Quite Coincidental Results of Miss Universe Beauty Contests, Games and Sports After Japan Disasters

Now, that the Miss Universe Japan contest is over and my dear friend Andrew over at the "It's a Wonderful Rife" blog picked the winner (the guy does have good taste!) I have an observation that I'd like to share with you.

sexy Japanese girls

This observation comes from years of working in the mass media and in marketing. It is an observation on something that happens so repeatedly I am surprised that it seems that few others notice it.

In the seminal George Orwell book, 1984, the protagonist Winston Smith is at his office working. He gets up from his desk and heads to the restroom. There he is greeted by his boss. His boss asks Winston if he saw the 'big game' last night. Winston answers in the negative. Then the boss says something like,

"Wow! That was an exciting finish to a very exciting game! That's the best script we've written in a long time!" 

"I wouldn't kick any of them out of bed for eating sembei!"

I think most people can already get what I am implying here. What I want to say is not a negative comment, nor a positive one. I am merely making  an observation as to the way things are and run in this world.

It doesn't matter if it's sports, or elections, news or even beauty pageants; if big money is involved you can bet that a big factor of "entertainment" and "drama" is indelibly tied into the result.

Let me give you some recent examples:

Japan suffers the worst natural calamity in centuries.... That year Japan's Women's Soccer team wins the world championship for the first time in their history...

A year later, the winner of the Miss Universe Japan 2012 beauty contest comes from the prefecture that was worst hit by the earthquake and tsunami...

In 1995, Kobe was devastated by the Great Hanshin Earthquake... Quite coincidentally, I'm sure, the Kobe baseball team, the Orix Blue Wave, won the championship in 1995 and 1996.

There's a ton more of examples like this... Remember a few years back when Japan and Korea hosted the 2002 World Cup and Korea met powerhouse Spain? Yeah, Spain lost to Korea. In the final 10 minutes of the game, three goals by Spain were called back. Now, I'm not saying that game was "fixed" per say... But, face it folks, the World Soccer League is a business like any other. The Asian countries all had lots of money and any business knows that expansion into Asia is a smart and profitable move... The league knows that the local leagues must succeed and do well at home. This, of course, made for a situation whereby the league tries to arrange, how do you say? Better and more accommodating conditions for the Japanese and Korean teams.   

I think Japan finished in the top 8. Korea finished in the top 4. Neither of them have ever been in the top 16 (32?) before or since. You judge for yourself what that implies.

And don't think for a moment that this is confined to Japan and soccer... It happens in the USA and Europe for ALL major sports events. The bigger the money involved, the more corrupt the results will be. Please refer to Sumo is Fixed Like All Other Pro Sports

Take the example of CBS who used to do the Superbowl every year. CBS sells commercial time on the Superbowl for tens of millions of dollars. CBS wants to sell 4 or 5 hours of this commercial time to a sponsor.

If the games are blowouts and 70% the viewers turn off their TVs before the first half ends, sponsors are very upset. When sponsors are upset, the TV stations are very upset. Why? Because, if games are boring and people tune out, if this happens too much and too often then sponsors won't want to spend big money next year because they fear the same thing will happen.

If the sponsors don't pay big money, then who doesn't make big money? The league and team owners.

If you are an American, you might remember the Denver Broncos getting to the Superbowl in the early 1980s. They got blown out two years in a row. The games were basically over 1/2 way through the second quarter. The viewers turned their sets off. There haven't been any blowouts since then. Is it any wonder why?

Like I said, pro sports are a big business. The leagues have a product to sell. That product is supposed to be an exciting sports event that last for 4 hours and is profitable to their mass media partners too. When the game is over after 45 minutes, there are some very unhappy sponsors and media partners.

The league cannot afford to have that.

Now, many people will get angry at what I am saying here... But it's true. 

The girl who won the Miss Universe Japan Beauty Contest is a very beautiful girl and she deserves to win... I'm not taking anything away from her. But don't think for a moment that she didn't get special attention because of where she's from. I think it would be foolish to entertain the thought that she didn't.

In the case of this Miss Universe contest, the folks who run these contests also have concerns about public image and Corporate Social Responsibility. They also don't want to be seen as exploiting women so they want to put the best face forward and show that their contest is good and beneficial for society. Miss Miyagi winning this contest brings much good publicity and business to that devastated area. 

Miyagi needs good news, no?

It's good that Miss Miyagi won the contest but don't think for a minute that the disaster, pain, suffering and memory of March 11 didn't help the give the judges more consideration of her over the other girls.

The contest is, after all, run like a business.

Major Japanese Magazines and Writers Come Out Agreeing With You-Know-Who on Yakuza Legislation

Well, look at what we have here! It's not often that I get to blow my own horn so allow me the indulgence: 


Tokyo Reporter has the story that Nikkan Gendai as well as some very famous Japanese writers have come out publicly against proposed legislation that is supposed designed to curtail Yakuza activities:

Since its institution in October, the prefectural legislation has been called “overkill,” with critics calling it a violation of basic human rights since gang members and their families are first and foremost people.

“Laws should be enforced based on deeds and not on a person’s social status,” Sataka said.

Nikkan Gendai believes that police are aware that an opposition movement may spread, which would render the legislation to be ineffective.

I wrote at length about this in Legislating Morality. I also complained that carte blanche laws and rules that hurt people and their families due to guilt by association could not possibly be legal and is not up to standard in a so-called democratic nation that respects human rights. I also wrote that I was extremely suspicious of this sort of legislation. Refer to: Japanese Insurance Companies Stop Payments for Jews, Catholics, Cross-dressers, Left-Handed People, Club Members, Punks and Yakuza

The recent crackdown on the Yakuza in Japan is not motivated by any recent domestic developments or problems on the home front. I submit to you, dear reader, that this crack down is motivated partly by US government pressure and is just another of many scams being perpetrated by our government to steal money to help pay for the financial disaster that the western governments (Japan included) have engineered that is about to befall on all of us regular people in the working class. On top of that, it is just another boondoogle for a government agency (the Japanese police) to try to justify massive public tax expenditures and to try to avoid budget cutbacks next year... 


Well now we have the Nikkan Gendai and these writers agreeing with me but, as was expected, they have a bit more inside information that I do and accuse the government of hijinks on a different level. They accuse the government of creating these new laws to protect the Good Old Boys network in Japan whereby retired government workers (read retired police fat cats) get high paying jobs at private firms after retirement. They call it Amakudari here.


More from Tokyo Reporter:

According to Miyazaki, the real point of the legislation is the preservation of amakudari, or the process by which government officials assume positions at corporations upon retirement.

“At the time of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1970, many policemen were recruited,” Miyazaki said. “This is a big problem in guaranteeing them an amakudari positions upon retirement. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and, Tourism and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry are different. Retired police officials do not have any special skills that can be carried forward into the business world. However, if laws (related to organized crime) become more strict, companies would need former officers for consulting purposes.”

The article notes that the January 28 issue of Toyo Keizai magazine says that there are 83 listed firms, including Sharp Corporation, NYK Group, and the Chugoku Electric Power Company, that have former police officials on staff.

Therefore, the strengthening anti-gang laws at the prefectural and national levels would require more former police officials “to descend” into positions within corporations for compliance reasons, Nikkan Gendai says. 


Here, once again, as I have repeatedly stated; the government always has some sort of motivation (not the public good) for what it does. It is the goal of all governments, be they Democratic, Communist, Fascist, Socialist to use whatever crisis exists to expand upon themselves and increase the size of government. History shows us this to be true.  


This nonsense is a waste of our tax monies. Japan is up deep serious economic problems. We have debt at 229% of GDP. Total debt at 492% of GDP. A declining population which is destroying the savings rate and our productivity and these idiots in government and the police are concerned about ticket scalpers, hot young actresses, mutually consented sex between adults, and members only clubs... And they are concerned that the Yakuza are involved with all of the above and, heaven forbid, making TV shows?!

Obviously with criminal intent

Don't want to get off the point too much, but, as an example; what people need to realize is that the mafia are and have always been involved with entertainment business in the west too! In Japan the Yakuza have been involved in the entertainment business in Japan for easily over 400 years. Here's two choice tidbits from Wikipedia:

"They are very prevalent in the Japanese media..."

"Despite uncertainty about the single origin of yakuza organizations, most modern yakuza derive from two classifications which emerged in the mid-Edo Period (1603 – 1868): tekiya, those who primarily peddled illicit, stolen or shoddy goods; and bakuto, those who were involved in or participated in gambling."

If you want to see just how much more absurdist this entire thing gets. Here is the original Tokyo Reporter story that the - surprise! - Yakuza are involved in TV! Heavens! What will we ever do?  Hot Young Female Japanese Actresses, Yakuza Gangsters, Sex and Japanese TV and Mass Media - This Post Has it All!!! 


... In the meantime, drip drip drip... nuclear waste leaks at Tepco, our debt grows by the minute, idiots want to double sales taxes so that we can pay for government expenditures (such as chasing skirts on TV sets) the economy stumbles... And the Keystone Cops want to chase ticket scalpers and skirts?... Doomed, I tell you!