Herro Flom Japan

Democrat Brad Sherman of California last week said on the floor of the House of Representatives that "someone" (he won't say exactly who) threatened that if the House didn't pass the revised Wall Street bailout bill, the US could be facing martial law.

Whoever threatened martial law isn't bluffing. As you may know, on October 1 the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team was redeployed to a 12 month tour to Northern Command, "a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." When their tour is over, another brigade will take their place, to carry on with the mission "to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack."

The America of today is very different from the one I left 18 years ago. Frankly, I don't want to go back.

I think it's odd that I can't find any mention of this threat to Representatives in the mainstream media.

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I'm supposed to blog when something interesting happens to me, right?

This morning as I was passing through Shinjuku Station, I saw a woman take a dive down a short flight of slippery stairs and lie crumpled on the wet ground with a quickly expanding pool of blood under her head. (That freaked me out.) I've lived here long enough to know that you can't assume someone else is going to help so I rushed down her, tore off my headphones (and my glasses–oops), grabbed a towel from someone who pulled one out, knelt down and held the towel to her head while resting her neck on my thigh. She was talking, which was a relief. She was saying, "Don't worry about me, if you need to get to work, please go because I don't want to make you late." I told her to just relax and asked her if she was hurt anywhere else. She said she hurt her leg a little, but it didn't look broken, although I wasn't about to let my hand off her head to check. Man, she was really gushing blood. It looked like someone had slaughtered a dog on the sidewalk.

I got blood all over my jeans. Not a good pair, but these days none of my jeans are a "good pair." I can't buy my size in Japan, so I only have a few old pairs left that are still wearable. In other words, I trashed about 20% of my wardrobe right there.

Someone else called an ambulance on their mobile phone. It was nice that so many people stopped to ask if someone had called one. I like to see people care about total strangers, but day to day I don't see it often enough. Either people don't want to get involved or they just stand there dumbfounded.

There was another women there who vaguely knew her because they work at the same company, so she stayed with her to wait for the ambulance and I left to get washed up. She kept saying that she didn't want to make anyone late, and by that time she was sitting up and not bleeding as much so I figured it was OK to leave. But it's never easy to know if it's really OK to leave in a situation like that. She wanted me to, so I left.

And now I have to spend the rest of today wearing blood-stained jeans. I don't mind, really. It doesn't look like I've been through a massacre, but the stain is definitely noticeable so I'm a bit self-conscious.

Update: When I got home tonight my wife gave me a ziplock baggie full of some magical blue powder to put on the stain. The jeans just came out of the washer and much to my surprise the blood washed off completely without a trace. I told the story to both of my kids. Tony (the older one) wanted to know every last detail of the ordeal. Andy wanted to know why the heck would I volunteer to help a complete stranger.

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I'm going to go out on a limb and declare this clip will become part of US Presidential election history, like that humiliating photo of Michael Dukakis driving a tank. Huffington Post has a transcript of the dialog if it's difficult to hear. My favorite quotes are Peggy Noonan saying "It's over," and, "The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me– political bullshit about narratives…" Also Chuck Todd saying, "This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky." Michael Murphy, McCain's former campaign manager, also has nothing good to say about the pick.

In a way, it's comforting to know that when all these otherwise intelligent (but conservative) people you hear extolling Palin for her love of moose meat and what not, they really aren't stupid, they're just lying.

What I'm wondering is, since this happened on MSNBC, how will Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow cover it? They have to mention it because other media outlets are already picking up the story, as will the Obama campaign, but all three people in the video work daily with Keith and Rachael. It's going to be awkward…

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Seriously, I get heart palpitations when I imagine Sarah Palin as second in line to a 73 year old president whose father and grandfather both died before age 72. She's in waaaay over her head. Three years ago she was the ceremonial figurehead for a small town in Alaska. Three years from now she could be calling the shots. I don't care what she looks like or sounds like. This ain't no joke.

Not so seriously, here's a funny YouTube video. I think I'll watch it again and have some more whiskey.

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