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Japan's Ministry of Finance is headquartered in central Tokyo in a gray-tiled, six-story structure with all the architectural elegance of a prison block and the ambience of a Depression-era courthouse. Inside, the glare of fluorescent lights reflects off the uniformly white shirts worn by ministry officials, who scuffle across the floor from one pile of paper to another. Meanwhile, crowds of nervous petitioners shuffle on loose parquetry down long, chairless corridors. Blankets stacked in discreet piles testify to long nights at the office, and the occasional salacious poster of a barely clad woman points out at social attitudes as unreconstructed as the building itself. All the ministry's main bureaus are here, and their names largely advertise their functions: the Budget Bureau, the Banking Bureau, the International Finance Bureau. One exception is the small division on the second floor, responsible for the overall coordination of the ministry's many activities: the Minister's Secretariat. This office is opaque to the Japanese public and unknown to the rest of the world. Yet it is a remarkable place, an obscure little office with the vast responsibility of setting economic policy for Japan. It is here that the thrum of the Japanese wealth generator is checked, its irregularities diagnosed, and remedies prescribed. And now that Japan produces one dollar in every six in the world economy, monitoring the fluctuations of its own economy has become a tremendous task. It is no exaggeration to say that the Minister's Secretariat in the Okurasho is one of the most important centers of professional economic policy making in the modern world.
Like the Okurasho itself, the Minister's Secretariat is suspicious of economists and employs relatively few. For every economics graduate hired into its executive stratum, three law graduates are hired. Often, the top officials responsible for economic policy have no formal qualifications in the subject. And in the postwar history of the secretariat, its uppermost officer has never held an economics degree. Perhaps the starkest proof of this dearth of expert economists is that the secretariat has traditionally been obliged to borrow a steady supply of economists from outside institutions such as commercial banks, life insurance firms, and even Japan's monopoly tobacco company, Japan Tobacco.
Even those officials at the Okurasho and its secretariat who have earned economics degrees do not work as professional economists. They are instead encouraged to work as generalist administrators. Two of Japan's most eminent economics scholars--Ryutaro Komiya and Kozo Yamamoto--were able to write in 1979 that "there is not one professional economist employed by the Government of Japan." In 1995, they said there was no need to review their earlier study--at least in the case of the Ministry of Finance and its secretariat, nothing had changed.
The Minister's Secretariat is a particularly unusual office in that it operates as an employment agency and a matchmaking service as well as the coordinating administrative office of the Finance Ministry. These services are not offered only out of concern for staff welfare but reflect an important element of grander institutional strategy that sometimes involves the Okurasho's chief executive, the vice minister for administrative affairs. While the minister is the politician appointed to preside over the Okurasho, the vice minister for administrative affairs is the career bureaucrat who actually operates it.
Doing the work normally expected of an employment agency, a section within the Minister's Secretariat seeks out high-level positions outside the Okurasho for executives who are leaving. This does not happen randomly but in a meticulously organized manner that has helped the Okurasho to expand its network of influence far beyond its own gray walls. Through this practice--known as amakudari, or the descent from heaven--the Okurasho has established the exclusive right to fill top-level jobs throughout the public and private sectors. This practice has prompted accusations that it has "colonized" other government ministries, from defense to environment, and that it has subverted the proper priorities of a range of institutions, from Japan's central bank, the Bank of Japan, to its antitrust agency, the Fair Trade Commission.
In the role of matchmaker, the secretariat finds brides for single officials in the Ministry of Finance's executive career stream. By matching the ministry's elite officials with the daughters of politicians and industrialists, the secretariat has the ability to successfully forge feudal-style alliances between the aristocracy of the Okurasho and the political and industrial elites of Japan.
Based on the above facts alone, it is clear that Japan's Ministry of Finance is something more than just another government department.
[] How to join
Finance Ministry officials sometimes describe themselves as part of the Okurasho family. One told a foreign visitor that the ministry is more like "a rather splendid club." And like any club, it sets its own rules for membership. This club has a strong preference for the graduates of a single institution, the University of Tokyo. For many years, the ministry accepted graduates from no other institution. There is a historical explanation. The university was founded in 1877 as the Imperial University of Tokyo during the early part of Japan's drive to modernize during the reign of the emperor Meiji, which began in 1868. Its law school was granted a very special status: supply source of bureaucrats for the new state. For graduates of the university, the usual laws of gravity were suspended, and they were allowed to enter directly into the national bureaucracy without having to endure the rigors of the higher civil-service examination. Its critics said that the university was no longer a university but merely a school for bureaucrats. Nonetheless, within some thirty years its graduates came to dominate the national bureaucracy. This system had a political purpose. In the words of a retired Tokyo University professor, "The Meiji ideal was to staff the [Finance] Ministry with the ablest graduates of the elite university so that they would be impervious to questioning from the public or the legislature." The general disdain in which the Okurasho has long held politicians was captured by one Meiji-era bureaucrat who described the Diet as a collection of three hundred farmers.
This was more than a century ago. The Allied occupation of Japan stripped the university of its imperial status and reorganized it as part of the country's democratization. In the latter part of the twentieth century, Tokyo University graduates no longer have an automatic entree into Japan's civil service. But the condescension with which elite bureaucrats regard politicians is unchanged. In the early 1990s, one senior Okurasho official accused the national politicians of practicing the "low politics" of building public works and soliciting budget appropriations. The civil servant Eisuke Sakakibara, demonstrating qualities neither civil nor servile, in 1990 summarized the role of the people's elected representatives as being "to request appropriations from the central bureaucracy. They serve, in effect, as executive treasury officers stationed in Tokyo for their various regional institutions." While the bureaucrats and the private sector cooperated to create Japan's high-speed economic reconstruction after World War II, the politicians of the ruling party, the Liberal Democrats, "were," Sakakibara continued, "in a sense, bystanders left alienated from the machinery of high growth itself. Their function was to repair some broken parts of economic society which could not be repaired through the workings of the high-growth machinery." In the case of one particular Cabinet, Sakakibara was earlier reported to have gone so far as to suggest that the prime minister and his ministers--all political appointees--were "idiots," although this was denied strenuously by the Finance Ministry.
One of the shrewdest postwar Japanese politicians, the corrupt but dynamic Kakuei Tanaka, who served as prime minister from 1972 to 1974, and its finance minister from 1962 to 1965, did not resent this tradition of elitism but actually exploited it. Mr. Tanaka, whose own education extended no further than his local elementary school, submitted himself to his mandarins at the Okurasho when he was first appointed finance minister with these words: "You are the true elite of the elite. Studying at the topmost university in this country, your brains are the highest quality in Japan. I will, therefore, leave the business of thinking to you, and I will, with your permission, take responsibility for the results." Incidentally, as prime minister, Mr. Tanaka was more successful in extracting public funds from the Finance Ministry for his programs than any other postwar politician.
Disregarding the march of history, the graduates of Tokyo University have managed to bestow on themselves an effective stranglehold on posts in the Finance Ministry's executive track, what the Japanese refer to as the career stream. Career stream officials are the people for whom all senior positions are exclusively and permanently reserved, the elite, fast-tracked upper grade. They make up only 5 percent of the Finance Ministry's total staff but 100 percent of its directors-general and vice ministers. In the 1970s Tokyo University graduates routinely took about 70 percent of the entry-level positions in the career stream. By the 1980s they were typically taking more than 80 percent. Then, in its 1993 hiring, the ministry went too far. It recruited twenty-four staff members to enter its career stream, and twenty-two of them were from Tokyo University. At 92 percent, it was just too much.
The prime minister in 1993 was the Liberal Democratic Party's Kiichi Miyazawa, a man who well understood the Okurasho club system and the importance of holding an entry ticket stamped by Tokyo University. This was because he had himself graduated from the university and gone on to become a senior official in the Okurasho before entering politics. But in spite of the natural sympathies he might have felt for the ministry and its traditions, Miyazawa decided that the situation had become unacceptable. Miyazawa said publicly that the proportion of Tokyo University types at the Okurasho had to be reduced. The following day, his chief cabinet secretary and the official spokesman for the government, Koichi Kato, elaborated. He said that the government had decided that the proportion of Tokyo University graduates was to be reduced to a maximum of 50 percent over the ensuing five years at key government agencies, including the Finance Ministry.
The next year, 1994, the Okurasho hired twenty-one career officials. This time, eighteen were from Tokyo University--still an unrepentantly high 86 percent. The recruitment from other universities was token. The Finance Ministry hired exactly one graduate from each of three other highly regarded universities (Keio, Kyoto, and Waseda).
Miyazawa was never able to take the Okurasho to task. In August 1993 he and his Liberal Democratic Party fell--marking the first time this dominant political party had lost control of the government since it came into power in 1955. But after nine months on the opposition benches, the party had reclaimed power, in a coalition government. When things settled down, Koichi Kato found himself in one of the party's three most powerful posts: chairman of the Policy Research Council. In February 1995, he called the Ministry of Finance to account. He summonsed the head of the Minister's Secretariat, Takeshi Komura, and asked him to explain the Finance Ministry's lack of progress in implementing the directive. The bureaucrat reportedly told the politician that the ministry had a problem with the new policy: "Graduates of other universities do not want to come to the Finance Ministry." A furious Kato put Komura under a so-called access ban in response to this preposterous claim, refusing to speak to him. Kato went on to become one of the more implacable enemies of the Okurasho.
All the same, two months after his meeting with Komura, the ministry did exactly what Kato had feared--it hired twenty new recruits into its career stream, and eighteen--90 percent--were from Tokyo University. "It's a symptom of the stubbornness of the Ministry of Finance," said an official in the secretarial division of the Minister's Secretariat. The secretariat later set a target of 70 percent for Tokyo University new hires, which was finally met in 1997, when they comprised 73 percent.
Tokyo University graduates typically make up 30-40 percent of those students who pass the exam given for entry into the career stream of the national ministries. More applicants are screened out during the initial interview process, with the result that 50 percent are Tokyo University graduates. During the final round of interviews, the percentage reaches the extraordinarily high levels of 90 percent or more. The mechanism for skewing hiring is the interview process.
The gap between 50 percent and 90 percent or more indicates just how far the Finance Ministry is prepared to go to preserve its club. On this issue, the ministry's responsibilities as a public agency clash directly with the personal predilections of its officials. Personal predilections seem to have prevailed.
This is not the world's only example of a national bureaucracy dominated by elite universities. Britain's Oxford and Cambridge universities and France's Instituts d'Etudes Politiques hold similarly commanding positions. But a careful comparative study of five leading industrial democracies--the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and Britain--found that there is still no real match for the elitism in Japan's recruitment of career-stream bureaucrats. Japan's system is, in theory, the most open of all because it imposes no formal educational requirements on recruits. But in practice it is the least open of all, less flexible and less egalitarian than those of the other countries.
[] The trouble with economists
If the Okurasho loves graduates of Tokyo University, there is one thing it loves even more--Tokyo University graduates equipped with law degrees. One reason for the 3 to 1 ratio of law school graduates to economists stems from the law school's 1877 mandate to turn out custom-built bureaucrats. Another reason is that the economics faculties at Tokyo and elsewhere were dominated by Marxists for several decades following World War II. It was not until the 1960s that non-Marxian economics was taught at Tokyo University. Neither the ministry nor the Liberal Democratic Party it nominally served has ever been keen to promote Marxism. But these are historical explanations and not valid reasons; the Meiji era is long gone, and so is Marxism as a credible concern.
The real reason? It is not because the ministry rejects knowledge of economics. In fact, it has a tradition of offering its young officials intensive study of economic theory. For decades, a year-long in-house training program was conducted by a panel of highly qualified teachers, mainly academics from outside the ministry. Young bureaucrats in their third year at the ministry were given nine hundred hours of lectures and extensive tutorial and other work. Officials boasted that it was the equivalent of an undergraduate education in economics. A handful of each year's recruits was not processed through this system but instead sent to do postgraduate study abroad for two years--the favored subject being economics. In the 1990s, however, the in-house training program was abandoned and replaced with a new system. Now, all elite-stream officials are freed from their work at the Okurasho headquarters at 3-1-1 Kasumigaseki, Tokyo, and are sent overseas for postgraduate study for two full years. Just before they leave Japan, the Okurasho gives its future leaders a crash course in basic principles of economics and accounting. Thus primed, three-quarters of each year's recruits spend the next two years studying economic and monetary theory. Of the rest, most study business administration, while one in ten studies a miscellany of other subjects, including law. Their principal destination is the United States, but Germany, France, and Britain also feature. This raises an interesting question: If a knowledge of economics is so highly valued, why does the Finance Ministry give clear and consistent priority to hiring staff who have not studied the subject?
Consider first that the screening process begins with the simple choice of Tokyo University as the preferred source of staff. Most students at the university came from relatively affluent backgrounds and have mastered a difficult and competitive system of exams. The nation views them as Japan's best and brightest. It is common sense that the graduates of this elite university--and particularly those who seek work in the civil service--are likely to be more conservative than the public they are supposed to serve. This assumption is supported by a 1983 survey indicating that 60 percent of bureaucrats in all national ministries who had graduated from Tokyo University were supporters of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, compared with a support rate of 37 percent in the general population at the time. And while only 34 percent of the general population described themselves as conservative or somewhat conservative, 58 percent of the Tokyo University alumni in the bureaucracy did. Consequently, choosing a Tokyo University graduate is nearly the equivalent of choosing a conservative whose leanings in politics and policy will be fairly predictable.
Second, consider the preference for those Tokyo University graduates holding law degrees. This, too, can be expected to yield a group of bureaucrats who can be expected to exert specific pressures on the ministry and its policies. And, according to a consensus of informed observers, it does. After a detailed study of Tokyo University law graduates, Byung Chul Koh of the University of Illinois suggested that "Tokyo University's law faculty may actually turn out narrow-minded technicians well versed in the fine points of legal theories and interpretation and supremely adept at taking examinations. As one writer put it, Tokyo University law graduates who become elite bureaucrats `can see the trees but not the forest.'"
The chief emphasis for economics students, on the other hand, is the pursuit of the most efficient allocation of resources in an economy--money and people--through a liberal play of market forces. This obliges economics students to consider the entire forest. Moreover, while the study of law naturally focuses on the significance of laws and ordinances, the study of economics tends to regard them as impediments to the invisible hand of market forces. It is an important difference; the economics graduate is far more likely to see regulation as a hindrance to be removed rather than an achievement to be preserved. Takahiro Miyao of Tsukuba University argues that the dominant reflex in Okurasho thinking is the "legal precepts-first" approach, while the ministry has "no belief in what might be called economic principles." This seems intimately connected to ministry officials' educational experience. "Most Okurasho people are from the law department, which maintains its prewar traditions--they have absolutely no understanding of the market," says Yoshiaki Miwa, a member of the economics department at Tokyo University.
The ministry's hiring preferences get it the type of officials it wants--predominantly, generalist administrators. This is how these officials like to be seen, too. Within the ministry, it can be a career liability to be regarded as an economist. The Okurasho wants its staff to understand economics but not to be possessed by it. It wants officials who see economics as one set of considerations within a larger framework of administrative and legal principles rather than those who see economics as paramount. It wants their mental framework to be that of the lawyer with a knowledge of economics rather than the other way around. For this reason, the Okurasho discourages qualified economists from working as professional economists in government and insists on rotating them into administrative jobs. Instead of letting economists pull the levers of power, it wants administrators who pull levers--including one lever marked "economics."
The net effect seems to be that the lawyer's instinctive love of law predominates in the work of the Finance Ministry. An eminent economist who has taught many Okurasho officials is Ryutaro Komiya. He believes that the economic sophistication of the Okurasho is slowly improving, but thinks that overall these bureaucrats "don't have much faith in the market mechanism, and they like to intervene in the market."
Kozo Yamamoto, a former elite official of the Okurasho and a respected economist, says "The Japanese public believes that the Okurasho understands the economy, but that's not true. When they make decisions, it is usually based on a common sense generalist approach, and not as economists. Many taxes are written without any understanding of the economy, so they make many mistakes." Mr. Yamamoto recalls that during the mid-1980s, when the Finance Ministry was debating whether to yield to U.S. demands for the opening of its financial markets, he mounted an economic case in favor of the U.S. proposal. "Most people in the ministry could not understand what I was saying, but they had no real choice because the pressure from the U.S. was so great."
Japan did indeed begin a slow but steady program of liberalization of its financial markets. But in general the Okurasho has been reluctant to open any market or to deregulate any sector. Change has been excruciatingly slow and grudging. Most liberalizations have been a result of U.S. insistence and have not been self-initiated. In part, this reluctance to change stems directly from the ministry's hiring preferences. And, of course, it is convenient that this approach also preserves the ministry's power; officials who abolish regulations are surrendering direct control. As we will see later in the book, the Finance Ministry is one of the more important reasons that Japan's economy has been relatively slow to reform itself in the latter part of the twentieth century, relatively slow to embrace market forces, and therefore surprisingly ready to sacrifice new opportunities for growth. For this reason alone, the cost of preserving the club Okurasho has been high.
However, there is a curious paradox in the ministry's approach to economics. In its approach to regulating markets and industries, its impulse is interventionist. Yet in its approach to the overarching question of the size of government, it favors small government and lower spending. So in microeconomics it favors an expansive role for the State, but in macroeconomics it wants a diminished State. The first impulse is characteristic of a leftist approach to government, the second a conservative approach. While this is indeed an ideological paradox, from a practical point of view it is entirely consistent. That is because both approaches resist change in Japan's status quo and preserve the power of the Okurasho. They are conservative in the literal sense of the word. Intervention in the affairs of the marketplace preserves the ministry's powers of regulation in, say, banking and the stock market. But cutting government spending in the budget puts power into the hands of the ministry as the nation's fiscal guardian, as we will see later. The vigilant keeper of the national treasury has immense leverage in dealing with politicians and other ministries.
[] Marriage and other intimacies
Being hired into the Okurasho career stream brings with it much more than a career. For many ministry officials, the Okurasho influences their choice of spouse and can take them deep into dynastic politics. This influence operates in two directions: from the ministry looking out, where ministry bureaucrats marry into the families of the rich and powerful, and from the ministry looking in, where officials marry the daughters of other ministry bureaucrats.
It is natural to expect some intermarriage between the different elements of what may be termed Japan's ruling class. This happens in most societies. It is also unsurprising that there should be some natural cross-fertilization within a large organization whose members often work together quite intensively.
But what distinguishes the practice of marriage at the Okurasho from what might naturally be expected is that matchmaking at the ministry is professionally organized--not just as a social activity or part of an extracurricular program but as a routine part of the ministry's professional work. The task of sorting candidates, filing dossiers, and suggesting prospective matches is done by full-time, career-stream officials working in the same section of the ministry responsible for high-level coordination of all personnel matters, including hiring, training, and promoting of staff--that is, the secretarial division of the Minister's Secretariat. According to the division head, his subordinate bureaucratic Cupids succeed in arranging two ministerial marriages a year on average. By one account, the photographs of young women being considered as prospective brides for ministry officials are stacked in a pile that commonly stands half a yard high. The daughters of politicians are the ministry's prospects of choice for its officials. This not only improves the quality of the ministry's political relations but can be immensely valuable to the young official with political ambitions, and there are many of these. It has its attractions for the politicians, too--they are forever seeking leverage with the Okurasho in the hope of winning a bigger share of budget funds for pet projects.
It is hard to find official data on the subject, but there are at least forty-one known cases of Okurasho officials marrying into the families of politicians in the last forty years or so, or an average of about one per year. Most of these marriages have involved the families of politicians of considerable standing. Eight ministry officials have married into the families of prime ministers. At least 4 to 5 percent of Okurasho career-stream officials in recent decades have married into politicians' families. It is not known how directly or deliberately the ministry was involved in these pairings, but we do know this: as a matter of unofficial Okurasho policy, the ministry favors the marriage of its officials into politicians' families, and it deploys public resources in the organized pursuit of this policy. This is not unique in Japan. Many large firms and public agencies also conduct matchmaking services for staff, an outgrowth of the twentieth-century Japanese principle of lifetime employment. Nevertheless, in considering the performance and priorities of the Finance Ministry, it is useful to ask whether matchmaking is a legitimate task for a modern, professional agency of the civil service.
The bureaucratic elite are scornful of the dynastic nature of Japanese politics; more than a third of the politicians in the Lower House "inherited" their seats in the Diet from their fathers. This sort of feudalism, in contrast to the principle of merit that is at least supposed to govern admission to bureaucratic ranks, is ridiculed by the mandarins. Yet according to the Okurasho itself, 1 in 20 of its career-stream recruits, or an average of one a year, is the son of a former career-stream Okurasho official. Within the limits imposed by the examination system, the ministry, like the Diet, has a tendency to nepotism. Intermarriage between officials' families is another interesting phenomenon. Although comprehensive statistics are hard to find, some of the anecdotal evidence is intriguing. For example, the three officials appointed consecutively to lead the ministry in the first half of the 1990s all had sons-in-law among their subordinates. The chances of this happening by sheer coincidence are extremely small. From 1992 to 1993, the top Finance Ministry official, the vice minister for administrative affairs, was Mamoru Ozaki. One of his daughters married a young official who in 1994 was an assistant director in the Finance Ministry's Budget Bureau. Ozaki was succeeded in his post at the top of the ministry by the celebrated Jiro Saito, as tough as he was controversial. One of Saito's daughters, too, married a young official who could also be found working as an assistant director in the ministry's Budget Bureau in 1994. And the remarkable Mr. Saito was replaced by Kyosuke Shinozawa, who, again, was in the happy position of having one of his daughters wedded to a ministry official who, again, in 1994, was working as an assistant director in the Budget Bureau. The Budget Bureau, incidentally, is the most prestigious in the Okurasho, and service here usually is a prerequisite for those aspiring to the top job in the ministry.
Consistent with all of this is the ministry's internal clubbiness. There are internal associations for all the career-stream staff who join the ministry in a particular year; other internal clubs for all past occupants of a particular post; still other clubs or "study groups" established around particular subjects, such as the Asia Club; internal groups arranged according to where officials went to high school; and a range of other criss-crossing associations defined according to common experience, attributes, and interests. And there is a range of other social, semisocial, and semiprofessional structures and events that are intended to engender solidarity and identification with the ministry. One such event occurs each year for each section or division, when it packs away its files for a few days and heads off for a weekend at a recreational resort for a lot of drinking, karaoke singing, and mah-jong. Another is the pairing up of a freshly recruited career-stream official with a colleague one year more advanced. The senior of the two (senpai) guides and advises the junior (kohai) and entertains him with food and drinks after hours and even buys him lunch daily for the one-month interregnum between his joining the government payroll and receiving his first paycheck.
[] The price of membership
The Okurasho operates a bus service, with the first bus running around midnight, ferrying home staff who have outstayed the subway system. The buses run until 2 A.M. But that is too early for many staff to finish their work, and in the busier times of the year, hundreds miss the last bus. That's why the ministry also has a room full of beds, which the staff deprecatingly call the Hotel Okura, after the famous five-star establishment just a suburb away. But this room can accommodate only sixteen people, which explains the small stacks of blankets adorning most of the offices, up to and including the vice minister's. Most of those who are obliged to stay overnight are forced to sleep in their chairs or on sofas.
"Let's go home while it's still dark," is a catchphrase at the ministry. For while the Tokyo markets may close and companies shut down, the Ministry of Finance never sleeps. The late-night lights burning in the Okurasho building have become a symbol of the vigilance and tirelessness of Japan's public servants.
Officially, none of this happens. Officially, the Okurasho closes at 5:30 P.M. Officially, Japan's national government departments cut back to a strict five days a week in 1992. Officially, the ministry has endorsed a policy of cutting overtime hours. Government guidelines stipulate that public servants should not work more than 360 hours of overtime per year. The average at the Okurasho in 1992 was 1,428 hours. That's not only four times the stipulated limit, it represents 5.4 hours of overtime every working day. It's the equivalent of working an extra thirty-five regular working weeks a year. Some of this overtime is paid at a premium above and beyond regular pay, ranging from 20 percent up to 50 percent for work done between 10 P.M. and 2 A.M., but officials at the rank of director and above are not paid for overtime. Instead they usually receive a manager's allowance, which can equate to about 25 percent of their regular salary. But these overtime figures do not convey the full picture. Many career staffers work more than 2,400 hours of overtime a year, or more than nine hours a day, but do not record or report it.
Why do they do it? A government survey of all the ministries asked this question in 1992 and got answers from 5,700 bureaucrats. One third blamed a heavy workload and a shortage of staff. At the Okurasho, the work that most obviously falls into this category is the preparation of the national budget. From the time the examiners in the Budget Bureau begin their annual grillings of the supplicant agencies in September, through to December, many staff go home rarely and work eighteen-hour days, seven days a week. Their burden eases in January. It is said that this is the reason the babies of Budget Bureau staff are usually born in October or November.
Another area demanding long hours is the defensive work done to prepare the finance minister when he appears before the Diet. Ministry staff stationed permanently in the Diet building talk informally to politicians and ask what issues they intend to raise in Diet questioning. With this information, plus the intelligence supplied by ministry staff working in the office of the finance minister and elsewhere in the political system, staff at the Okurasho compile a nightly list of questions their minister may encounter in the Diet session on the following day. Officials then sit up past midnight, drafting answers on the full range of potential questions.
A notoriously onerous area of work is the National Taxation Agency, the Okurasho offshoot responsible for collecting taxes. Masaru Mizuno, a former chief of the Tokyo bureau of the agency who later became a senior Okurasho official, once claimed that an average of twenty-five people on his staff died of exhaustion caused by overwork--karoshi--every year.
The second most common explanation for overtime (after heavy workload coupled with staff shortage) was inefficient work habits, which were cited by 20 percent of the bureaucrats responding to the survey. Closely related to this was the answer given by another 7 percent of respondents--that they had to attend too many meetings. These answers suggest that much overtime is simply wasted time. But the third most common explanation for overtime was the "invisible pressure" from peers and superiors. Evidently, going home at a reasonable hour was for wimps or, worse, those with questionable commitment to their section. Although none of the survey data applies specifically to the Okurasho, it is reasonable to assume that the same general conclusions would hold, both because of observed behavior in the ministry and because of the similarity in structure and practice across the national ministries.
All of this suggests that there is scope for a serious reappraisal of workload, staffing, and work habits to achieve a more methodical, balanced, and professional approach to the tasks of public service. The other big issue concerns whether unreasonably intense and unremitting workloads--in compiling the budget or in tax collection for example--can possibly produce optimum results if they are exhausting, perhaps even killing, staff. Whatever the reason, it is clear that the club Okurasho demands a heavy price for membership--not just hard work but absolute commitment.
[] Closing ranks
In most developed countries, the elected representatives of the people--the politicians--have considerable control over the appointment of the top government officials. In seeking the optimum balance between the principles of bureaucratic merit on the one hand and political control on the other, the United States offers an example of political excess. Japan is an example of the opposite, having denied politicians any role in choosing even the top official of its national ministries, the vice minister of administrative affairs. One of the Finance Ministry's greatest sources of power is its ability to appoint its own leader. This allows it to perpetuate its values and policies with a good deal of immunity from any outside force. It also severs a critical link in the transmission of political will; the people elect the politicians--in this case the finance minister--to govern, but the politicians cannot make even a limited choice in selecting the officials to carry out its policies. And if a finance minister encounters defiant officials, he has very limited leverage. He cannot remove them or choose their replacements except in extreme circumstances. (Officially, however, this is not so. Formally, the top bureaucrat in the ministry--the vice minister of administrative affairs--is appointed by the politician--the finance minister. But in truth it is only in the most unusual circumstances that the finance minister or any other politician has any real role in the appointment.)
Japan's system started to fray in the 1990s, most notably in the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. "The Okurasho's strength is its solidarity," says Kozo Yamamoto, a former official in the ministry's career stream who entered politics. "Other ministries--MITI, for example--have allowed political interference in appointments, but the Okurasho has not. If all the bureaucrats get together and say we don't like the minister and we will not work with him, then the minister can't do anything because he will not get any information and he won't be able to do his job. The most respected official among the Okurasho old boys is Teiichiro Morinaga. When he was vice minister, the finance minister directed him to appoint a particular official as director-general of a bureau. Morinaga refused and put himself at risk. But when a bureaucrat works to protect the ministry against a politician like that, all bureaucrats respect him." This respect was no doubt one reason why the ministry successfully supported Mr. Morinaga's later nomination as governor of the central bank.
How then does the ministry choose its bureaucratic leader, the vice minister of administrative affairs, an event that normally occurs annually? The process begins with each year's intake of twenty to twenty-five junior career-stream officials who join the ministry together and then compete against each other for the next twenty years or so. By the time the escalator of progression through the hierarchy has taken this group close to the top echelon of executive jobs, the group itself has rated all of its members, and the ministry as a whole has carried out an informal evaluation of each member of that group. A natural sorting process has occurred. This process is largely opaque, and, importantly, it proceeds according to the criteria of the ministry itself, not any external standard. A senior serving official explains: "In each intake year, there is a strong sense of belonging and also a strong sense of competition. After you have spent ten years in the ministry together with the same group of colleagues, you know yourself how competitive you are, and it is already clear what you will be able to achieve ultimately, and the others know, too. It is judgment by peers, and it is an extremely harsh system."
This system gleans the best from the rest--at least according to the ministry's internal standards--but it does not nominate the final successful candidate. The outgoing vice minister traditionally nominates his own replacement from among the top candidates in any particular "class year." Protocol and precedent dictate that he consult his predecessors--retired vice ministers--before making the final choice. There is usually a token consultation with the finance minister at the end of the process, but he is usually powerless to change the choice. There have been exceptions. In 1974, for example, there were two equally strong candidates, and the Okurasho was divided in its choice. This presented an opportunity for politicians to play a decisive role. The prime minister happened to be the unusually strong-willed Kakuei Tanaka, who was intimate with the workings of the Okurasho as a result of his term as finance minister, and he took the opportunity to press his case. More recently, in 1994, a finance minister successfully insisted on his choice of candidate for a second-tier job in the ministry, director-general of a bureau. But this, too, was an exception to the rule. It occurred in unusual circumstances, when the ministry was under great duress.
When the system works as it is intended to, it gives the ministry a thick wall of insulation against outside pressure. One administrative vice minister, Jiro Saito, took advantage of the system to unofficially nominate the next nine officials to occupy his job. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this act was not its breathtaking degree of presumptuousness--even by Okurasho standards--but its plausibility. In fact, his chosen successors have been named as actual successors for at least two places down his list, a 100 percent success rate at the time of this writing.
Mr. Saito himself was to become a fascinating test of the Okurasho's control over its destiny in the face of a political confrontation. As we will see in more detail later in the book, he cut an important deal with Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa in 1994. As mentioned earlier in the chapter, Mr. Hosokawa was the first Japanese leader in thirty-eight years to unseat Japan's party of vested interests, the Liberal Democrats, who spent an angry nine months in opposition before sweeping back into vengeful victory in a new coalition government. When they did, they decided to punish Mr. Saito for having accommodated Mr. Hosokawa.
The lines of the contest were clearly drawn, pitting the highest-ranking bureaucrat of the Okurasho against some of the most powerful individuals in the country's dominant political party. Both institutions had recently been damaged. The Okurasho was hurt by its own succession of failures to fulfill its core responsibilities--resulting in a protracted recession and a deteriorating banking system--and by its attempt to strong-arm Japan into accepting a major new tax increase. The Liberal Democratic Party had lost a thirty-eight-year old monopoly of power.
What happened? On March 14, 1995, during an informal meeting of the national Cabinet, one minister pointed out to his colleagues a fact that all literate Japanese over the age of twelve already knew: the Okurasho had been responsible for a series of policy failures as well as several scandals of note. In the latest front-page expose, two top Okurasho officials had been revealed to have a suspiciously close relationship with the modern villain of Japan's financial system, Harunori Takahashi. An entrepreneur of considerable profligacy, Mr. Takahashi had effectively bankrupted two credit unions he controlled. The Okurasho had then stepped in to rescue depositors with the use of taxpayers' funds, generating national outrage. Finance Minister Masayoshi Takemura had, one day earlier, timidly issued nothing more substantial than a reprimand to the two officials. He also admonished their superiors, including Mr. Saito, for failures of supervision.
The outspoken minister for Home Affairs, Hiromu Nonaka, told the Cabinet that this was not good enough. He reminded his colleagues of other Okurasho failings, including its responsibility for the what came to be known as the "bubble economy" of the late 1980s and the hangover of recession that followed it. Mr. Nonaka added that Mr. Saito bore responsibility for the 1991 stock investment compensation scandal in which brokerage firms made secret deals to refund any losses big clients might suffer. And, he said, he held Mr. Saito personally responsible for a political fiasco in which the vice minister had persuaded an earlier administration to introduce a new consumption tax in the guise of a "welfare tax." The penalty he demanded was the immediate removal of Mr. Saito. Other Cabinet ministers voiced support. After the meeting, Mr. Nonaka repeated his demand to reporters, along with his views on the Okurasho's many failures. Finance Minister Takemura, who was not drawn from the Liberal Democrats but from a tiny splinter party in the ruling coalition, initially defended the mild reprimands he had handed out the day before. The official spokesman for the government, the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters that the finance minister was responsible for his ministry and that no further action was to be taken. The matter was closed.
But it was not. Together with Liberal Democrat colleagues--including the man who had been so infuriated with the Okurasho's inflexibility over its intake of Tokyo University graduates, Koichi Kato--Mr. Nonaka continued to agitate. A press campaign against Mr. Saito and the Okurasho was one manifestation. Eventually, the finance minister joined in. To protect the Okurasho from paying a larger institutional penalty later, Mr. Saito decided to make a personal sacrifice. He began negotiating with the politicians over his early departure.
The outcome was that a little more than two months after the Cabinet meeting, the finance minister announced that Mr. Saito was to be replaced not at the usual time--when his term expired in late June--but one month earlier. And that was it. So the Okurasho stood charged with a series of policy failures and scandals. Its public standing was probably at its lowest since World War II. It had received direct and public demands for the resignation of its chief bureaucrat. It ultimately came under pressure from the finance minister as well. And yet the most that all this could achieve was to bring forward a normal retirement by one month. The ministry even denied the politicians the satisfaction of being able to show that Saito had been sacked--the entire institution's personnel rotation was brought forward by one month so that Mr. Saito's retirement appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary. Not only this, but Mr. Saito's preferred candidate as his successor, Kyosuke Shinozawa, was duly endorsed. Mr. Saito offered no apology and made no statement of regret or remorse as he departed office to take up a new position as a special adviser to the Okurasho, on an undiminished salary, just down the corridor from his former office. Indeed, he took the opportunity to do exactly the opposite. Mr. Saito's memorable parting words were: "It was not my intention to have my name in the media so many times. But even with the new vice minister, the way the Okurasho does things will never change."
Within four months, other outrages emerged, prompting politicians to attempt an attack on the ministry once more. In late 1995 a senior ministry official's relationship with the tainted entrepreneur Harunori Takahashi was shown to be not just suspicious but positively corrupt. The official, Yoshio Nakajima, was asked to resign from the ministry. The media luxuriated in the institution's embarrassment. The new vice minister at the Okurasho, Mr. Shinozawa, agreed to suffer a 20 percent pay cut for two months in ritual remorse. But the ministry's humiliation worsened with the revelation of yet another outrage: the Okurasho had decided to use 685 billion yen (the equivalent of $6.85 billion) of taxpayers' money to rescue a disastrously mismanaged collection of mortgage lending firms known as jusen. The media and the politicians were scandalized. The Finance Ministry had been partly responsible for the difficulties and the supervision of the jusen. It was now defenseless and friendless in the face of first-order national outrage. Again, attempting to minimize institutional damage, the vice minister offered to resign. Mr. Shinozawa served only seven months in the post.
His sacrifice was a recognition of deep and cumulative anger at the ministry, but it served the institutional interest. Once again, his replacement was the choice of the bureaucrats themselves (or, more particularly, of Mr. Saito, as indicated on his ten-man list of preferred successors). The convulsions of scandal and outrage and early retirements proved powerless to disturb the orderly succession of office or the tight system of bureaucratic self-determination. In fact, in conceding to resign, Mr. Shinozawa strengthened the position of his successor. The new vice minister, Tadashi Ogawa, took office in combative style, dismissing the ministry's corruption scandals as the problems of individuals, advancing the case for the public funding of the jusen rescue, and rejecting any notion of change in the way the ministry conducted itself.
It is not unusual for the civil service in an industrial democracy to resist its politicians. But the Japanese Bureaucracy's impermeability has given it an unusually high degree of success. As a result of its impenetrability, "the Japanese system does resemble an exclusive club more closely than any of its counterparts in the Western democracies," concluded Professor Koh in his study. Nor is Japan's bureaucratic willfulness necessarily a part of any broader East Asian system of mandarin supremacism. In Japan's neighbor and former colony, South Korea, where the bureaucratic system is largely modeled on Japan's, top ministry officials serve at the convenience of politicians. The country's first civilian president, Kim Young Sam, not only replaced the country's military leadership but also dismissed the heads of seven national ministries in a single stroke on May 23, 1994--including the official at the head of the Finance Ministry. He chose their replacements, all career bureaucrats, from a range of levels of seniority without regard for strict hierarchy. His aim was reportedly "to break up the current bureaucratic inertia." In short, Japan's bureaucracy has a great deal of control over its affairs by any standard. And within Japan, the Okurasho is the most robustly and successfully impenetrable of the ministries. This is not based on law, which gives the power of appointment to the minister, but on the culture of the ministry.
Copyright © 1998 Peter Hartcher. All rights reserved.


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The seeds of alternative trio Loma were sown in 2015 when Shearwater percussionist Thor Harris missed his regular gig to collaborate with Austin duo Cross Record on Wabi-Sabi, their debut album for Ba Da Bing. Knowing that Shearwater frontman Jonathan Meiburg would be interested in what Harris had been up to during his absence, label boss Ben Goldberg sent him a CD of the album. Meiburg, impressed by the young band's music, invited them to tour with Shearwater. During the tour, he became close friends with the duo, consisting of married couple Emily Cross and Dan Duszynski, and they decided to write some songs together. Excited at what they had come up with, the trio recorded an album at Cross Record's isolated home studio in the tiny town of Dripping Springs, Texas. The resulting material was released under the name Loma by Shearwater's label Sub Pop in early 2018. Preceded by the haunting single "Black Willow," the album incorporated elements from both its parent bands while indisputably creating its own sound. ~ John D. Buchanan


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"Being a teenager is hard enough. To be hard of hearing on top of that is like being stuck in the middle of a never ending soap opera."
In Compass, the sequel to Sway, Jessie's life begins to change its course, sending her towards a new reality. When her world is ripped apart by an angry rival, the one person she trusted to stand by her side, simply walks away. With her composure shattered, Jessie questions everything she believed about herself, and as her life takes her on a new path, it becomes a perilous journey, full of surprising twists and turns.


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Jun 19, 2017. Forehead bumps can ruin your entire look. These bumps could be pimples and zits. Simple home remedies can help you get rid of the bumps on forehead. Appearance of pimples and zits is involuntary because they can appear any time without any prior intimation. Jokes apart, pimples can be caused due.
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High school will keep starting too early. Here's why.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics has joined a chorus that's been growing louder for years: The school day should start later for teenagers because they aren't wired to go to bed early — and they need their sleep.
The AAP says this is a public-health issue: Sleep-deprived teenagers are more likely to crash cars, get depressed, and become obese. Also, they may not do as well in school.
However, early start times aren't going away quickly, and probably won't, because of the costs.
That's surprising because, from the outside, the economics of a later start-time seem pretty good. A 2011 study from the Brookings Institution looked at three ways school districts could improve just by getting better organized. Starting school later for teens was number one.
"Among all the things schools could do to increase student performance, this is one of the less expensive ones," says Brian Jacob, an economics and public-policy professor at the University of Michigan, one of the study's co-authors. "This is not like hiring extra teachers to reduce class size, or building a big new expensive building."
School boards often hear objections about disruptions at the other end of the school day: Kids getting home really late from sports practice or chess club. Or not being able to work after-school jobs.
The big issue — the expensive issue — is transportation, says Kristen Amundson, executive director of the National Association of State Boards of Education. Amundson is a former member of the school board in Fairfax County Virginia, which is ground zero for debates on school start times.
The debate started there when Amundson was serving, back in the 1990s; buses were the sticking point.
"How school districts make school buses pay is, you basically use the equipment as much as you can," Amundson says.
Meaning, the district runs each bus multiple times every morning. High school students typically get picked up on the first run, which can happen before sunrise for part of the year.
Asked why little kids, who tend to be early risers, couldn't start early, Amundson laughs. "Oh, no, that was a non-starter," she says. "There were exactly zero of us who were prepared to have five year-olds on the street in the dark."
She says later start times probably work better for smaller districts, with fewer buses to run. Fairfax County's School Board is scheduled to vote on a later-start proposal in October.
|How one Chicago high school built a college culture
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Japan Travel Guide: What to See and How to Save
Japan is becoming one of the most prominent travel destinations in the world and the idea that it is a money drain is beginning to hold less and less truth. The country is broadening to accommodate for the influx of tourism in the area, allowing for many more travel opportunities.
With travel comes the daunting decision of what sights to see in such limited time and whether city life or ancient architecture is the right path for you. If planned right, travelling to Japan doesn't need to cost a lot of money.
Here's a quick breakdown on how to see what makes Japan unforgettable while on a budget.
1. Accomodation:
The best way to save right off the bat is by planning to say in a Capsule or Business hotel.
Capsule hotels are small one person spaces that allow for a nice comfortable place to sleep overnight and then spend most of the day roaming the city.
They're a step above hostels and are decently cheap per night (around $30). It's the best way to cut down your spending by at least a third without having to give much up, but it only works if you are travelling light and preferably not with many people.
2. Transportation:
Although it seems expensive, taking the bullet train around Japan is the best bet. The money put into buying a ticket ends up being worth it because it can reduce the time you spend getting from one place to another by up to 10 hours.
The way to go about buying these tickets is to purchase them online before your trip, usually resulting in a 20% discount and to buy a pass instead of individual tickets. While the pass price is more expensive it cuts down the overall cost and lets you travel without worry.
Other alternatives include taking buses (mainly useful for short distances) and flights (marketed towards foreigners and perfect for cross-country travel).
Most food places in Japan aren't as expensive as they're made out to be. Although high class restaurants and fresh sushi will cut into your budget, the average lunch won't cost much.
If it's still something you'd worry over the best advice is to eat at Japanese fast food stops. Unlike many other countries, the quality Japanese fast food isn't bad at all. You can get a full bowl of ramen with toppings for 1.75 USD or fresh ready to go meals from convenience stores.
Avoid fresh fruit! Japan is big on the premium fruit market and almost all their products are produced domestically so their prices are always abnormally high.
Tokyo and Kyoto are must sees when vacationing so here's a list of things to do while in the area:
Shibuya shopping district
One of the most crowded places in Japan, where most tourists begin and buy souvenirs and trinkets
Edo tokyo museum
Museum of Tokyo's extensive history that lets you really grasp the country you're residing in
Yakitori Alley
Coined as 'Memory Lane' Yakitori Alley is a small street in Tokyo packed with tiny restaurants or street food vendors. It's the best place to feel immersed in japanese nightlife and try new things
Harijuku District
Everyone knows about harijuku girls, but less people realize they are named from the colorful district in Tokyo filled with street art and wild fashion. It's definitely worth checking out.
While there are multiple Disney parks across the globe it's always an exciting experience to go to a theme park in a place you don't know and Disney is always a good time
*Take the bullet train to Kyoto and make sure to sit on the right to try and catch a glimpse of Mt. Fuji out the window*
Higashima is a dive right into Japanese culture and many historic sights. Filled with ancient temples, shrines, and historic streets you can spend a whole day just taking it all in
In west Kyoto resides one of the most famous and photographed places in all of Japan: The Golden Temple. It's a big tourist attraction and luckily can come with a temple pass that allows you to visit multiple temples in the area for a cheaper price
Fushimi Inari
Shinto Shrines (also known as Torii) are a big part of buddhist and japanese history and also most iconographically familiar to tourists ⛩. Kyoto has a forest filled with Torii gates and it's a beautiful place to get in touch with yourself and nature
Downtown Kyoto
Like any city there is always a place for shopping and street food and Downtown Kyoto is the place to go when you need to step back into the modern world
Sagano Bamboo Forest
The name gives it all away, this is the best place to experience so much of Japanese culture and just get lost in nature. It's part of the 100 soundscapes of Japan and absolutely a must see
It's impossible to run out of things to do in Japan but no matter how many things you end up seeing you won't leave feeling like you missed out at all. Happy travels and bon voyage!


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Paperback, 55 Pages
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A selection of short stories . From goblins to ghosts, devilish tattoos to mountain Kingdoms, from stinking breath to invisible princesses.
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Product Details
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- February 19, 2010
- Language
- English
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Spam, or junk email, has reached such epidemic proportions that it has put some people off of email altogether. For many people, spam constitutes upward of 90% of incoming mail, making it difficult to find legitimate messages and wasting enormous time.
There's no question that spam is annoying, but it's also a security issue. That's because among all the ads for medications and get-rich-quick schemes, spam may also include viruses, Trojan horses, and malware of other kinds; it may also contain phishing attempts, in which someone tries to induce you to type your passwords or other private information on bogus websites.
For these reasons and more, it behooves anyone concerned about privacy and security to take steps to reduce or eliminate spam.
If your Mac is on a corporate network and all your incoming email is filtered by your employer's mail server, you may have little spam to contend with — at least in your business account. However, most people encounter at least some spam, and even if your company keeps your professional email mostly spam-free, you may not have the same good fortune with your personal email accounts.
As you're trying to determine your strategy for fighting spam, you should have in mind who — or what — you're up against. It's natural to assume that every spam message is sent out by an individual or a company with something to sell, so your opponent is a (presumably rational) human. But that's a faulty image. ...
No credit card required


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Two young North Texas sisters have raised more than $1 million to bring clean water to people across the globe.
"It also is like one of the best feelings to see something that you worked really hard on change someone's life," 15-year-old Isabelle Adams said.
Isabelle and her sister Katherine, along with countless volunteers, make origami ornaments for their nonprofit, Paper for Water. Each ornament can take between one and 10 hours to make.
This holiday, the girls and their volunteers decorated two trees at the Four Seasons Resort and Club Dallas at Las Colinas.
You can buy one ornament, or an entire tree, with all of the proceeds going to their nonprofit.
In the last seven years, ornament sales have raised $1.5 million, which has funded 170 water projects in 17 countries.
"And we've actually been able to visit them," Isabelle said. "So, we know that they're actually happening, which is something that's really important to us because we want to make sure that time and effort, and our volunteers' time and effort, are really making a difference in people's lives."
"We feel obligated as blessed people, to go and bless other people," 12-year-old Katherine said.
"One of the things that water does is it allows kids to go to school and get an education, and it helps bring their entire country out of the cycle of poverty if the children are educated," Isabelle said. "And then you really never know what they're going to do with their life. Maybe they'll discover something that ends up saving my life."
The girls are also working to start Paper for Water clubs in schools to get more students involved.
You can purchase a Paper for Water origami Christmas ornament inside the Four Reasons gift boutique. They are also available online on the Paper for Water website, www.paperforwater.org.


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Walkthrough part 5
Red Faction: Guerrilla Walkthrough[edit]
Parker Sector | Dust Sector | Badlands Sector | Oasis Sector | Free Fire Zone Sector | EOS Sector
Return to the main road and drive E until it forks to a dirt road leading N. Take that dirt road and look E for a trio of Ore Deposits. Drive W from here and follow a path up into some rocks for three more Ore Deposits. Follow the dirt road back S before heading E a bit and S down another dirt road. Continue S off-road to get the last five Ore Deposits for Parker Sector.
Supply Crates [21]
Cross the bridges NW of the Safehouse to find five Supply Crates, then smash them open for some Salvage. Go E across the road and up a hill to reach the leftovers of a smokestack that you smashed earlier, and another Supply Crate.
Follow the roads NE to the remains of the processing plant and smash the 12 Supply Crates here.
Go S to the main road and follow it E until it branches S and N. Take the S path as it becomes a dirt road and follow it W to three more Supply Crates at the end.
Guerrilla Action: Demolitions Master 1
Destroy the building using:
|64 pistol shots
|13 Hydrogen Tanks
|3:00 minutes (normal), 1:00 minute (pro)
Reward: 25 Salvage
Mark this icon on the S side of your map and follow the path to reach it. Demolitions Master missions are optional, but well-worth doing. They reward you with some Salvage and teach you valuable skills to help you bring down your enemies.
This mission teaches you that you can place Hydrogen Tanks near a building and shoot them to let the explosion help you level the building. You should sprint to your Tank, pick it up and sprint to the building before placing it. Repeat this for 5-6 Tanks total and spread them out around the building inside and out. Sprint to a safe distance and shoot each Tank as you watch the building fall to the ground.
|Give us feedback!
|Continue Walkthrough...
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Vanguard Award to be presented to Kappa Frater Justice William Cousins
Justice William Cousins Jr. (ret.) of the Illinois Appellate Court receives a 2011 Vanguard Award at a luncheon on April 20 at the Standard Club. The event will be hosted by the Asian American Bar Association, Chicago Bar Association, Cook County Bar Association, Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois, Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago and Puerto Rican Bar Association which honor lawyers and judges "who through their effortshave made the law and legal profession more accessible to and reflective of thecommunity at-large."Justice Cousins, the 2011 honoree of the Cook County Bar Association,served the city as an alderman of the 8th Ward, the county as a circuit court judge and the state as a judge on the Illinois Appellate Court.
"With this award, we honor Justice Cousins for his dedication to the cause of justice and inclusion for members of all communities and in the legal profession. We are delighted that he will receive the 2011 Vanguard Award along with other honorees who share our goals for the profession," saidLawrence N. Hill, CCBA president.
Justice Cousins is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi and Sigma Pi Phi Fraternities, Trinity United Church of Christ and a Hall of Famer of the National Bar Association, Cook County Bar Association and DuSable High School. The event begins with an 11:30 a.m. reception. To reserve $65 tickets, contactTamra Drees at (312) 554-2057 or firstname.lastname@example.com


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The Gallows Act II
El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie
Lucky Day
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When a mysterious "John Doe" wakes up in a morgue and wanders into a psychiatric ward, a devoted doctor and curious medical examiner must slowly uncover dark and sinister secrets…
The Collini Case
Driving cross-country, Ray and his wife and daughter stop at a highway rest area where his daughter falls and breaks her arm. After a frantic rush to the hospital and…
Donnie's wife Sara is kidnapped. He's left video messages by Noah, the man that took her showing her held in captivity. Noah gives Donnie one week to find Sara or…
La casa muda
The Lake Vampire
A road trip turns into a spooky nightmare as a family of four is attacked by strange entities
Ghost Sword
Before meeting George Good (Brad Dourif), Sonny Jordan (Mekhi Pfeiffer) was just a lost drifter with a troubled past floating from town to town, looking for work. As fate would…
The Riot Act
After a quiet murder seen by only three people, two avengers bring to life the idea of a ghost in attempt for justice.
My Wife's Secret Life
Not Available
Smuggling in Suburbia
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E.M.P. 333 Days
Loon Lake
A Working Mom's Nightmare
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The World Over
When a reclusive mother-to-be discovers a door leading to a mirror image of her home, her husband goes snooping inside and never returns. Fearing the worst, she gathers her courage…
Abducted: The Mary Stauffer Story
Art of Deception
Blessed Are the Children
A teen model gets lured into New York City by an model agent to discover nothing is as it seems.
The Ungovernable Force
The latest exploitation / Grindhouse feature film from Ungovernable Films, featuring all your favorite ungovernable motifs like sex, gore, violence, nudity, schlock, and laughs! Oh, and of course a social…
The Birdcatcher
Wide-eyed Midwest transplant Stan agrees to play wingman to his calculating and privileged roommate Chad as they embark upon an exploration of glittering New York nightlife, whose darkest secrets are…
Gemini Man
Henry Brogen, an aging assassin tries to get out of the business but finds himself in the ultimate battle: fighting his own clone who is 25 years younger than him…
Altered Skin
While caring for his ailing wife, an American engineer in Pakistan stumbles upon a deadly pharmaceutical conspiracy.
The Art of Self-Defense
Snakes on a Train
Under a powerful Mayan curse, snakes are hatched inside a young woman, slowly devouring her from within. Her only chance for survival is a powerful shaman who lives across the…
Mermaid Down
The Mad Whale
Inmates at a women's mental asylum stage a theatrical production of Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick.'
Knife Heart
Murderous Children
4 stories about 4 criminal children. Two teenagers trapped in a world full of drugs and human trafficking, another two kids bring their loved ones to the limit, other two…


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Iran "will never start a war," but "will defend its territory", said in an interview with CNN, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
According to him, the administration of US President Donald Trump is already waging an economic war against the civilian population of Iran.
The US-educated foreign minister said that "we all need to work in order to avoid war," but added that "there is a war going on right now. It's an economic war -- an economic war against Iran targets civilian population."
Asked by Zakaria about the possibility of a war with the US, Zarif said, "you cannot simply disregard a possibility of a disaster."
"We defend our territory. The United States drone entered Iranian territory, entered Iranian airspace. It was shot down, because even without entering Iranian airspace, it could spy over our entire territory ... it not only threatened our territorial integrity, but it was threatening our national security. We will not tolerate foreigners coming 6,000 miles from their shores to our shores and threatening our national sovereignty and stability," he said.


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PAST PRACTICES - Concerns over haphazard use, storage and dumping of toxic chemicals at Fiskville going back to the 1970s. Firefighter trained with water from contaminated dams.
Late 2011 - Reports of a cancer cluster among former Fiskville workers.
Late 2012 - Large tanks, connected to mains-water, installed so dam water is no longer used.
Early 2014 - Whistleblower and former CFA chief officer Brian Potter dies of cancer.
Late 2014 - Incoming Andrews government announces inquiry into toxic contamination and cancer cluster. Fiskville's training operations downgraded.
Early 2015 - Study confirms elevated rates of brain, skin and testicular cancers among 606 Fiskville firefighters from 1971 - 1999. Sixteen died, 53 others diagnosed.
March 2015 - Carcinogenic chemical detected in mains water tanks, likely leached into underground pipes. Fiskville closed pending investigation. Two senior Worksafe executives sacked.


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ISLAMABAD - The executive board of the National Highways Authority has approved PC-1 for the construction of 18 kilometre long 4-lane bypass for Dera Ghazi Khan City at a cost of Rs4.24 billion.
The decision was taken during the meeting at the NHA head office with Chairman Shahid Ashraf Tarar in the chair, said a press release issued by the NHA on Monday. The meeting was informed that construction of the bypass was imperative keeping in view the ever-increasing traffic flow coming from Karachi Port on the Indus Highway (N-55) and passing through DG Khan . The city, situated at the junction of the Indus Highway and the National Highway (N-70), is the central point of four provinces with traffic coming from all sides.
Similarly, stone-crushing plants built along the National Highway and the DG Khan Cement Factory generates flow of heavy traffic for the supply of crushed stone, sand and cement to southern Punjab and other parts of the country. This results in frequent blockade of heavy traffic on N-75 that passes through the heart of the city, much to the inconvenience of both the commuters and the city residents.
According to the NHA, the proposed bypass will solve the traffic congestion issue and ensure uninterrupted traffic movement besides reducing the travel time and accidents. The provision of better road facility for the inhabitants of the area will surely lead to more employment opportunities and better living standards.
The meeting was informed that 60 metre wide right-of-way will be acquired for the construction of the bypass.
Four major bridges at Vador Nullah, Katchi Canal, DG Khan Canal and Manka Canal, as well as a flyover at DG Khan-Kashmore railway crossing are also part of the project with a completion timeframe of 18 months.


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I may be one of the last travel bloggers to arrive at Hostelbooker's Seven Super Shots party, but let's just call it fashionably late, shall we? Thanks to Picture Philly & Go, See, Write for nominating me.
I thought this would be an easy post to compile, but choosing just seven pictures out of years of travel was tricky! Instead of spending minutes picking out some of my best, I perused my photo archives for hours and even enlisted my little sister to make the final calls. As much work as it was, I'm happy to participate because I got to relive some of the best moments of my life.
1. A photo that takes my breath away
Gansbaii, South Africa
As most of you know, I spent my 29th year traveling the world solo with the ultimate goal of celebrating the big 3-0 in a shark cage in South Africa. I'd been cage diving a few times before on Oahu's North Shore, but was disappointed by the lack of shark aggression. I was raised on Shark Week; I wanted a shark to try to eat my face off!
I took the photo above from inside the cage off the coast of Gansbaii, South Africa. I'd been positioning my Canon G12 just outside the cage's bars, I guess; the Great White Shark in the photo came up VERY quickly and surprised me, making a beeline for my face, just like I wanted. Milliseconds after I snapped this shot, that shark's bloody teeth were clamped onto the cage and I was staring down his throat. It was INCREDIBLE.
Click here to watch the video of the whole thing going down!
2. A photo that makes me laugh or smile
Ngong Hills, Kenya
After searching for volunteer opportunities around the world and coming up empty for a variety of reasons that I'll get into in a post next week, I was thrilled to spend two weeks working with the kids at Compassion Center No. 755 in Ngong Hills, Kenya. When I flip through the hundreds of shots I took of their sweet faces, I can't help but smile. What precious hopefulness they have in the throes of such extreme poverty. Kids are kids no matter where they live.
3. A photo that makes me dream
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
If I look back on 2011, I can pinpoint the very day I took the best pictures of the year. It's also the same day I fabulously crashed my bicycle and broke my first Canon G12 by smashing it (and myself) into the ground. (I don't belong on a bicycle.) The pain was worth it though to capture the moments I did because when I look back on that day, I forget about the bruises and remember the dark ride to the volcano at 4 a.m., the invigorating sunrise yoga and the unforgettable bike ride through the surrounding villages.
4. A photo that makes me think
Jerusalem, Israel
I don't think you have to be Christian, Jewish or Muslim to appreciate the gravity of Jerusalem, but I certainly think my strong beliefs helped me to think about the conflict and history on a different level. It's a heavy place with a near palpable intensity in the air. Generations of powerful history will do that to a place, I guess. Looking around at the sworn enemies passing one another on the street, just going about their business, made it tough to imagine that at any moment the tentative peace could evaporate and war could break out among neighbors. Certainly one of the most thought-provoking places I've ever visited.
I chose the shot above because the crosses atop the churches and the mosques and minarets are a peculiar juxtaposition with the satellite dishes and antennas. I like to think the warring religious groups are all watching the same TV show, maybe Friends, inside their homes. How you doin'?
5. A photo that makes my mouth water
Cappadoccia, Turkey
Some of the best food pictures I've taken have come not from gourmet restaurants, but instead from fresh, bustling weekend markets. I love wandering around a new town with a bag full of cherries or strawberries or anything local and fresh, exploring side streets and absorbing a new culture.
6. A photo that tells a story
Ngong Hills, Kenya
This photo tells a heartwrenching story of a mom who lives in a slum outside Nairobi. Every day she goes to the dump flanking her home to rummage through the trash for bits of food that she collects and sells to farmers to feed their pigs. She may make $1 a day if she's lucky and if the other slum residents don't steal what she's collected before she can sell it. Her children don't have shoes, decent clothing or adequate food and her home isn't much more than a couple of ragged sheets of metal and some wire. Diseases are easily caught here, as clean running water is replaced instead with a stream of raw sewage running past the dump and through the residential part of the slum.
The situation isn't hopeless. I've got a plan to help. Please stay tuned!
7. A photo that I am most proud of
Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
Yes, out of the thousands of photos I took in my travels, two from this list of seven come from the very same day. I'm telling you – I was ON FIRE!
The moment I snapped this shot, I knew it was special. I just love the colors and the smiles and the story and of course, the pig. I submitted it to National Geographic and it was chosen for the online Daily Dozen. Pretty exciting!
So what's your favorite out of my 7 Super Shots? I'd love your feedback!
I think most folks who want to participate probably already have, but here are two more tags to keep the fun going.
- Chris at Backpacker Banter
- Phil at Phil Hill Photography


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Authors: Bogdanor
Summary: In slightly less than 1500 words, this entry defines president and presidential system, discusses presidential limits and the constitutional relationships between the president and Congress, and considers some comparisons between the United States and other systems.
The presidential system is most closely identified with the United States under the constitution adopted in 1789. The president is an individual elected to serve as chief of state and government. Although they have been growing steadily since the second world war, the president's domestic powers are limited by federalism, judicial independence, and Congress.
American government has a special character due to the particular relationship between Congress and the president. This relationship's character
stems in large part from eighteenth century reactions and ideas. One special aspect of the president-Congress relationship is 'checks and balances,' which essentially means the two branches share in each other's constitutional authority. Thus, the president and Congress can both claim they represent the people, and this may be one feature contributing to the sustained relationship between the two branches. At the same time, each of the branches has a different political base and this helps keep the president and Congress institutionally independent. In other countries like Britain, the institutional and political separation between government branches is bridged by political parties.