Yummm..steak with blue-cheese butter..
A good Cabernet to wash it down. :)
Posted on 02/26/2007 6:56:31 PM PST by blam
Minister's anti-human rights rant shocks Japan
By Colin Joyce in Tokyo
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 27/02/2007
Japan's education minister has stunned the country with a gaffe-strewn speech in which he claimed that too much emphasis has been put on human rights.
Bunmei Ibuki, 69, also said that Western-style individualism is damaging Japan, while he praised Japan's racial homogeneity and appeared to denigrate minorities.
Japanese newspapers reported yesterday that Mr Ibuki, a veteran politician who worked at the Japanese embassy in London for four years in the 1960s, implied in his speech in Nagasaki that problems with Japan's education policy stemmed from the fact that it was imposed by the US occupation authorities after the Second World War.
"Japan has stressed the individual point of view too much," he said. He also argued that a society gorged on human rights was like a person with an obesity-related illness.
"If you eat butter everyday you get metabolic syndrome. Human rights are important but a society that over indulges in them will get 'human rights metabolic syndrome'," he said.
The speech raises questions about Tokyo's commitment to concepts such as human rights and democracy, which Japanese commentators note were brought to Japan by defeat in the war rather than created independently by domestic reforms.
It is unclear whether Mr Ibuki's choice of the word "butter" was intentional or unfortunate, but it echoes an old disparaging Japanese expression for Western ideas: "stinking of butter".
The term came about because Westerners traditionally had a far higher dairy content in their diet than Japanese and hence were thought to smell of butter.
That explains the French.
I just love it when politicians tell you what they're really thinking.
No doubt Jimmy Carter will call for an end to apartheid in Japan. No, he reserves his ire for Jews.
Butter is good.
Buttered bread.
Butter on steak.
Buttered cheese.
Buttermilk.
All good.
Japan has historically been a racist country. I'm not surprised.
Butter on steak? Ick, who does that?
French people.
You put a big pat of butter, with garlic and parsely, on the steak as it nears the end of cooking. It is delicious.
The butter must melt into the steak.
It's pretty obvious that the bi-racial society in Japan tells itself that constantly to avoid the conflicts that would have otherwise ensued between the Emishi and the Yayoi.
Based on tooth type it's roughly a 40/60 split and might well account for several of their many centuries of chronic warfare.
They used to take this stuff very seriously you know.
That's doggone near Friese ~ as in "Good cottage and good cheese make good English and good Friese" (although the Friese spellings are different).
I don't know much about Japan, but given that they allow almost no immigration, I wonder if the Education Minister was only saying what others believe.
Yes, "doggone" would be the operant word for an English dish.
Butter doesn't count if it is made from dog's milk.
"Findings by American anthropologist C. Loring Brace, University of Michigan, will surely be controversial in race conscious Japan. The eye of the predicted storm will be the Ainu, a "racially different" group of some 18,000 people now living on the northern island of Hokkaido. Pure-blooded Ainu are easy to spot: they have lighter skin, more body hair, and higher-bridged noses than most Japanese. Most Japanese tend to look down on the Ainu."
This Japanese politician should be thankful he has butter. Consider "Hot Buttered Rum's" poor Flask:
Flask, alas! He was a butterless man
At Captain Ahab's table he knew not where to stand
After Starbuck and Stubb had both buttered up their grub
Still Flask, he was a butterless man
Now, he could walk the quarterdeck as free as any soul
With one eye out for Moby Dick and one eye on his dinner roll
But he dared not touch that sweet butterfat
For fear of Ahab's stick accross his back
He was short and stout and tough as they come
He could fire his harpoon like a sharpshooter's gun
But he was fourth man low on that Pequod's totem pole
And he could not even butter up his roll
(chorus)
He was the last one down and the first one to leave
And lucky if he had any time between to eat
With no gravy for his beef, no butter for his bread
He was lucky if he ever got fed
He could not cut his meat, he could not dish he peas
While the officer and first mate did all as they pleased
But he was fourth man low on the Pequod's totem pole
And he could not even butter up his roll
(chorus)
So raise your cups to Flask!
And put some extra butter on your bread!
'Cause you may one day find you're crazy on a ship of fools
Chasin' whales without no butter for your roll
Even better is a butterburger.
Yummm..steak with blue-cheese butter..
A good Cabernet to wash it down. :)
Amazing what a thorough ass-kicking can do.
Are we about to see a ressurection of the Greater East Asia Coprosperity Sphere???
If so, they won't know what hit them.
It's Chiffon!
Things have gone off the rails, a bit. Stories like the one about that lady winning $5 million from McDonald's over hot coffee get passed around in Japan amidst condign, horrified Japanese disbelief.
Japan sometimes has an under-developed sense of "kenri" (rights), but in the USA, it's over the top.
I agree with narrow parts of what the man said, SORRY.
Did not.
...implied in his speech in Nagasaki that problems with Japan's education policy stemmed from the fact that it was imposed by the US occupation authorities after the Second World War.
Not what the Japanese newspapers are saying
It is unclear whether Mr Ibuki's choice of the word "butter" was intentional or unfortunate, but it echoes an old disparaging Japanese expression for Western ideas: "stinking of butter". The term came about because Westerners traditionally had a far higher dairy content in their diet than Japanese and hence were thought to smell of butter.
Rubbish. Western media trying to read more into what was actually said. Plus Japanese are huge fans/consumers of butter (they often put it on their steaks!)
Japan * ping * (kono risuto ni hairitai ka detai wo shirasete kudasai : let me know if you want on or off this list)
I do too.
There is some truth in some aspects of what the Minister said. There are also falsehoods, and other aspects and comments which are not particularly beneficial for Japan to continue to follow, in a social context. Like I said, a little truth here and there.
I think "bataa kusai" (as in "he (or she) rather smells of butter") is more or less passe these days. Kind of like "ao mei" ("blue eyes") meaning a Western-type foreigner. I think these are more meiji, taisho, and early/mid showa terms, not such much heisei realities anymore.
Rights without responsibilities are meaningless, and not deserved.
If it ain't fat, it ain't food.
Fat is brain food.
:-)
I like bread and butter,
I like toast and jam,
I like bread and butter,
cause that's the way I am
Somebody help me with this little ditty...heard my husband singin it one day, I'm not kidding
BANZAI!
bump for later
I remember that little jewel from my misspent youth. Sorry, I can't remember the recording artist's name, but it was sung in a falsetto.
It's by the Easybeats, circa 1966.
"Japan has stressed the individual point of view too much"??
Who's he kidding?
Larry Parks Lyrics
Bread And Butter Lyrics
I like bread and butter
I like toast and jam
That's what my baby feeds ne
I'm her lovin' man
He likes bread and butter
He likes toast and jam
That's what his baby feeds him
He's her lovin' man
She don't cook mashed potatoes
Don't cook T-bone steak
Don't feed me peanut butter
She knows that I can't take
No more bread and butter
No more toast and jam
He found his baby eatin'
With some other man
Got home early one mornin'
Much to my surprise
She was eatin' chicken and dumplins
With some other guy
No more bread and butter
No more toast and jam
I found my baby eatin'
With some other man
: The Newbeats
: (Larry Parks & Jay Turnbow)
Voir assi: http://www.music.bizerks.com/lyrics.html
I wonder what the Japanese was that's translated here as "metabolic syndrome."
The minister is right about one thing, though...Japan desperately needs to bring back corporeal punishment in schools.
But then, so do we.
Thank you!
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