What I Learned by Being a Migrant Sex Worker in Japan

Rhacel Salazar Parrenas for Bloomberg (Part 1 and Part 2):

In the clubs, men bond over their ability to objectify hostesses with no admonishment. In the place where I worked, customers usually commented on the appearance of the hostess assigned to their table immediately after being introduced to her, expressing either approval or disapproval, and in some cases rejecting her, telling the club manager to replace her with someone more attractive. Sometimes customers would request a hostess with a specific physical feature, notably large breasts.

I often heard customers describe me as “futote,” meaning fat, and “kuroi,” meaning dark. I could not retort because customers patronize hostess clubs not only to avoid rejection but to experience male superiority. Hostesses can express only positive comments about clients. As one of my co-workers observed of our clients, “No one wants to listen to them. No one tells them they are good-looking. No one admires them. That is why they go to the club.” Hostesses try to generate sales by bolstering the masculinity of their customers.

There is no great secret here. The average male does not visit this type of establishment out of some underlying desire to objectify women. Rather, men are looking for attention they are unable to receive elsewhere.

These bars make it easy for a man to walk in and obtain immediate gratification through attention, something they would otherwise have to spend a great deal of effort on. It is almost like the fast-food equivalent to picking up chicks, except in this case the dream ceases once the man exits the premises.

The bottom line is that most men are merely looking for the idea of meeting a girl. It has nothing to do with objectification, feeling superior or anything evil. Instead, it is merely a way to have an enjoyable few hours with a companion who provides the attention otherwise unattainable elsewhere. In rare cases this involves sex, but mostly it involves social drinking and conversation. It is patently harmless for both the worker and the customer.

Like with everything else in life, the 99% are persecuted for the crimes and stupidity of the 1%.

A debit of gratitude to Bank of America

Michael Hiltzik for the Los Angeles Times:

The big bank’s move created a consumer furor, with consumer activists proposing boycotts by or mass defections of BofA customers to smaller banks without fees, and the bank itself becoming a popular symbol of the financial industry’s supposed disregard for the average customer.

Unfortunately, because of the lobbying power of the banking industry - in particular the big banks like Bank of America - the smaller banks are finding it difficult to compete even with consumer friendly products.

The Woman Who Knew Too Much

Vanity Fair’s excellent article on Elizabeth Warren.

With her passionate defense of America’s beleaguered middle class, under assault today from seemingly every direction, she had become like a modern-day Mr. Smith, giving voice to regular citizens astonished at the failure of Washington to protect Main Street—and what increasingly appeared to be its abandonment of middle-class America. By July, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.—speaking for its 12 million members—had called on Obama to name Warren to head the agency. So had scores of consumer groups. Eighty-nine Democrats in the House of Representatives had signed a letter, publicly urging him to choose Warren. Newspapers around the country editorialized on her behalf, as did hundreds of bloggers. By July 18, when Obama announced that he was passing Warren over, he did so after receiving petitions signed by several hundred thousand people and organizations urging him to appoint Warren as the country’s top consumer watchdog.

NYTimes Sues The Federal Government For Refusing To Reveal Its Secret Interpretation Of The PATRIOT Act

From techdirt:

NY Times have now sued the federal government for not revealing its interpretation of the PATRIOT Act, pointing out that if parts of the interpretation contain classified material, the Justice Department should black that out and reveal the rest, but simply refusing to reveal the interpretation entirely is a violation of the Freedom of Information Act. You can bet that the feds will do everything they can to get out of this lawsuit, just as they did with the various lawsuits concerning warrantless wiretapping.

This will be an important case to watch. An unclassified law with a classified interpretation appears to be a pretty egregious misuse of the classification system for the mere purpose of witholding information from the public.

For a president who promised a new era of transparency, Obama has a pretty shitty track record even though his administration continues to be lauded for their work on this subject. Someone needs to open their eyes and see the damage they are causing the nation - damage rivaling GWB at this point.

At a Tokyo radiation hotspot, weirdness abounds

Officials were worried this week, when they discovered a radiation hotspot in Tokyo, kicking off readings as high as 3.35 microsieverts per hour. (For context, a dental x-ray is about 5 microsieverts. This wasn’t a massive amount of radiation, but it was concerning. The AP reports that readings of that level have been found in the Fukushima evacuation zone.)

The good news: This has nothing to do with Fukushima. It turned out to be an extremely localized hotspot, and officials found the real source nearby.

The bad news: The real source turned out to be something the AP is describing as “mystery bottles” stored under someone’s house. No. Really.

Now that is some really crazy shit. I know people are freaking big time about these weird localized hotspots. To find one not caused by Fukushima is pretty distressing. It should be interesting to see how the local government deals with this.

SoftBank Computer Glitch Halts iPhone 4S Sales and MNP

The opening day of iPhone 4S sales in Japan did not start well for Softbank. According to the Wall Street Journal, the operator was forced to suspend the sale of all smartphones, including the new device from Apple, at 0200 GMT this morning after a computer glitch affected customer registrations.

The issue was fixed three hours later with the operator optimistic that it did not cause any loss of sales.

I was at au/KDDI from 0300 GMT to approximately 0700 GMT and I assure you the supposed computer glitch was not fixed three hours later. We left empty handed and were asked to wait for a call. We received that call at 8:30pm - four hours after leaving au/KDDI - and were asked to come back the following morning at 1000 when the shop opens.

When we arrived at au/KDDI we first had trouble obtaining a mobile number portability (MNP) reservation number from SoftBank’s automated system due to high demand. This took roughly 45 minutes before we were finally off and running. It was at this point that everything fell apart.

The au/KDDI shop clerk, who was very helpful, was having trouble with the MNP process. This part of the purchase requires au/KDDI to touch SoftBank’s computer systems, to validate the MNP reservation number and account holder’s name and number for accuracy. This entire process kept repeatedly failing. Unfortunately, the clerk was uncertain of the specific reason.

It was at this point that I decided to walk three blocks down the street to the SoftBank shop to find out what was going on. As usual, the SoftBank clerks were somewhat clueless. All the one clerk could tell me was that their system was down so she was unable to print my account information. As I was about to walk away, another clerk mentioned to a customer that their systems were down and she would not be able to deliver pre-ordered iPhone 4’s until tomorrow, when system restoration was expected.

Are you kidding me?

I walked back to au/KDDI and told the clerk. She decided to try a few more times just to see if she would be able to deliver our phone that day. While I was waiting I called SoftBank customer service and asked them what was happening. The kind lady on the other end of the phone told me the same thing - SoftBank was experiencing a catastrophic systems failure so new sales and MNP would be impossible until the next day.

I spent a little over four hours in au/KDDI trying to secure my wife’s iPhone 4S to no avail, all thanks to SoftBank and their not being prepared for the exodus to their rival.

I am unsure where TNW got their information but it sure does not match my experience. It is worth pointing out that existing au/KDDI customers upgrading their existing handsets to an iPhone 4S were unaffected. The only customers affected were existing SoftBank customers who were upgrading or trying to port their number to a different mobile carrier.

iPhone 4S Review

John Gruber:

This is the easiest product review I’ve ever written. The iPhone 4S is exactly what Apple says it is: just like the iPhone 4, but noticeably faster, with a significantly improved camera, and an impressive new voice-driven feature called Siri.

Need anything else be said?

HOWTO Setup Secure and Private Facebook Browsing

A nice HOWTO guide for properly securing a Facebook account for those who do not understand the myriad of complex options. This guide shows how to enable improved privacy settings, disable Facebook information sharing with third-party web sites, as well as configuring a browser for private surfing. If you have ever been confused by the settings, this is the guide your mother told you to read week ago.

German Police Writing Eavesdropping Malware?

Graham Cluley of Sophos:

Sophos’s analysis of the malware confirms that it has the following functionality:

• The Trojan can eavesdrop on several communication applications - including Skype, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.
• The Trojan can log keystrokes in Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer and SeaMonkey.
• The Trojan can take JPEG screenshots of what appears on users’ screens and record Skype audio calls.
• The Trojan attempts to communicate with a remote website.

Sounds like German authorities are overstepping their bounds. While I certainly have no intimate knowledge of German law, I find it hard to believe this is permissible under their wiretapping statutes - which were written during the telephone era - or any other laws.

While there are surely some intelligence related statutes permitting certain types of activity, it is highly dubious to think these techniques would be allowed to target average citizens. Although, three-letter U.S. agencies never let something like legalities or the constitution ever get in the way of spying on their own citizens.

TSA Finally Realizes What The Rest Us Already Knew About Children

Jon Hilkevitch for the Chicago Tribune:

It turns out that children do not actually merit all the fuss the Transportation Security Administration has made over them since the shoe bomber tried to blow up an airliner almost 10 years ago. So in a welcome step for little feet and parents, children 12 and younger are no longer required to remove their shoes every time they go through airport security. “Intelligence and history have shown that allowing (young) passengers to leave their shoes on poses little risk,” the TSA said.

In this context, intelligence does not appear to be defined as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, otherwise this policy would never have been instituted. At least the TSA is finally acknowledging its approach to security is little more than theater.