Unsexy Japan

This recent article on the state of the Japanese libido confirms what I've long suspected - Japanese don't get laid that often. Although the article deals mainly with the state of sexless marriages (marriages where the couple have sex less than once a month) it also cites a much publicized survey of 41 countries around the world in which Japanese respondents ran dead last with regard to the number of sexual encounters they have per year. The Japanese figure of 46 sexual encounters per year is only slightly more than a quarter of the highest ranking French with 137 and less than half the 103 average for all countries surveyed.

Back in Japan, though -- a land rife with risque fashions and explicit comics for both genders -- it is surprising to learn of such a widespread lack of libido.

This comment appearing in the same article would be understandable from someone who didn't live in Japan or if they did, walked around with their eyes closed and had no contact with Japanese people. I don't believe you can glean much from a person by their hairstyles or clothes except that the more extravagant they are the more likely the person in question is trying to compensate for something. The Japanese are without doubt very fashoinable but sexy they aint. They are mass conformists, the "group" mentality permeates any type of social gathering. Individualism is suppressed and spontaneity unheard of. The outlandish hairstyles and fashoins are just a facade to disguise their dull nature and since almost everyone either dyes their hair or has some kind of weird style it just reinforces their herd mentality.

In contrast to the author I found nothing startling in the results of the survey. The weekend hacker with no abiltiy who buys himself a replica set of Tiger Wood's golf clubs is still a hacker albeit with an expensive set of clubs. Shy, introverted people such as the Japanese don't become nymphomaniacs as soon as they don a low cut skirt or dye their hair. However for people devoid of personality and who surround themselves with others of the same ilk, the appearance of being hip and sexy is akin to real thing.

Book Review - Under the banner of Heaven – John Krakauer



John Krakauer uses the brutal 1984 murder of a young woman and her baby to delve deep into the violent and bizarre roots of the fastest growing religion in the land of the whackos – Mormonism, or as they like to call themselves The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Personally I’ve never been acquainted with or maintained an interest in the specific beliefs or customs of Mormonism. I tend to categorize any weak-minded fool that belongs to an organized religious group under the same umbrella – basically they should be ignored, and left to their own devices. That is until they start ramming their twisted ideas down the throats of others at which time their farcical beliefs should be exposed and ridiculed. Mormonism is disturbing because of the swarms of people who swallow the absurd horseshit served up by its members.

The story of Mormonism goes something like this; in the autumn of 1823 a seventeen year old boy named Joseph Smith was visited by an angel of God who told of him of a sacred text inscribed on golden plates that had been buried 1400 years earlier. 4 years after the revelation Joseph retrieved the plates (written in ancient Egyptian characters) and with help of a pair of magical glasses translated the texts into what is now known as The Book of Mormon. It’s probably worth mentioning during the time between his stunning revelation and the moment of his unearthing of the sacred text that Joseph Smith was found guilty of being ‘a disorderly person and an impostor’. Inspired by the divining talents of a local girl, Joseph took up the occupation of a ‘scryer’ or crystal gazer. That is, he used to charge property owners fees for gazing at a couple of small rocks (called peep stones) and claiming to know the locations of buried treasure. It’s worth quoting directly from Krakauer’s book;

By 1825, his renown was such that an elderly farmer named Josiah Stowell came from Pennsylvania to meet Joseph, and was so impressed by the encounter that he hired the twenty year old to travel with him to Susquehanna Valley to locate, with his peep stones, a hidden lode of silver rumoured to have been mined by the Spaniards centuries earlier..... Although Joseph had applied himself to scrying with vigour, dedication, and the finest tools of his trade, it seems that he had been unable to find Stowell’s silver mine. Nor in fact, during the previous six years he had worked as a money digger, had he ever managed to unearth any other actual treasure. When this had come to light, a disgruntled client had filed a legal claim accusing Joseph of being a fraud.

Despite his reputation, within five years of his conviction ‘The Book of Mormon’ was in print and Joseph had successfully moulded his warped ideas into a formal religion. Incidentally despite 19 witnesses claiming to have seen them, no gold tablets have ever been found. Still the sight of the supposed unearthing of the sacred text draws thousands of gullible fools from all over the U.S on an annual pilgrimage. To say nothing of the credulous morons who subscribe to the religion today, it begs the question, what type of climate existed in the U.S to facilitate the rise of such an absurd phenomenon? Another quote from Krakauers book, this time from Fawn Brodie’s ‘No Man Knows My History’ sheds some light;

The sober preacher trained in the dialects of the seminary was rare west of the Appalachians. One found instead faith healers and circuit-rider evangelists, who stirred their audiences to paroxysms of religious frenzy...... The revivals by their very excesses deadened a normal antipathy toward religious eccentricity. And those Pentecostal years, which coincided with Joseph Smith’s adolescence and early manhood, were the most fertile in America’s history for the sprouting of prophets.

One of the more alarming doctrines proclaimed by Smith was the practice of Polygamy. Smith was a well-known philanderer and this doctrine like most others he pronounced was a simple effort to justify his own actions. The inability of men to keep their dick in their in their pants has plagued them for centuries so by claiming it was God’s commandment Smith made it perfectly acceptable. However even within his own ranks Smith faced opposition to this commandment and after his death in the face of strong community and government pressure the church eventually abandoned the precept. The result has been a splintering off of ‘fundamentalist’ Mormon groups that claim the mainstream church made a grave error in going against Joseph Smith’s original words. Thus there are pockets of practicing polygamists dotted all over the United States where incidences of incest and rape of girls as young as 12 years old is not uncommon and sanctioned by the nut-cases who practice it.

As with every other religion Mormonism’s history is steeped in violence and soaked in blood. The Mormons were frequently terrorized and persecuted, however Joseph Smith’s followers were far from non-violent do-gooders themselves frequently initiating the violence and bloodshed. The Mormons saw themselves as the true children of god and every one else as apostates, claims identical to that of so-called Islamic Fundamentalists today. This simplistic view of good and evil can be found frequently through the sacred teachings admonishing adherents to obey the word of God or be eternally damned. This black and white view of the world sounds eerily similar to the verbiage used by the clown president of the U.S today ‘you’re either with us or against us’ whilst claiming God is on his side, failing to note that the God Islamic fundamentalists invoke is the same one.

Another quote from Krakauers eye-opening book sums up for me the problems with debunking the ridiculous beliefs of religious fanatics;

All religious belief is a function of non-rational faith. And faith, by its very definition, tends to be impervious to intellectual argument or academic criticism. Polls routinely indicate, moreover that nine out 10 Americans believe in God – most of us subscribe to one brand of religion or another. Those who would assail The Book of Mormon should bear in mind that its veracity is no more dubious than the veracity of the Bible or the Qur’an, or the sacred texts of most other religions. The latter texts simply enjoy the considerable advantage of having made their public debut in the shadowy recesses of the ancient past, and are thus much harder to refute.

In an age where the word 'fundmentalist' is most often used by the bloated hypocrites in the land of the ignorant to describe the actions of Middle-Eastern religious groups. Under the Banner of Heaven is a timely reminder that the lying charlatans who spew such diarrhea are up to their necks in their own shit.

Movie Review - Out of time

Set in the small coastal town of Banyan Key just outside of Miami, Florida - the story follows the trials and tribulations of the local Chief of Police Whitlock – Denzel Washington. Whitlock is a seemingly content, self-made man – running a small department of just 4 police officers, he owns a picturesque makeshift hut on the water where he indulges in his favourite pastime of fishing and has recently made a successful drug bust confiscating a large amount of cash. However it's not all roses for Whitlock who is in the midst of a not so amicable separation with his wife (who has recently been promoted to detective in Miami) and is having an affair with a local married woman, his former high-school sweetheart, who is also in an unhappy marriage.

As the story unfolds we learn that the woman whom Whitlock is having an affair with has cancer and been given just six months to live – her only chances of recovery some very expensive treatments in Switzerland which she has no hope of paying for. Upon learning her fate she signs over her life insurance policy to Whitlock claiming that she‘d rather he have it than her abusive husband. At this point it’s easy to predict what’s going to happen – Whitlock, like most men has a soft spot for attractive women in distress and takes on the role of the knight in shining armour. His weakness causes him to act irrationally by offering up the recently confiscated drug money for the expensive treatments.

Again no prizes for guessing what happens next, after a series of un-returned calls and a visit to his lover's now vacated house it dawns on Whitlock that he has been suckered into a plot to co-erce him to hand over the drug-money. To complicate matters, the next morning he awakens to find that his lover’s house has been burnt to the ground and two charred corpses have been found amongst the carnage. Forensics experts at the scene quickly determine that the fire was deliberately lit and the two bodies are not those of Whitlock’s lover and her husband but two recently deceased corpses from the local morgue.

Whitlock now finds himself in a dire situation. As the beneficiary on the insurance policy it appears as though he has conspired to fake his lovers death to collect on the insurance. The evidence is overwhelming stacked against him, not only is he sole beneficiary on the insurance policy, his phone number is all over her phone records and a witness spotted him at the scene of the crime on the night of the fire. A further thorn in his side is that his newly promoted wife has been put in charge of the investigation and to top it off, federal agents make a phone call to Whitlock informing him that they will be driving down to Banyan Key that afternoon to pick up the now missing drug money.

At this point the movie kicks into gear. The next 40 minutes is tense, non-stop action as Whitlock attempts to conceal his involvment whilst trying to track down his lover and recover the drug money. I can’t recall the last time I saw a movie that had me literally on the edge of my seat for such a long period of time. It's not your typical shoot em up, blow it up, Hollywood trash but clever fast paced action that keeps you guessing from one scene to the next. The viewer can't help empathising with Whitlock’s predicament and get caught up in the unfolding drama. The ending is somewhat of an anti-climax in comparison to the main part of the film however I still came away feeling that it was worth my 330 yen.

Washington is excellent as chief Whitlock and Sanaa Lathan does well as his lover. Another good performance is that of Whitlock's lover's husband played by Dean Cain. Most people remember Cain as the man of steel from that awful Superman series a few years back. For this film he has to shed that morally incorruptble image to become an angry abusive husband which he pulls off remarkably well. There a couple sub-standard performances, Eva Mendez as Whitlock's wife is just not believable as a hard-nosed detective. Prize to the most annoying performance goes to John Billingsly who plays Whitlock's trusty, sidekick. He's portrayed as a sligtly off the wall, loyal friend with a 'whacky' sense of humour and a complete lack of self-awareness - exactly the kind of characters yanks so easily identify with. Check out the Amazon.com reviews of the movie for their upbeat assessments of Billingsly's performance.

At times the plot may apppear convoluted and implausible but the performances of Washington, Lathan and Cain enable you to overlook the film's shortcomings and enjoy the ride. Considering the plethora of mind-numbing activities avaliable for sheer indulgence it's not a bad way to kill 2 hours.