My Opinion this weel(190):

Bureaucrats of Nagano Prefecture

The flood of phone calls started shortly after television news programs
aired the newly elected governor's visit to a number of the prefecture's
departments on his first day in his new job.

During a visit to the business bureau, Tanaka handed his name card to 
Tokitaka Fujii, the bureau chief. Fujii folded it in half remarking that
"the leader should not give his name card to his subordinates. I will
take it as (Tanaka's personal) card, not as the governor's." Fujii 
folded the card to obscure the part reading "Nagano Governor."

The prefecture government received a huge number of calls and e-mails
protesting to this conduct by Fujii and describing it as "extremely 
rude to the governor." I personally got the same feeling and got angry
when I saw the scene in TV. 

Fuji was astonished with the response from people inside and outside
of the Prefecture and expressed his intention to resign from the 
position. Tanaka offered Fujii the opportunity to discuss the matter.
He persuaded him to stay in office in the meeting done a few days later.

There were many more resistance from bureaucrats of Nagano Prefecture
Office. Tanaka was elected to the new Governor for his strong message to
 build a new era for administration of Nagano Prefecture.

"I hope to lead a Nagano Prefecture Government that is crystal-clear and
without secrets," Tanaka said in a victory speech just after the election .
"Let us make Nagano enter a new era together."

During his campaign, Tanaka pledged a people-oriented government, promising 
to open up the governor's office to residents. Communication with people 
would be two ways and interactive.

That's the most important point that Tanaka promised to people and people 
supported it. He is just a beginner as administrator, but he would create a
new age for Nagano as Mr. Hashimoto, the Governor of Kouchi Prefecture did
in the past years. 

It seems that most bureaucrats in the prefecture do not understand this 
most important point that he said. I do hope that Mr. Tanaka will succeed 
in his works in coming days in which he must fight with a strong wall of
bureaucracy.

2000/11/4
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(191):

Confusion of media

Presidential Election in US is in confusion. The difference of votes in
Florida was only 1800, so close between Gore and Bush.  Recounting 
procedure is going on. There are few thousands votes from non-residents
and it is said that recounting takes another ten days or so if those
votes from non-residents are to be taken into consideration. 

What happened in Florida is unavoidable. The problem was that there 
were so many misleading reports presented by media. A number of media 
announced at very stage of counting of vote that Mr. Gore would be a 
winner for sure owing to their research made at exit of voting sites.
But Mr.Bush caught up with Mr, Gore later on and then many media 
announced that Mr. Bush would be a winner for sure next time. Owing 
to this reports, Mr. Gore called Mr. Bush and said congratulatory note
to him. But Mr.Gore called back Mr. Bush soon again denying what he
mentioned before knowing the votes for two candidates were too close
each others. Media that announced Mr. Bush's victory resigned it
again. 

Actual vote counting was too close that way. However, all of those
media are responsible for the confusion they created by such wrong
announcement. Their responsibility for creating such great confusion
among people who directly concerned with the election and general
public is very bad indeed. 

I just wonder why all media try to announce it so hastily. How is it
necessary? There are many such cases also happened in Japan in the past.
The candidates who were declared to be elected for sure failed at the
end. There will be many of such cases from now on. There is no doubt that
probability of such forecast come true is very high. This is because 
such forecast is made depend on all objective data. Statistically 
speaking, probability of that event is very high. But not necessarily
100% at all.

But once such forecast turned out to be error, people concerned would
suffer a great loss as in this case. The most important duty of mass
media is to report the fact and the truth happened in this world. 
Forecasting itself is not their primary function as I may say it. 

They can say, for example, that the candidate will win 90% of time. But
they should never say that the candidate will win for sure. All mass 
media should reconsider the expression they use to describe possibility
for a candidate to win in an election.

2000/11/11
Tadashi HAYASE

My opinion this week(192): 
 
Rebellion of Mr. Kato 
 
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party was plunged into further turmoil,  
due to the fact that Mr. Koichi Kato, the formaer secretary of the  
party intensified the pressure on embattled Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori 
by saying he has no plans to defend Mori in the event of a no-confidence 
motion. 
 
If that move by Mr. Kato was a kind of his tactics to get the positon of 
President of the Party, it is unpardonable move by itself. Once he made 
such a statement, he had no choice but to leave the Party and to create 
a new party. He will start corporating with other opposition parties  
after that. Mr. Hatoyama denied any possibilities of corporation with  
him in case that he stays in LDP. I understand what Mr. Hatoyama said. 
 
Mr.Ozawa, President of Liberal Party, left LDP together with Mr.Hata and 
others when they were for no-confidence motion against the then Miyazawa 
Cabinet. That was a start of a big reorganization of political world 
since then. But that was a right move once some parties's member were 
against their parties. Concerning this move by Mr.Kato, Mr.Ozawa mentioned 
that all other opposiiton groupd against ruling groups should unite into 
one just on non-LDP stance.   
 
Most of other major leaders of LDP said that now is not the time to  
make such political strife. There are so many important bills and  
issues such as supplementary budget which are discussed in the Diet.  
But is that true? It is anticipated that oppotion grioups will not 
present no-confidence motion immediately. But since we see the fact that 
Mori Cabinet is facing so serious no-confidence situation from people, 
the House of Representative should be resolved to ask the voice of people. 
The resolution would be sumitted by all non-ruling group including 
Kato's group.  
 
 
A kind of big reoragnaization of political world is unavoidable at any  
rate. It is very costly and time consuming process, but it is very 
necessary to establish better political system. It is expected that  
people would make better selection at the oppiortunies which come soon. 
 
 
2000/11/18 
Tadashi HAYASE 

My opinion this week(193):

Unfair fare

In JR firms all over the country, mistakes in fare calculation
have been found. Some of mistakes were found in fare bulletin
boards and JR firms renewed them secretly  in accordance with 
the notice from  passengers but they finally admit their 
mistakes openly for there were so many such cases.

JR firms said they would pay back money to passengers who paid 
too much in the past. But how could each of passengers the fact
that they surely traveled that distance on some specific days.
Some of those different passengers would just give up their 
loss happened in the past days.

"This kind of miscalculation of fares happened due to 
shortage of manpower by rationalization of management of JRs. 
The morale of employees are very low because of this ."  Some
critics who know the circumstance of JR said. What a word it is! 

The title of this short commentary may be more irony written in
Japanese.

2000/11/25
Tadashi HAYASE