I'm writing this from Japan, which has a problem. The drawbridge has been up for 30 months, and the business lobby would very much like the government to shift from viewing COVID as a pandemic to accepting it as endemic. Regular readers will know I am fond of quoting former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill's aphorism, "All politics is local."After centuries (and 30 months) of telling the populace that foreigners are a danger, the government has to figure out how to reopen the borders and deal with the inevitable spike in infections (which are spiking anyway; Japan has the highest COVID totals in the world right now) that will be seen as entirely the fault of foreign tourists and businesspeople. Not of the Japanese salarymen who for two years have been returning from Los Angeles strip clubs carrying the virus. The real issue, of course, is racism and xenophobia. Otherism. As usual, I hope you find it interesting, and thanks for reading! Subscribing is free, so please feel free to forward to anyone you think may also be interested.
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The Test of Our Civilization
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I'm writing this from Japan, which has a problem. The drawbridge has been up for 30 months, and the business lobby would very much like the government to shift from viewing COVID as a pandemic to accepting it as endemic. Regular readers will know I am fond of quoting former U.S. Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill's aphorism, "All politics is local."After centuries (and 30 months) of telling the populace that foreigners are a danger, the government has to figure out how to reopen the borders and deal with the inevitable spike in infections (which are spiking anyway; Japan has the highest COVID totals in the world right now) that will be seen as entirely the fault of foreign tourists and businesspeople. Not of the Japanese salarymen who for two years have been returning from Los Angeles strip clubs carrying the virus. The real issue, of course, is racism and xenophobia. Otherism. As usual, I hope you find it interesting, and thanks for reading! Subscribing is free, so please feel free to forward to anyone you think may also be interested.