getting all nerdy about defenses against a theoretical UFO invasion late last year.<\/a> Charles takes the issue and runs with it. Hilariously. The Yomiuri, not known for any sense of humor (or for brooking any criticism of Japan from outsiders), wouldn’t publish it. So I will. Debito in Sapporo<\/p>\n\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/<\/p>\n
UNPUBLISHED LETTER TO THE EDITOR AT THE YOMIURI, BY CHARLES KOWALSKI:<\/b><\/p>\n
To Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba:<\/i><\/p>\n
I urge you to reconsider your comment that UFOs “can’t be categorized as coming from a foreign country” (Yomiuri December 21, page 2). Please take a moment to think about the dangerous precedents this policy would set.<\/p>\n
If UFOs could enter Japanese airspace without resistance, they could easily spirit away Japanese citizens. Japan has enough abduction issues already! But even worse, what if the extraterrestrial visitors liked our beautiful country so much that they decided to stay – and without the limitations that apply to humans from other countries?<\/p>\n
First of all, with no visa restrictions, they could take jobs away from Japanese citizens. In the fields of astrophysics and aeronautics, an interstellar pilot would have a grossly unfair advantage over a Japanese graduate who shuffled through university with a perpetual hangover. Do you want more of our young people to become NEETs?<\/p>\n
And if men from Mars, or women from Venus, were to marry Japanese citizens, what would prevent their names from being recorded in the juminhyo? Tama-chan was cute as a one-time joke, but do you really want to see Qrlzak Wzaxo from Jupiter listed on equal terms with Hanako Sato from Morioka? And their children, with one parent from a planet with higher gravity, would always beat their Japanese classmates in athletic competitions! How unsporting!<\/p>\n
Our course of action should be clear: Treat extraterrestrials the same as any other aliens. When they arrive at the UFO terminal at Narita, take prints of their claws, tentacles, antennae or whatever they use for fingers. Make them carry Space Alien Registration Cards that the police could inspect at any time. Interplanetarization is all very well, but we Japanese must take measures to prevent these aliens from going where no gaijin has gone before.
\nENDS\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is so good I couldn\u2019t just let it languish within the comments section of this blog. It deserves an entry all its own. Charles Kowalski sent this letter to the Yomiuri when Defense Minister Hashiba (inter alia) was getting all nerdy about defenses against a theoretical UFO invasion late last year. Charles takes the issue and runs with it. The Yomiuri, predictably, wouldn\u2019t publish it. So I will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,12,26,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","category-immigration-assimilation","category-ironies-hypocrisies","category-japanese-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/902\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}