Racism in Japan

I've been in Japan for about 10 months now and I don't think I've
experienced any direct racism in that time... until now!

We were driving home from a holiday, it was a long drive, we'd already
played I-spy and had moved on to shiro tori. This is a game where each
word has to begin with the ending of the previous word. E.g. sushi ->
shinobi -> bideo (video).

By the way, in Japanese, shiri tori is written 尻取り, according to
translate.google.com that's 尻=ass and 取=take. Not an ideal name for
a kids game and every time I hear しまじろう shouting "尻取りをしようよ”
I can't help but wonder if there are some unspeakable 2chan images of
that.

Anyway, it was Sean's turn and he was struggling for a word that
begins with "pa", so Midori decided to help him out. "I'm mama", she
said pointing at herself, "and this person is...?", pointing at me.

"Gaijin!", shouts Sean.

The correct answer was "papa".

Venting about simple-minded taxology

I thought this analysis of the evils of tax was funny. It's so one sided.

1. There's no mention at all benefits come from the taxes collected. I wonder how Marcie's business would do without roads or educated, healthy workers for examples.
2. I also think it's awesome that Marcie has found a line of business with absolutely no competitors and that the only barrier to growth is the govmint stealing her money.
3. That's presumably why every cent saved in taxes will translate into a job created by her without that job being lost somewhere else.
4. Finally, it's also awesome that as she grows her business the market doesn't become saturated and she doesn't have to give an increasing portion of her money to advertising executives so they can shoot cocaine into their asses.