Life In Japan: The Telephone Booth

Probably anyone under 25 living in the U.S. will not know what that is in the photo above. Or maybe they saw one in an old movie. You know . . . old . . . like 1987.

It’s a telephone booth. Inside is a pay telephone. A person can put a coin or two in it and make a phone call. If they put a lot of coins in it, they can make a long distance call, maybe say ‘hi’ to their grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara.

The one pictured is in a fairly rural area about five minutes by bicycle from my house. Mind you, I live on the very edge of town, surrounded by bean and rice fields. This road is even further out but has houses on both sides of it, a small cluster of residences, forming one of the several villages which are the “neighborhoods” of Tambasasayama City*. Each village usually has regular meetings, puts on social functions — barbecues, holiday celebrations, bingo parties, etc — gets together to clean up and maintain the grounds and properties of the village. Most have a community center for hosting monthly meetings and various social gatherings. Some, like the one where I live, called Noma Village, have their own Shinto shrine, a valued but mostly symbolic feature — nobody goes there on a regular basis to worship, as they might a church or synagogue in America — visited on certain special holidays, e.g. New Years.

Back to the phone booth. Why is it there?

Well . . . someone just might need to make a call. And maybe their iPhone battery is down. Or they dropped their Samsung in a toilet and it’s not so waterproof after all. It’s there on the off chance someone needs it. Does this seem odd?

Actually, it reflects a typically Japanese level of forethought and consideration. Respect for redundancy. A willingness to leave some things in place — just in case.

Here’s another example: Everywhere you find a school or public building, they have what’s pictured here on the walkways.

What are they? They’re for blind people. Now I’ve been coming and going for 13 years. I’ve been up and down these streets. And I can honestly say that in all that time, I’VE NEVER SEEN A BLIND PERSON in this town. So why do they have these? Well . . . ya never know. A blind person could show up one day. And the city doesn’t want to leave them stumbling around, wandering into the street, getting hit by cars or tractors or rice harvesters.

If the city council decided that there was some reasonable possibility that space aliens could visit our town, I have no doubt they’d designate parking places for their space ships and provide electrical outlets for them to recharge. That’s just the way they think here.

Tambasasayama is far from being a rich town. In fact, some would say it’s a dying town. There are hardly any young adults. Most kids bolt once they graduate from high school, first stop university, next a nice job in the city. Very few return. Not much going on here and unless you want to be a farmer, there aren’t really many jobs.

Yet, it seems they are constantly working on improving things. Paving the roads, installing new or fixing the old curbs. Here’s a bridge they painted a few years ago. I remember this well because I was so astonished at how much care they lavished on this particular bridge, a pedestrian/bicycle bridge which I use almost every day. When the tiniest, nearly invisible signs of rust appeared, they sanded it and put FIVE COATS OF PAINT ON IT! Five! Seven years later and it still looks perfect. It could probably take a direct hit by a MOAB and survive.

We have one street which is rich with tradition, sometimes referred to as ‘merchant street’. It has many traditional shops, vegetable stands, restaurants, art galleries, ceramics stores. It’s charming in every respect but one. The electrical lines. They are now in the process of putting all of the power lines underground. Because most of the buildings have traditional architecture, when they’re done with this, this already charming street will look very much the way it did, say 200 years ago. There’s only one conclusion to be drawn seeing this sort of commitment of time, energy, and public funds to the town’s infrastructure: For the Japanese, aesthetics are an essential part of honoring history and community life.

Politicians in the U.S. are always bloviating about the need to repair the “infrastructure” there, which they all openly admit is crumbling, if not already in shambles. Then there will be another tax cut for the rich or another war or pandemic . . . or [ fill in the blank since any excuse will do ] . . . and nothing ever gets done.

Well, building and maintaining infrastructure to keep Tambasasayama safe and operable is not just a campaign slogan or bumper sticker here. It’s an integral part of daily life. We all do a little. But the government itself does the real heavy lifting.

To put it mildly, I’m awed.

One last note. Proof that the telephone booth at the beginning is not just a fluke, here is a photo I took less than 100 meters (300 feet) away, even closer to my house. Frankly, I had never noticed it before. Yes, it’s yet another phone booth, this one sitting adjacent to a truly funky old bus stop shelter. While you’re waiting for the bus, you can call your grandmother in Heidelberg or Guadalajara. How convenient!

* Note that in May 2020 the town officially changed its name from Sasayama — the name that appears in most of the articles in this series — to Tambasasayama.

[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . https://jdrachel.com ]




Life In Japan: The Telephone Booth

Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part V

 

Bernie Sanders talks eagerly about a "revolution".

While this obviously is fantastic campaign rhetoric, his presidential aspirations fall a bit short of a revolution.  Many of his ideas for reforming the political system, revamping our national priorities, and replacing the current agenda with one that serves the greater good of the vast majority of citizens, notably are consistent with revolutionary change.  It is hopeful, heartening, inspiring, truly a breath of fresh air in the stagnant and highly toxic atmosphere of the now dominant neoliberal/neocon regime in Washington DC.

But the simple fact remains:  We're not electing a king.  We're only electing a president.  Reform comes from changing the laws.  Changing the laws comes from changing the law makers.  Either we change their minds or we change them, meaning we replace them with elected public servants who will serve the public instead of their corporate masters.

This entire series of articles is about exactly that . . . the need for such change and how I see that coming about.

It's all about people power.  Not PACs and SuperPACS.  Not big piles of money -- though the enormous sums the wealthy throw into the ring present a formidable obstacle for even the most organized and energetic citizens groups.

Change still comes down to the choice each of us personally makes in the voting booth.  Power resides in our aligning our individual choices, so that collectively -- as in tens of millions of us united in an unstoppable juggernaut of people power -- we get done what needs to get done.

I've already pointed at many crucial issues where there is substantial agreement.

75% of Americans want a federal minimum wage of $12.50 per hour.
63% of Americans want a federal minimum wage of $15.00 per hour.
75% of voters want fair trade agreements protecting jobs, workers, the environment.
76% of voters want a cut back on military spending.
76% of voters want the U.S. completely out of Afghanistan.
79% of voters want no reductions in Social Security, 70% support expanding it.
79% of voters want no reductions in Medicare.
80% of voters oppose the "Citizens United" U.S. Supreme Court decision.
68% of voters think taxes on the wealthy should be increased.
71% of voters support massive infrastructure renewal.
74% of American voters are for ending oil industry subsidies.
93% of voters want GMO labeling on their food.

In Part IV of the series, I recommended collecting signature from people on a combination pledge-petition, which does two things:  1) it ascertains the level of local voter support for specific issues; and 2) invites individuals to take a stand on those issues, i.e. solicits their commitment to only vote for candidates who if elected will represent them and promote the agenda their constituents have united behind.

So we are now confronted with a critical question . . .

How do we know a candidate will do what we want once elected?

My solution is so simple and so obvious, many scoff and dismiss it immediately.

These are the same types of people who, by the way, stood on the beach at Kitty Hawk, scoffing and derisively observing:  "Ha! That contraption will never fly!"

The short answer is . . . we make the candidate sign a legally-binding contract.

While the contracts can address any number of issues, here is an example, specifically for a candidate running for House of Representatives, demanding an increase in the minimum wage to $15.00 per hour.


 
If you're immediate reaction is . . .

"Why, my congressman will never sign something like that!"

. . . all I can do is jump for joy!  It means we're getting somewhere!

I'll explain exactly how this is intended to work in the next installments of Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground.  But before we go there, I have to make one critical point.  This really has to sink in and be fully understood in order to appreciate the power of the candidate contract and its potential as a game-changer in our current dysfunctional political environment.  Here it is . . .

While the candidate contract is a legally-binding agreement, properly implementing it is NOT A LEGAL STRATEGY.

IT IS A POLITICAL STRATEGY!

This is not about courts and juries and lawyers.

It is about forcing elected representatives to represent us.

It is using a legal instrument to our POLITICAL ADVANTAGE!

Please repeat this as often as needed for it to sink in . . .

Candidate contracts are legal instruments to force democratically-elected representatives to represent their constituents. They are political levers!

They are POLITICAL SLEDGEHAMMERS!

All will become clear in the next installments.



[ This originated at the author's personal website . . . http://jdrachel.com ]



Putting Boots (Birkenstocks) on the Ground: Part V

Ten Commandments For The New American Century

 

First Commandment: THOU SHALT TAKE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS

No money in politics. Zero! First, people should stand up and declare
unequivocally they will not vote for anyone who takes ANY money from
corporations, lobbyists and PACs. Then, down the road, by having
elections 100% financed out of public funds, we can build a democracy
where our legislators might actually have some time to legislate. It is
common knowledge, most federal office holders spend enormous amounts of
time raising funds and worrying about winning the next election, instead
of doing the job we voted them in office to do. Let's end this right
now!

Second Commandment: THOU SHALT HONOR CHOICE AT THE POLLS 

It's time to institute instant run-off voting. This will allow minor party
candidates to run at all levels of government without the understandable
fear that a voter is throwing away her or his vote. Our current system
has, as Ralph Nader has been saying all along, turned into a choice
between Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum. Without real choice, meaning a
range that covers the entire spectrum of political opinion, democracy
becomes a sham, and purely an exercise in futility.

Third Commandment:  THOU SHALT RESPECT THE COMMONS 

Right off, we need to re-establish a commons. So much of what constitutes the
foundation for a functioning society has been privatized __ prisons,
education, utilities, mail, roads, bridges. And it hasn’t worked out
well, has it? The nation’s infrastructure is a shambles. There are some
basic things we should all be able to have free and open access to,
facilities and services which should not be at the mercy of the
so-called free market: education, clean air and water, energy, health
care, retirement security, the INTERNET, police, fire and ambulance
services, nutrition and mental health counseling. This is not
socialism.   It’s having a country that works.

Fourth Commandment: THOU SHALT PUT MONEY CREATION AND 
THE CONTROL OF THE NATION’S CURRENCY BACK INTO THE 
PUBLIC DOMAIN 

The control and issuance of currency must be returned to the federal
government. The Federal Reserve is no more "federal" than Federal
Express, and as a result America is now hostage to private banks and we
rapidly becoming their serf-slaves. Either nationalize or abolish the
Federal Reserve and return creation of our fiat currency to the people
of America, regulated by a legitimate, functioning system of
representative government.

Fifth Commandment: THOU SHALT LIVE BY RULE OF LAW 

We have a two-tiered legal system, a gentle one for the privileged, a brutal
one for the rest of us. The oligarchs do what they want unfettered by pesky
laws. Sometimes the same laws are used to restrain and incarcerate the
rest of us. Same thing on an international level. Two tiers. The U.S.
bullies the world, ignoring treaty obligations and international law,
treating other countries as vassal states. But it uses the same legal
instruments as a bludgeon, holding every other nation's feet to the fire
with sanctions, UN resolutions, trade agreements __ whatever__ when it
serves our interests, or more accurately, the interests of the
corporations who are really setting the agenda. This gross hypocrisy is
creating enemies everywhere. We are long overdue to again respect the
law, apply it equally and fairly across the board, both at home and
around the world.

Sixth Commandment: THOU SHALT REIN IN CAPITALISM 

A nice breeze on a clear spring day __ good! . . . A level 5 hurricane that
destroys vast swaths of dwellings and kills countless people __ bad! . . .
Surfer and swimmer-friendly waves lapping up on a sandy beach __
good! . . . A tsunami crushing whole towns with a 100 foot wall of
terrifying force __ bad! . . . Sunlight from hydrogen fusion nurturing
our planet with gentle rays of light and warmth __ good! . . . An
inferno of hydrogen fusion raining down on cities across the world as
mammoth nuclear bombs, destroying the entire human race __ bad! We
mostly tend to agree that capitalism provides a powerful engine to drive
development and progress. But too much of it and societies are crushed,
democracies destroyed, vast numbers of people are relegated to serf
status. Other countries have strict regulation and state control to check
the ravaging effects of unfettered capitalism. Now it’s America’s turn.
Either we rein it in or we can kiss good-bye our once-great country
as it descends into the dustbin of history.

Seventh Commandment: THOU SHALT MAKE CORPORATIONS SERVANTS OF THE GREATER GOOD 

It will be tough but the whole bogus concept of corporate personhood must be
expunged. Totally voided. It was put in place by devious methods and now
must be rooted out. In general, it's way past time to drastically
restrict the charters of corporations, such that the interests of people
are balanced with the pursuit of profit. This is the way it used to be
in the early days of our nation. Back then, corporations were set up for
specific and usually public-spirited projects, assigned a very narrowly
defined charter and a fixed duration. When whatever was supposed to get
done got done, the corporation was dissolved. Maybe we don't have to
return to such a limited implementation in our modern world, but we do
have to require that corporations serve the common good. It is
entirely legal to dictate that corporations act responsibly and take
into account the needs of the community they serve, especially the
communities where they reside. We have to elect individuals who are not
in the pockets of the corporations and have them re-write the laws for
doing the business of America. If the multinational bohemoths don't like
it, let them set up in China, Vietnam or Bangladesh. That's where they
already have their factories anyway. Ultimately this will not harm the
economy, it will create a society which is healthy and prosperous for everyone.

Eight Commandment: THOU SHALT PROMOTE PEACE AND BE LOVED AGAIN 

America must be taken off of a war footing. The high-alert status both at
home and around the world is nothing more than highly destructive
fear-mongering. It is used to promote a belligerent self-sabotaging
approach to international relations. It's the product of a grossly
delusional neocon imperialistic agenda which Americans don't support __
"exceptionalist" chest-beating which fills the coffers of the defense
contractors but bankrupts the rest of us both financially and
spiritually. We’ve meddled and bombed enough. It has accomplished
nothing and created more problems and more enemies than we had before we
decided that military force was the only way to deal with disagreements
and crises in the world. It has also subjected the American people to
unprecedented and unconstitutional levels of surveillance and a gross
abrogation of our rights as citizens. Time to try peace and cooperation
instead of threats and bullying.

Ninth Commandment: THOU SHALT RESPECT MOTHER EARTH 

Enough silly arguing and tiptoeing around climate change. It’s happening,
it could destroy the human race. It will without a doubt reduce
civilization to a shell of its former glory and sophistication. Let’s
get to work. Global warming and resource depletion represent the
greatest threats to mankind in recorded history. Responsible use of
resources and creation of sustainable sources of energy are not only
necessary, but could be the greatest unifying force ever! Brainstorming
and planning will create a monumental paradigm shift and the subsequent
implementation of our collective ingenuity will create jobs and bring
together behind a common purpose, a world which is torn by divisiveness,
fear, suspicion, anger. Though time is quickly running out, the
challenge of a planet in crisis doesn't have to end in total disaster.
On the contrary, this could be a historic opportunity for a massive
global initiative __ one of renewal and fellowship.

Tenth Commandment: THOU SHALT LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD 

The rich and powerful have had a good run. The party is over. The wealthy 
should start paying back the country which gave birth to their monumental
success. Inherited wealth does not give back to the community, the
social and political environment that supported the accumulation of all
that money. Tax it at 95% above $5 million. The heirs of the Koch
brothers will just have to squeak by on their $5.2 billion. Capital
gains? Capital gains is income. Tax it at the same rate as
personal income. Speaking of which __ time to return to the progressive
tax rates of the 60s and 70s. You know them. The ones which resulted in a
thriving economy! Massive tax reform across the board is in order,
closing of all loopholes, penalizing off-shoring of profits, and the
complete elimination of corporate welfare. Do I hear screaming of
'SOCIALISM!' out there? Get a life! Yes, this is redistribution of wealth. 
It's been going on for thousands of years. It's what makes a functioning 
society possible.

I confess, I’m not up to speed on my Bible studies. But I remember hearing at
some point, there were originally twenty commandments. I guess our good guy,
Moses, lost a tablet or two on his way down from the mountain.

I take this as meaning there’s room on my list for even more. So let’s come up
with some ideas for Commandments 11 - 20. All reasonable and constructive 
ideas are welcome.

I’ll bet there’s a little Moses in everyone just hankering to bust out.

Come on. Go for it!

Let's make America great again.


[ This originated at the author's personal web site . . . http://jdrachel.com ]