The bonding of Japanese, CPAC and Tea Partiers

THE CURRENT ISSUE of Atlantic magazine tells us of a visit by some Japanese operatives to the Tea Party co-sponsored CPAC annual meeting in February. One of the visitors, Jay Aeba, is a leader of his country's right-wing Happiness Realization Party, which appears to be anything but happy about the way things are going back home; another, Yuya Watase, founded the Tokyo Tea Party, evidence of how quickly news spreads to other angry folks across the waters. Those who join the Happiness party, by the way, are known as "happies". Does that make more sense to you than it does to me?

Their mission was to learn some things about how American Tea Partiers denounce taxes, government and the current occupant of the Oval Office, all in the same breath. The report quotes Watase complaining that Japanese people who work for private companies are now "actually slaves of the government." Witnessing how the CPAC delegates riotously responded to each conference speaker, the Japanese guests were hopeful of stirring anti-government passions when they returned home to continue their work with the Tokyo Tea Party's slogan of "taxed enough already".

Back to the Happies: The Atlantic report notes that the Happiness Realization Party...is the "political arm of a new-wave religious movement called Happy Science, whose founder claims to be a reincarnation of Buddha."

Among other things, the Happies want to eliminate Japan's constitutional ban on waging war.

If they needed further inspiration, they got their money's worth from such bonding podium headliners as Marco Rubio, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin. And let us not overlook Allen West.

About the tea: The Boston Tea Party was not on the visitors approved list of positive talking points. Said Watase through a translator: "They threw away the tea, which is very valuable. Japanese people value tea. We would never throw it out; we would save it."

Of course, some anti-goverment protests might lose something in translation.

Preacher Santorum's vain bonfires

ONCE UPON A TIME, a 15th century monk named Girolamo Savonarola, driven by his own fiery vision of sin, sent his helpers door to door in Florence to collect books, artworks, knick-knacks, whatever, to purge society of evil. They made a huge pile in the piazza and torched it.

In those days, such spectacles were called 'bonfires of the vanities". Alas, in the end, not even the Dominican monk was spared the flames by his opponents.

And then we have Rick Santorum. He's now moved his pulpit into New Hampshire, where he unapologetically says we need a "Jesus candidate," and who better than Rick to fill that role.

That, of course, is not what non-Christians (and many Christians) have in mind for a president. Despite his over-the-top pro-Israel offerings, Santorum was even rapped by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. Foxman huffed that Santorum's remarks were "unacceptable" and "un-American." I would add: crazy.

Maybe the time has come to ignore the hyper-righteous crusader on the stump. Wasn't it Santorum who once said the government ought to stop issuing food stamps because poor people were already too fat. So there!

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Scam artists! Those are the beasts that Sen. Sherrod Brown says will have the most to fear from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In his talk to the Akron Press Club Friday, Brown praised President Obama's appointment of Richard Cordray to head the agency that congressional Republicans have stonewalled as an intrusion into the financial industry's privately operated free enterprise system.

Unless you are a scam artist yourself, who can argue with the appointment that will activate the oversight of the CFP watchdog? Well, the jittery GOP praetorian guard that looks out for Big Money's best interests, that's who. And if you're still in doubt about the cause of the home mortgage mess, may I recommend Gretchen Morgenson's book, Reckless Endangerment/How outsized greed, and corruption led to economic Armadgeddon.

Brown's appearance filled the room at the Martin Center with about 200 guests, who gave him a standing ovation. (His Republican challenger, State Treasurer Josh Mandel has yet to accept an invitation to appear at the same Press Club podium. He has already turned down an offer on grounds that he was "too busy". ) Josh, for God's sake, is that any way to demonstrate your interest in serving the people?

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To all of the naysayers who suggest the unemployed aren't trying hard enough to find work, I'll refer you to some photos in the current Atlantic magazine. One shows a line as long as the Chinese wall that turned up for a job fair in Atlanta, Ga. Another shows a lineup of Trenton, N. J. (isn't that Chris Christie's state capital?) police officers who were among the more than 100 cops laid off. The caption says they are offering their "final salute" with their empty boots resting on the sidewalk in front on them.