Archive for January, 2009

Tokyo metropolitan government tells NPO to stop feeding homeless

The Tokyo metropolitan government has ordered the nonprofit Catholic charity organization Sanyukai to stop giving free meals to homeless people along the Sumida river. Government officials claim they had received many complaints about the program:

Metro officials said most of the complaints were filed since last spring by parents of students attending local schools who fear the kids will come in contact with those waiting for free meals.

In addition, the activity infringes on Article 24 of the river law, which forbids occupancy of public riverbeds without proper authorization, according to the metro officials.

“We’ve been conducting handouts at the riverbed for over a decade. I don’t understand why we are receiving these complaints now,” Sanyukai Director Jean Le Beau said.

The group has been told to end the weekly meals, which attract 300 to 500 homeless people near Komagata Bridge, by March.

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COPS – Roppongi

A couple days ago, FTV news did a “Super Report” about how the cops working night shifts at a police box in Tokyo’s Roppongi district spent the X-mas/New Year holiday period. As some of you reading this site probably know, Roppongi is very famous as a nightlife area and lots of foreigners who live in Tokyo love to go there to party.

Most of the segment consisted of rather dull conversations between police officers and very drunk Japanese guys, but there were a few moments of foreigner-related amusement. Take this clip, for example:

Around 1:40AM on January 1st, a (Japanese?) woman and a foreign man come to the police box. The woman believes he is cheating on her, so she took away his mobile phone and refuses to return it. One officer asks the woman if she has the man’s phone, and she responds that the man has taken her time and her money. The man is hoping that police will tell the woman to give him his phone back, but the cops don’t really seem interested in intervening in a lovers’ quarrel. The narrator says that the incident ended sometime past 5:00AM, when the woman stormed out of the police box after the man said he “didn’t need the phone.” We are left to assume that the police officers took no action to stop her.

Also included in the news report was a clip of some drunk foreigners walking in the middle of the street and obstructing traffic:

This little episode took place on Christmas Eve, and the foreigners managed to slip away before police could show up on the scene.

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Japanese reporter goes inside Gaza tunnel

Looks like NTV is on good enough terms with Palestian smugglers to get access to one of their supply tunnels:

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Taro Aso says that world religions can learn from Japan’s work ethic

Prime Minister Taro Aso (a Roman Catholic) made some public statements about religion yesterday:

“Our values in Japan regard hard work as important,” Aso said during a discussion on the global economic crisis.

“To work is good. It’s completely different thinking from the Old Testament,” Aso said.

“We should share our philosophy with many other nations.”

Some quotes from an earlier speech provide some context:

“In the Old Testament, God gave Adam punishment: labour. The Old Testament, Christianity, Islam — if you add them up, what percent of the world is that? About 70 percent of religions hold a philosophy that work is a punishment.”

He then referred to Japan’s oldest known book, the Kojiki, which features Japan’s creation myths. In the text, an important sun goddess saw many other deities working.

And let’s not forget the story from the Kojiki about how a deity dancing around naked lured the sun goddess out of her cave. Maybe the major world religions can learn something from that too?

[via Japan Soc]

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Taxi companies begin installing security devices after a series of attacks on drivers

There have been several attacks on taxi drivers lately in Kansai, so the topic of driver safety is getting a lot of media attention.

In Osaka, where some of the recent violent incidents took place, only 17% of taxis contain some sort of security device to protect drivers (for Tokyo it is about 75%). Responding to concerns over the attacks, the National Police Association has asked taxi organizations to install safety devices in cars.

Here is a clip of the safety screens an Osaka firm is installing in its taxis after losing one of their drivers to a stabbing attack:

“It’s frightening because the incidents are continuing. But this will give us a little bit of assurance. It’s good that (passengers) will be unable to reach (the driver’s) neck from behind,” said Kazuo Nakagawa, a 59-year-old driver who works there.

It may not look like much, but in this performance it seemed to provide enough of a barrier for the driver to escape before the assailant could do serious damage:

Assuming there are police officers hanging around a taxi at the time of just such an attack, they might come to see what all the noise is about and actually end up arresting the criminal.

Another taxi company showed off a different security system:

Instead of a protective screen, the taxi has a panic button that turns on extra lights and makes a lot of noise. The taxi’s “in use” screen will also change its text to read “SOS.”

Partial security screens and panic buttons may not be great, but they’re a lot better than what some taxi drivers have now.

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Bonus video: Are you a taxi driver working for a company that is too cheap to install new security devices? You might want to try out one of those little safety buzzers your kids carry when they walk to school (Yes, this is a clip from an actual safety training demonstration):

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The Collagen Myth

Finally, I have a good reason to be annoyed by people who talk about needing to improve the beauty of their skin by consuming collagen-containing products:

“Consumers are not scientific,” Professor Fusako Baba said. “Women especially are motivated to be beautiful and thus tend to believe in health-related products.”

According to scientists, it is misleading to say ingesting collagen, which can also be found in gelatin, shark fins and the skin of chicken and fish, will result in smoother skin.

That’s because collagen is digested into amino acids just like other proteins, and thus eating meat and other protein-rich foods has the same effect, they say.

“Good protein contains sufficient amounts of all kinds of essential amino acids, and most animal protein falls into this category. Collagen is no better than average as a protein,” Kuniko Takahashi, a nutrition scientist at Gunma University, writes in her book “Tabemono Joho Uso Honto” (“Truth and Falsehood of Food Information.”)

She also says applying collagen cream to skin will not make it any smoother, because collagen is produced inside the body and not absorbed through skin.

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