Marine arrested in Okinawa for attacking police, and a couple of updates
If there was ever a picture/animation to describe this story coming to light at this time, it would be this one 
on the right. Yup - it seems like someone really doesn’t want the military’s period of reflection to come to an end, and yet another incident has happened with the Marines. This story comes from the Mainichi:
U.S. Marine NCO arrested for attacking Okinawa police officers
NAHA — A U.S. Marine Corps non-commissioned officer (NCO) who attacked two police officers trying to stop him from approaching his terrified estranged wife has been arrested, police said.
Aaron Charlie Sansaricq, 26, the NCO stationed at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Camp Zukeran (Camp Foster) in the central part of Okinawa Prefecture, was arrested for obstructing a public officer.
The Marine is currently exercising his right to remain silent and refuses to talk to the police.
Police said Sansaricq’s estranged wife consulted with officers at a police box on Thursday, telling them she feared for her safety after her husband told her he planned to go and see her the next day.
On Friday, a 45-year-old Okinawa Prefectural Police sergeant and 28-year-old senior police officer accompanied the estranged wife at her home in Naha.
Police said Sansaricq started shouting and screaming at his wife and when the officers prepared to intervene, he threw them to the ground, causing scratches to the hands of both policemen.
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Already, the SOFA people are collectively reaching for their foreheads, a la Worf (above) and sighing, “Not again”. There’s really no defence at all for this idiot, and once again it puts all SOFA personnel and all foreigners in a bad light.
Incidentally, going back to Sunday’s anti-US protest. Heard from a friend in the area at the time that most of the people who did seem to be involved in that (and the attendance inflating is worse than at St Helens rugby league games!) looked to be members of the ultra right-wing nationalistic groups, or other anti-foreigner-in-Japan groups. Plenty of blacked out buses playing nationalistic music going around in the area too.
Next is an update of the alleged assault and mugging by 3 people of a taxi driver in Okinawa , with a mammoth Y8,000 being taken. This update is more of a “no news” update, in that after the initial story broke (featuring headlines such as “3 foreigners rob, assault taxi driver in Okinawa“), nothing more has been said. No description of the suspects, nothing from the police and no questioning or arrests so far. You’ll recall I was a little sceptical of this story from the outset, and this lack of any more information coming to light is just making me feel more so. Even if there had been no arrest, you would have thought the media would have been publishing descriptions, exact locations etc. The thing is, the headline and story mentions the word “foreigner” straight away, but never really mentions the assault and robbery was alleged. The story could yet be proven false. But the thing is, Japanese people read the sensational news headline like that, and could easily think, “foreigners again…”. Let’s say the allegations are found to be false in the end, for argument’s sake. The story, if published at all, will be deep in the newspapers, taking up about 1 column inch, as opposed to the huge text and front-page news that came with the initial allegation. The damage is already done, and this is done in media worldwide. Notice how the newspaper’s apologies for things they have alleged or mistakes made are always somewhere really random and hard to find, while the opposite was said about the false stories.
Finally, it’s good to see Japanese lawmakers have got their heads on straight. By 2012, the Japanese government is going to require Japanese companies to cut the number of male workers with a waistline over 85cm by 10% (not sure what the waistline requirement for women will be). This figure will increase to 20% by 2015. The penalty for failing to do so will be a surcharge in contributions which will go to a fund for the elderly. For my reaction on reading this, see the picture at the top of this article! So remember that this figure is set in stone, regardless of your build or height. You’re a 6′3 rugby player with very little fat but a waist of 86cm… better get writing your CV! So what the government seems to be trying to do is create a bunch of unemployed, overweight people. These people will be out of work and therefore probably won’t be able to eat as high quality foods as before. Now, where could they go for cheap food? Ah… McDonalds do burgers for only Y100!!! You see the problem here?! And finally, the money from these penalty contributions is basically going into the government pensions fund. This will presumably be used to try and help some of the people who have basically been screwed by the government after they lost their pension information and told them they will not be able to get their pension back. Let’s just hope the fund doesn’t go the same way that a recent Y21m fund for “special road projects” in Japan went: an investigation found that Y17m/$170,000 on massage chairs, and an even more impressive Y2m/$20,000 on baseball gloves! Gotta love their priorities!
One final update for you. It seems that there were 2 people in the car with the 20-year old drunk driver who crashed on Saturday. Both were high school students and both were killed. Tragic
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