Hicoway comments

You know, nobody who doesn’t relate to J-pop, or idols, has a clue as to the incredible joy they bring to millions of people. I am a wealthy, intelligent, educated 73-year-old American man, and it would probably sound strange to the clueless that I declare that AKB and its sister groups have brought more joy to me than anything other than my wife of 51 years. So if an idol is occasionally abused by some creep, I think it is similar to a police officer getting hurt, or even killed, in the line of devoted service to others. It’s a risk worth taking. And for the clueless who say the girls don’t have talent, when AKB girls, for example, are selected from thousands of applicants by entertainment experts, because they have talent, I say dream on.

Mr. Trump’s most oft uttered word is “Amazing!” It’s no wonder being blessed with Ivanka. As a topless tower I’m sure she could launch 1001 ships. I made my first political donation ever when Trump’s campaign sent out sent out emails ostensibly by Ivanka saying she would pick one donor to have coffee with in Trump Tower. Like her father, she has the tower and power to inspire hope.

A lot of people are ignorant and don’t have much motivation to be anything different. We know that people get out of their cars in wildlife parks to hand feed bears and take selfies with lions. So there is little hope that they will recognize dogs to be animals. And of course humans are animals, too, and also kill people.

Many of the comments here reflect the same sort of knee-jerk emotional response evidenced by the man’s impulsive act. And I would say that hitting that man in the head with a baseball bat would be a much worse crime than pushing a girl down. Both acts would stem from weak connections between limbic portions of the brain and the executive cortex. I give the man some credit for his honest explanation. People in America would typically make up some story about accidently hurting the girl. Only through accurate data collection can such behavior be analyzed toward correcting it.

Taking Vitamin D to prevent a cold is indirect, only marginally effective, and for poorly educated, lazy people. There is a much more direct and failsafe way to avoid catching a cold, but it requires education and discipline, which unfortunately is in short supply. All one has to do is not touch his or her eyes or nose without first washing the hands. You can’t catch a cold through the air, and not ordinarily through the mouth, but only through direct contact with mucous membranes in the eyes and nose. It takes discipline not to itch an eye or pass one’s finger under the nose, but that’s what and all one has to practice in order to ensure not getting a cold. I haven’t caught a cold in many years; and, in the Northeastern USA, I am surrounded by people with colds.

I wondered how nudity could amount to anything in a magazine, since a bloke can see nudity at the click of a key. Then I read Dre Hund’s comment and a lightbulb went on. What if a magazine artistically examined and displayed interesting intricate subtleties of pulchritude, such as bedroom bags under eyes, or creases in follicle-less underarms, rather than showing oversized breasts and spread legs? I always loved looking at idol Tomomi Itano’s renegade eyetooth, as well as the little bags under her eyes, for example. I went into mourning when she got her tooth straightened.

It’s interesting to ponder how much of Japan’s relative street safety, compared to the States, might be attributive to its intolerance of drug culture. It’s easy to say that merely using drugs is a victimless crime, and that the danger to others resides with their criminal commerce. But I can attest, from my early days when I was not a stranger to drugs, that some obliterated my conscience, which is quite commandeering otherwise.

Life is cheap when you have so many people. I was amazed when in Taiwan and saw a road closed sign. My Chinese friend told me that a bridge was out, but there was no mention on the sign of that fact. So people ignored the sign and drove into a river below where the bridge had been. Periodically the government pulled cars out of the river with a big magnet on a crane, but didn’t bother to alert motorists as to why the road was closed.

In another instance, a couple of cars crashed ahead of us on a freeway, blocking it. About 20 men jumped out of their cars, picked up the crashed cars, tossed them in the weeds beside the road, jumped back in their cars, and traffic resumed with only a few seconds’ pause. Police would show up and decide who was at fault, take whomever to the hospital, and that was the end of the event. I would like to see such protocol in the States.

Oh! I forgot about this, and it's huge! And it’s unfortunate that many readers will not grasp its significance. With regard to Trump taking advice. In his book on how to get rich, he very surprisingly attributes his success more to the teachings of Dr. Carl Jung than to anybody or anything else. (Surprising that he actually read the stuff.) Jung explained that 95% of who we are resides in our unconscious minds. That’s where our male animal ancestors chased after female body parts and postured like alpha apes, while females looked for the biggest peacock plume. Being aware and confident of this he could send vectors straight into the unconscious minds of the constituents without equivocating in fear that he might be wrong.

Almost every aspect of the shocking (to many, but not all) win has been aired. I have personal insight. I ran a manufacturing company and had close interaction with working people. So did Trump with his construction workers. They want decent jobs, respect, and wage increases. They don’t have or care about “careers.” They don’t want job enrichment or enabling. These are aspirations of professional people.

Listening to Hillary’s concession speech, she spoke of enabling and careers of her supporters, and proffered zero words expressing recognition of the working half of America. Same with Obama’s speech. He gave examples of his constituency, all professionals. It’s interesting that they could be so clueless after holding the offices they did and having access to unlimited social data.

Hillary might have survived all her elitist oblivion, had it not been for the self- infliction by her “deplorable” bullet. She outed herself beyond reclamation.

Yes Mr. Trump objectifies women and has a sexual attraction to body parts. Most men do to one degree or another, it’s a natural consequence of testosterone; while many at the same time consider women to be equal intellectually and often wiser. He’s not a misogynist, or he wouldn’t have women running his company and campaign. He’s not a racist, nor an Islamophobe, that is totally evident by the way he interacts with Black people, and I am sure he would enjoy sex with Huma Mahmood Abedin as much as I would (I'm a White, agnostic American), if either of us had the opportunity and could get away with it. At the same time it makes perfect, objective sense to be wary of the propensity of many Islamic people to be inspired by Jihad rhetoric. That's been clearly demonstrated.

The biggest concern should be Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder. I so hope it does not preclude him listening enough to advisors. But it was evident to me from having read one of his books about success that he can take some advice.

Psychologists can’t come up with definitive causes for exhibitionism. Here’s one of the independent variables that I haven’t heard proffered: humor. I had an inside track on this observation by one time taking my alcoholic uncle to the hospital. He had lain in bed for two months with the same clothes on, so that his pants, with no underwear under them, had almost disintegrated. I was walking along side of him on the sidewalk, holding him up, when his pants, faster than gravity, suddenly fell to below his ankles. The indescribable expression on a woman’s face walking toward us was priceless. Thirty years hence I still laugh out loud every time I think about it. He died a painless death, lest someone criticize my callousness. And I realize the moderators will immediately cut this.

There’s no such thing as a “good” movie, for heaven’s sake. Any more than there is good food. I love sweetbreads, but many people would gag on them. “Mary Poppins,” starring a woman, of course, was wildly popular back in the ‘60s. I reach way back to that example to make this point: It so nauseated me that I walked out after a half an hour, the only time that ever happened.

And if a man can turn himself into a woman by choice, he can certainly appreciate gender-swapped roles in a movie. But whether the genre is a "good" idea or not will depend on how many people like the shtick; it’s got absolutely nothing to do with the opinion of this person or that.

I’ve got to say, from my western perspective, condoning 12-year-old gravure models while considering 19-year-old men to be children is thought provoking. Granted the executive control function of the cerebral cortex to put the brakes on untoward emotional decisions is not fully formed before the early 20s, but I would also opine that the hard brain wiring in such a person who would kill his grandparents to hasten his inheritance is different enough from the mean to warrant elimination from society and its gene pool.

I missed Disillusioned comment prior to my last post or I would have addressed it as well. If the music is inconsequential, then why would millions of young people, including girls, love it? I like the music as much as the idols and J-pop tunes play all the time in my head, without picturing the girls singing them. I also like classical music, as do many of the J-pop performers. I can understand it, but I think it is constipation-minded when people diss the genre.

It’s because of my fascination with these idols that I am reading Japan news. (I'm an American.) I love them. And to contradict some of the chatter here about all the fans being toads, how can the thousands of worshiping fans at the concerts all be social rejects? Especially considering many are female. I have enjoyed many gorgeous girlfriends and my wife is one of the best-looking women I have ever seen. The attraction for idols is not all a vicarious substitute for girls fans can’t get on their own. There is deep Jungian psychology regarding the Anima and Imago Dei being beautifully actualized.

Objective thinking is a function of two of four main personality types. It’s not something that an emotional type can will. Scientific thinking is the strongest card a person can play in life, and women who can think evidence based, or scientifically, are the best to couple with, if the man is also rational.

Wouldn’t sophisticates in Japan eat pretty much everything considered to be food without having a problem, if it was served at someone’s house, like cultured people everywhere? Shouldn’t the title be “10 Foods Not to Serve Japanese Bumpkins?”

The idea of putting up fences along railroad tracks to prevent suicides is outlier thinking, just like the decision to jump in front of a train. There will be outlier thinking as long as random happenings populate normal bell curves. Suicides can’t be stopped any easier than natural laws can. And just because one person feels like it’s not a good answer doesn’t mean it’s a bad answer for someone else.

Basically the Hillary approach is to be nice to Islamics and hope fewer will become radicalized. Trump doesn't worry about how Islamics feel; instead he would take a pokay okay approach to prevent nonsense regardless of anybody's feelings. I think my business school education permits me to understand why Trump's approach might be more effective. You can't put the onus on human volition; you have to make the process idiot proof.

I find it odd that many Japanese people apparently don’t understand the typical Chinese psyche better. The two collective minds are more closely aligned than Asian Chinese and Caucasian Americans, yet what the Chinese are doing in this case seems perfectly normal to me. They can change direction at the drop of a hat, therefore they like holding options open. It would be very difficult to get them to put a deposit on anything.

My last employer was a Chinese company. The CEO would schedule a speech to some delegation, say, in San Francisco, and a day prior phone me and ask me to fly out there from New York to give it for him, because something came up, such as doing something with his family.

Incidentally, my moniker here, Hicoway, is misspelled – it should sound like Haicoway – my Chinese name that company gave me. It means open like the ocean.

I know it’s goofy, but coincidentally I, a 73-year-old old Caucasian man, woke up this morning, here in the States, thinking about, of all things, Japanese schoolgirl uniform skirts. I thought about how the typical western mind would dismiss any such fleeting thoughts as prurient and meaningless. And I also thought about how the objets trouvés must be somehow archetypal to the human psyche for so much attention to be paid to them, at least in Tokyo. I reflected on how I am proud that I don’t dismiss such thoughts as inconsequential, just because they might make me look stupid, or perverted, if I admitted them. So I hereby acknowledge that I would gladly read an article about Japanese schoolgirl skirts 10 times more than an article about other school matters, such as curriculum.

I don’t know, Disillusioned. I would think the call to police claiming murder, with the woman being dead, would be at least an indication. If she had died of natural causes, and the man was distraught, I don't see why he would have claimed to have killed her. He might have more reasonably said instead that he couldn't go on without her.

There is only one issue. The rest are red herrings, fruits of denial, and only symptoms of the one, real issue: overpopulation.

A couple of thoughts: First to SuperLib and the multitudes of people who think if Trump really wants illegal immigrants out he shouldn’t be hiring immigrants. I don’t know if his are legal or not, but only a flaming liberal or a moron wouldn’t cut labor costs for his organization, and shareholders, by hiring Hispanic immigrants, or aliens from Mars, if tolerated by America’s society, regardless of his or her personal or political philosophy. Same thing regarding Trump paying next to no taxes but promising to cut such luxuries by rich people if elected. It’s not hypocrisy, it’s responsible management for shareholders on one hand, and legislating for the common good on the other, not mutually exclusive.

And to Serendipitous: Bizarre to you, maybe, but I’m wondering if your less bizarre behavior has gotten you further than Mr. Trump has gotten with his. I’m not a billionaire, but I’m a millionaire, and I got that way through similar “bizarre” behavior, from the standpoints of most conventional people. Obviously if you are a socialist you don’t think getting rich is an admirable thing to aspire to. But it’s an American ideal.

I was a successful marketing executive. I thought up, designed, and launched several very successful product lines. I have a nose for what people often want unconsciously. And I know that the no-dating policy is huge in the marketability of idols, even with many of the 75% who think consciously that it is stupid, etcetera, because they haven’t been exposed to enough psychology to understand why it’s important to the unconscious human psyche.

I think Disillusioned’s comment was telling, if I’m not misinterpreting it. Wild bear, or park bear? - as if park bears are domesticated. Even many humans are vicious wild animals, for heaven’s sake, after having been “domesticated” in society for years. I think many people, especially liberals, out of some kind of innate fear of the natural wild, want to believe that animals and humans alike are born nice, if only they are treated with proper kindness. Wrong.

I can’t help thinking if Clinton had any clues regarding answers to anything menacing the planet, why she didn't do anything over the eight years she’s been in a position to? Was she waiting for Obama to exit so she could get the sole credit for action?

I got a kick out of the idea of cliches being plagiarized. Next Dems will be accusing Mr. Trump of plagiarizing Irving Berlin when he says "God Bless America."

Yes, goldorak, a dubious sense of humor, and that’s the crux of why it’s disgusting. And not only in Japan, Manuel.

In my youth, I picked up my girlfriend at her house one day, and she was distraught. Her uncle, he also admitted to it, had gone into the girl’s underwear drawer and smeared the crotches of her white panties with Dijon mustard. When she told me I started laughing uncontrollably, and then so did she, so convulsively, the both of us, that I had to pull the car over so we could compose ourselves.

And, speaking of intuition, rather than rhetoric, I don’t think a lot of people buy into the racist and misogyny accusations; again, because I don’t see or feel them from him. I’m quite sure he would deny access to white Americans who switched citizenship and moved to Mexico and tried to come back illegally. And even if a man objectifies women somewhat, and jokes about their menstrual cycles, it doesn’t make him a misogynist (a person who dislikes, despises, or is strongly prejudiced against women). Mr. Trump employs women executives and is respected by his beautiful wife and daughters. And I would be willing to bet a lot of money he would love to hug Huma Mahmood Abedin as much as I would, not minding at all that she is both a Muslim and a woman.