you can see that at least one of the participants in enjoying Crystal Geyser bottled water (from California).

Anonymous said...

Ampontan...you've been a laugh a minute for years and years with your silly uber-nationalist blog.

We know you are a paid shill for MOFA, so move along!

Anonymous said...

There goes ampontan again. Anonymity is cowardly now, eh? I suppose it means a whole lot more to know the person's real name, like "ampontan". Did your mother or father decide on that name?

Maybe some of these people want to remain anonymous because they don't want the likes of you going over to their blogs and making smarmy comments there, too.

Didn't I already tell you that you're unnecessarily offensive? You should probably drop the attitude if you really want people to take you seriously.

Personally, I don't insult everyone when I want to point something out. I just insult humanity.

Anonymous said...

I would think that the LDP bears a heavy responsibility for the complacent attitude of the goverments and the regulators that led to Fukushima. Hopefully Japanese voters are sick of them once and for all.

Sad thing is that boy wonder seems even worse, changing opinion on Oi in a matter of days, burning debris in his town, using the police to explain his views and what not.

Democracy is about the People contributing directly to the goverment of their town and their country, it is not about casting a vote for some prepackaged politician. Wake up and smell the coffee!
Beppe

m a x l i said...

@ Anonymous OCTOBER 2, 2012 2:59 AM
That bottled water from California tells us those Atomic Energy Agency guys are afraid of radiation and badly informed. (They do not read EXSKF and therefore don't know California is "sharing the pain of Fukushima".)

Anonymous said...

One of the funny things that happened since politicians started focusing so much on the restart issue, with the consequent surge of protests against it, is the fact that nobody is talking about the separation of generation and transportation/distribution of electricity anymore.

As long as the utilities are in charge of both generating electricity and distributing it, there can be no effective competition and no alternative service provider (a nuclear free one, or a renewable only one, for example) would be able to get a share of the market against TEPCO, KEPCO and the rest.

Of course, I understand if politicians want to forget about it, but that activists also did it's a bit weirder, though maybe just a result of the ability of government and media to refocus the question and keep the public attention away from it (I mean , wasn't separation of generation and distribution one of the points which everyone agreed was essential the first months after the accident?)

Anyway, with China getting militaristic to divert attention from the economic downturn and the Japanese happy to engage in defense-of-the-nation rhetorics, I guess we will never know.

Anonymous said...

@m a x l i
People generally seem to think they can chuck stuff away and it'll never come back. Their environmental awareness is ridiculously small. They probably believe that it's impossible for Fukushima radiation to travel anywhere beyond Japan.

Common examples of this kind of mindset are how people throw crap into the ocean, and how they leave junk floating in space. What happens? It just comes right back, and some random person suffers the consequences. Where did they think that stuff would end up? Another dimension?

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