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According to the best-sellers list from 20 years ago, the Japanese were expected to be running the universe by now. The Yen was almighty, and the rest of the world was simply Japan’s outer islands. Any aspiring entrepreneur was told to think like a samurai–except for the hara-kiri. Corporations restructured themselves on the basis of two viewings of “Yojimbo.”

Of course, we now know that the Chinese will dominate the world. (No, it was not a case of mistaken identity. There is a physical difference between the Chinese and Japanese; the Japanese dress better.) The Japanese may actually have overworked. While putting in 80 hours a week at the job, they forgot to reproduce. Perhaps a 15 minute “coppy” break in the work day could have replenished the demographics; unfortunately, the Japanese sense of hygiene must have been a detriment. Japan now has a dwindling population.

No, the Japanese “invincibility” of the Eighties was simply that they were methodical. They knew a good idea when they stole one. Think of all the Japanese inventions. That didn’t take long. But consider how they successfully developed and marketed those products. If you would like an American television set, go to the Smithsonian. In fact, Japan was the first to use cheap Chinese labor for manufacturing. (The Chinese also know a good idea when they steal it.)

The Japanese are thoroughly methodical but they have no talent for improvision. How many Japanese comedians do you know? At an open-mike night in a Tokyo club, people would reenact their favorite scenes from Kabuki. This lack of spontaneity would explain why Kirosawa made so few comedies and why the Japanese lost the battle of Midway.

On this day in 1942, a Japanese fleet found itself totally disoriented (sorry but I couldn’t resist) by the presence of a smaller American force at Midway. The Japanese were surprised to find three evidently hostile aircraft carriers confronting them. No doubt, the Japanese would have liked a few days to contemplate the petals of a chrysanthemum and develop a brilliant strategy in a haiku. But we Americans are always in a rush–fighting a two-front war can be hectic–so we rather brusquely sank four Japanese carriers. Apparently, Zen is not a good defense.

If the Japanese were a more spontaneous people, they would not been so stupified by the surprises of war. Did they think that they had a monopoly on surprise attacks? Admiral Yamamoto did graduate work at Harvard but apparently none at the Lampoon. Just imagine if the Japanese fleet at Midway had been commanded instead by a Groucho Marx. The Japanese could have quickly reacted and reduced the American fleet to the equivalent of Margaret Dumont.

But the Japanese mind lacked that flexibility. You can’t fly by the seat of your pants when wearing a kimono.

BRITISH LEADER GORDON BROWN IS COMIC-BOOK HERO
Associated Press
Jun 3rd, 2008 | LONDON — The British prime minister’s dull-as-dishwater image is getting a revamp from an unlikely source: U.S.-based comic book publisher Marvel.

Gordon Brown, who has been in the political doldrums of late and is often described as buttoned down, is depicted in a heroic light in “Captain Britain and MI13,” a new comic that shows the prime minister helping stave off an attack of evil, green-skinned aliens.

The space invaders, known as the Skrulls, have even managed to penetrate the British Cabinet, impersonating at least three Cabinet ministers, but Brown manages to coordinate the ultimately successful efforts to fight them off.

To trap the Skrulls, Captain Britain left bottles of whiskey and bushels of potatoes in the cabinet room. Then the Captain called a meeting and watched how his ministers reacted.

Secretary of State David Miliband didn’t touch the whiskey, although he had some interesting ideas for marketing it. (Perhaps in Captain Britain’s next adventure, he will deal with those sly, olive-skinned aliens.) Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling sullenly drank two bottles of the whiskey, complaining about the quality as he imbibed. (He obviously was one of those dour, red-skinned aliens, the Skots.)

Most of the cabinet members responded to the whiskey in a reassuringly British manner; once they were drunk, they played rugby until they threw up. However, three ministers showed a solicitous interest in the potatoes, and, although holding their liquor better than the others, began singing–quite well, too. Yes, Captain Britain had found the Skrulls.

Insisting that the visitors’ book at the American Military Cemetery was a Democratic ballot, Senator Hillary Clinton today thanked the voters of Luxembourg for her victory in the primary. Reporters did find her name pasted in the visitors’ book. No other candidate’s name was found.

When the Obama campaign questioned the validity of a Luxembourg primary, Senator Clinton replied that cemetery was American territory and that its 5076 residents were entitled to vote despite their current physical handicaps. As the winner of this primary, Senator Clinton feels entitled to three supernatural delegates.

The Obama campaign is also disputing Sen. Clinton’s claim of a unanimous vote. The most famous resident of Luxembourg’s U.S. Military Cemetery is General George Patton who certainly seemed to be a Republican. Senator Clinton insisted that Patton would have preferred her to Senator Obama. “Patton knows that I would have slapped him back.”

The sight of Rachel Ray in a paisley scarf apparently is an endorsement of terrorism. Dunkin’ Donuts has acknowledged as much by withdrawing a television commercial featuring Ms. Ray in her chic of Araby. Knowing the intellectual standards of advertising, if there were a subliminal message in the scarf, it would be Kaffiyeh– “coffee yea!”

But the danger is far greater than just a scarf: coffee is an Arabic word! Yes, like any terrorist, qahwah has disguised its real identity by passing itself off under a false name–the Italianized caffe. Generations of Americans have been addicted to this Arabic drug, and recent demographic studies have revealed what must be qahwah’s insidious effects. Americans are become smaller and darker. (I can personally attest to looking Semitic.)

Our national survival demands that we stop drinking qahwah. Without having to acknowledge that the American Revolution was a mistake, we could resume drinking tea. But tea is a Chinese word, and that nation is not exactly trustworthy either. Milk might seem wholesome but it is dangerously similar to the Iranian word melq. (Damn Indo-Europeans.) Perhaps we should adapt the habits of our Founding Fathers. John Adams, Ben Franklin and Button Gwinnett drank hard cider and ale for breakfast. (Washington could afford wine.) Of course, we cannot endorse “alcohol” as our national beverage–if only because alcohol is an Arabic word. But there is nothing subversive about the Dutch word “booze.”

So, for the sake of Western Civilization, start off each day with an Irish coffee–but skip the coffee.

Joan of Arc became the most famous French fry. With the exception of Antonin Scalia, we no longer regard witchcraft as a capital crime or even a tangible offense. In the 15th century, however, witchcraft seemed a plausible explanation for Joan’s triumph over the English at the siege of Orleans in 1429. Dressed in men’s clothing and leading an army, she certainly was an outlandish figure–why not a diabolical one. (At the time, no one in the British military thought of blaming the liberal media–which would have consisted of some dozen scribes at Oxford.) When Joan was captured by French collaborators and then sold to the English, she was put on trial for witchcraft.

But witchcraft was the Church’s jurisdiction. It had the responsibility for trying Joan of Arc. Ironically, by the standards of her time, Joan was not the victim of injustice. On the contrary, her trial was impeccably fair. She was not even tortured. (After all, she was never accused of being Jewish.) If you don’t believe me and your Latin is very good, feel free to read her trial transcripts. Yes, the Church took notes. Did you think that the phonetic similarity of “cleric” and “clerical” was just a coincidence? As the obligatory literates of the Middle Ages, the clerics had to keep baptismal records, read and file Papal bulls, and–in the case of heretics–fill out burning permits.

The Church was not even eager to incinerate the girl. In fact, it intended to save her life from the English whom she had humiliated. Any educated, impartial person would see that the young woman was just a lunatic; and that in itself was not a crime. On the other hand, she was very strange and the specific nature of her insanity required some form of incarceration. Joan claimed to talk to saints. That was not a theological impossibility, but the Church preferred to moderate the conversation. (G.B. Shaw postulated that Joan was a premature Protestant.) Furthermore, Britain constituted a powerful parishioner, and the Church needed to offer the English some revenge. Why not put Joan in prison for the rest of her life; there, she would no longer be a public disturbance and she could talk to the saints as much as she wanted.

Her legal counselors explained to Joan her predicament. If she insisted on her innocence, she would be executed. However, if she confessed to witchcraft, her life would be spared. The counselors unfortunately failed to explain that her spared life would be spent in prison. So Joan confessed to witchcraft but was surprised by a life sentence. Then Joan recanted her confession, and the Church recanted any interest in saving her life. She was turned over to the English and their limited culinary skills.

In fairness, the English really did believe that Joan was a witch. Some 150 years later, an awkward, heavy-handed but not completely talentless young playwright would depict Joan conjuring demons in the execrable play “Henry VI, part I.” With ten years’ practice, the playwright would make his Scottish witches much more memorable.

And the Church did apologize in 1920 by making Joan a saint.

Now we know. The Bush Administration is watching Turner Classic Movies, and not just the Ronald Reagan anthology. Notice the coordinated response to Scott McClellan’s tattletale. “Why, this isn’t the Scott we know…These aren’t his words.” That was just the first act.

The second act: “Scott always seemed to hear noises. He thought that he saw strange lights in the attic. You know that he would steal things but never realized what he had done. And did you know that he sometimes would speak with a Swedish accent?”

The third act: “I’m afraid that Scott should be committed or euthanized. You know that he was never actually the Press Secretary. Oh, yes, the simple-minded soul claimed to be, but he really was only our pet idiot in the mailroom. If he put on airs, we never thought that he would do any harm—or that anyone would believe the drooling dolt.”

Of course, if you remember the movie “Gaslight“, you know that Ingrid Bergman is not really insane, although her Swedish accent is inexplicable in an English family. However, her vicious husband Charles Boyer wants to steal her fortune (of which she is not even aware; he knows her net worth better than she does). The scheming Boyer creates public incidents and scenes that call into question her sanity; of course, everyone believes him rather than her. Well, almost everyone—Joseph Cotton will save her.

Scott McClellan will not be that lucky, however. Joseph Cotton, along with most of the cast of the 1944 movie, is no longer making personal appearances. Angela Lansbury is still around, but it might be too much to ask her to break into the White House, free Scott McClellan and fight to the death with Karl Rove. Worse, McClellan’s situation is just the opposite of Ingrid Bergman’s. Most people actually believe him–but no one wants to rescue him. We all remember what a snippy little putz he was.

So, we’ll let him be committed. Then Scott McClellan can feel like he is living another Turner Classic Movie: Olivia DeHavilland in “The Snake Pit.”

In his just published memoirs, ‘Not as Dumb as I Seem’, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan admits that he was parroting the administration’s lies. “Yes, Iraq really didn’t bomb Pearl Harbor or cause the cancellation of ‘Hee Haw.’ But I thought everyone knew that. How gullible could the media be? Was I supposed to say, ‘Today, the President wants you to believe these whoppers?’ I had to say whatever they told me. Lynn Cheney threatened to hurt me.”

But the White House and Faux News were ready with their denials. “Who?” Dana Perino responded with convincing vacuity. Impartial political analyst Karl Rove said, “The book is an obvious forgery and the real Scott McClellan has been murdered and replaced by a terrorist clone who was grown in a secret Al Qaida lab at some Ivy League school–except Dartmouth, of course.”

Impartial political analyst Anne Coulter said, “If McClellan knew someone was lying, he owed it to the American people to personally kill the liar, and show the severed head to the media. It’s what I would have done. And it’s what I intend to do to McClellan.”

Added impartial political analyst Rove, “Why didn’t he alert the public when he was the Press Secretary? By not exposing me, the Vice President and the President as gleeful liars, McClellan is directly responsible for the war in Iraq, and the waste of a trillion dollars and the needless deaths of 4000 Americans. How can a man that guilty live with himself?”

SHARON STONE BLAMES BAD KARMA FOR CHINA EARTHQUAKE

Sharon Stone left Chinese journalists stunned at the Cannes Film Festival in France last week when she suggested the country’s recent earthquake was “karma.” The outspoken actress was talking to a Chinese media outlet on Thursday when she linked the recent disaster, which left more than 67,000 people dead, to China’s recent treatment of Tibetans.

Noted seismologist and historian Sharon Stone now explains the following disasters:

“The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius was the bad karmady resulting from throwing Christians to the lions. It was mean to the Christians and even worse for the lions having to digest them.”

“The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was nature’s reaction to slavery in Brazil. Those slaves started doing the Samba, and Lisbon joined in.”

“In 1883, the explosion of Krakatoa in the Dutch East Indies and the extinction of the last quagga in the Amsterdam Zoo can’t be a coincidence.”

“The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 was the karmic outrage that Leo Tolstoy had once again been passed over for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Can you believe that Giosue Carducci was that year’s winner? Nature obviously couldn’t.”

When asked why there were no earthquakes in Berlin or exploding Bavarian Alps during the 1930s, Ms. Stone guessed that Nature doesn’t like Jews, either.

Dear Comcast Customer:
ACTION REQUIRED: Comcast has determined that your computer(s) have been used to send unsolicited email (“spam”)

That message from Comcast certainly came as a surprise. Perhaps my idea of satire is Comcast’s idea of spam. Now that I am being monitored as a miscreant, I’d better forgo my next get-rich-quick scheme:

INCREASE THE SIZE OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF BYZANTINE HISTORY BY UP TO SIX INCHES!

I spent the better part of yesterday morning attempting to persuade Comcast that I was more pedantic than criminal. I doubt any of you has been spared the agonies of customer service.  (You Catholic readers can count it as time off in Purgatory.) You start by performing a Rachmaninoff concerto on your phone key pad.

English-press one. Home phone–starting with area code. Year of statehood–first three digits. Internet Service press four. Internet service in English–press 8. Email problem–press three, zero, and star. Tech support–press six, star, and ampersand. Instructions for ampersand–press first four Fibonacci numbers. Tutorial on Fibonacci–press last four digits on your Visa. Repeat options–press r-e-p-e-a-t-o-p-t-i-o-n-s on your keypad.

The Comcast system has acoustic sensitivity and when it finally hears you weeping, it will transfer you to a human. Your relief will be short-lived because your tech support will immediately put you on hold and you will then be subjected to Muzak. While listening to an accordion rendition of Rhinestone Cowboy or some other musical monstrosity, keep in mind that the particular selection was not random or haphazard. That music has a diabolical intent. If you cannot be induced into hanging up, at least the fourteen loopings of Rhinestone Cowboy will leave your mind a passive pulp willing to accept any indignity or incompetence from Comcast. I was ready to confess to any crime including the assassination of William McKinley.

However Muzak can also be diabolically sublime. I once had a complaint with Charles Schwab, and–standard operating procedure–its customer service immediately put me on hold. Instead of a tinny cacophony, however, the Muzak was Mozart. Those clever fiends at Schwab were telling me, “Here is the work of a genius, the musical apotheosis of the Enlightenment, who died at 35–and you want to quibble about money.” Schwab had made a $1800 mistake but now I was the one ashamed.

But how was my problem with Comcast finally resolved? I really do not know. Are you reading this?

THEN–2005

In a special session of the Senate’s Energy and Self-Righteous Committee, the suddenly alert Senators grilled the titans of the Oil Industry over their appalling (or mouthwatering–depending on your party) profits.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R., Pleistocene): I am sure that we all want to thank our delightful guests for the honor of their company.

Lee Raymond (Extort Mogul): And it is an equal pleasure to contribute to your campaign.

James Mulva (ConPhilch): Really, Teddy, whenever you need a billion for a bridge in Alaska, just ask us.

Sen. Stevens: Seeing how important–and wonderful–you are, we can forego anything so demeaning as swearing to tell the truth. Anything you say is Gospel with me. In further deference to you, the senators will be limited to two minutes of questions. And they cannot use any word with the letter “E.”

Is that okay?

Various senators: Yes.

Sen. Stevens: Ooh. Yes has an “E”. You all lost your turn.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D., Cal–and three marriages to prove it): I didn’t okay it, you old coot.

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D.–N. Dakota, believe it or not) I didn’t, too.

Stevens: I will start. Plastic is from oil, right. It is hard to pry off child-proof caps off of my drugs.

Extort Mogul: Why don’t we just send over a beautiful nurse to help you?

Feinstein: What will you say to our angry public about this scandalous cost of gas?

Stevens: Hold on, that was a lot of words. Did you say a you-know-what?

Feinstein: No, I didn’t.

Stevens: What about that word starting with “scan”?

Feinstein: Scandalous? That is an “a”!

Stevens: I will adjourn this hearing while we investigate this matter. We thank again our charming guests from the oil industry, but ask them to be possible witnesses in Senator Feinstein’s perjury trial.

ConocoPhilch: Thank you, Ted. But I think that she is right about the spelling of scandalous.

Stevens: The committee will determine that; and with me here, you’ll never have to spell scandal.

NOW: 2008

Pleading executive privilege or a really important golf game, the chairmen of the leading oil companies were absent from today’s hearings of the Senate Energy and Racketeering Committee. Representing the oil industry were Mitzy Puddell, vice president of pro-active communications for Extort-Mogul, “Bobo” Hoffmeister, the 16-year-old grandson of the Chairman of Shill, and Jorge Castillo, a custodian at ConocoPhilch. Of the three, Mr. Castillo seemed the most coherent even if it wasn’t in English.

Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy began the questioning: How do you justify the exorbitant profits of your industry?

Ms. Puddell: Isn’t the Free Market wonderful? Who’d have thought that there was so much money in it! But if God chooses to make our industry rich, who are we to deny His Divine wisdom?

Bobo: Gramps does not use steroids. Here is a cup of his urine to prove it.

Castillo: They don’t count the money in front of me. Occasionally, I get leftover food from corporate meetings. And they are serving roast beef and sushi more often.

Senator Arlen Spector: Let’s talk about the future and how your industry is investing these shall-we-say-impressive profits?

Puddell: We, at Extort-Mogul, are doing our patriotic best for the balance of trade. You won’t see us at Wal-Mart buying anything from China. Well, I do have those Ming vases but I bought those at Southeby’s but I think that’s probably Jewish despite the name.

Bobo: Gramps is spending some 25 million at Stanford on some building–a gym or a lab–…en-entitlement or something…

Castillo: Endowment.

Bobo: Yeah. Thanks. Gramps says that it’s the only way to get me into the school.

Castillo: I am receiving better quality dust rags. Old Brooks Brothers shirts–some of them are still worth wearing. See!

Sen. Spector: I was referring to alternate energy.

Bobo: Gramps is opposed to cocaine.

Puddell: We are working on nuclear-powered oil drills.

Castillo: I am your alternate energy.

Senator Diane Feinstein: According to the Petroleum Institute, your industry recommends placing an oil rig every 8 square feet in the United States. Do you think that might have an adverse effect on the environment?

Puddell: Not if we color-coordinate the oil rigs. White rigs in Alaska, earth tones in the Southwest, something pine-green in New England.

Bobo: And the ones at Stanford could be in the school colors!

Castillo: I am already biodegradable, but I am in no hurry.

Sen. Leahy: Where are the other Republican senators?

Sen. Specter: Executive privilege or a really important golf game.