Japan, Land of the Free-ey wee-ey

"Knock, knock",

"Who's there?"

"International terrorist cell"

"International terrorist cell, who?"

"Wouldn't you like to know, HA".

And thus, God invented the airport immigration gate fingerprint identification system, which until last week, only one country on earth was stupid enough to employ. You get three guesses on this one, and the first two don't count. Until now, that sad lonely bully was stuffing his face at his own birthday party, no one to share the cake with, until Samurai Nerdy McNerdington, finally showed up at the party, 2 hours late bowing profusely and landen with prezzies. Because, hey, it takes two ta tango.

Japan has become the glorious second to use terrorism as a thinly veiled excuse for fingerprinting and keeping close records on foreign traffic in and out of the country. As far as I know, there is no Kantanomo Bay buried deep in the Salkin Islands in which to stock suspected riferaff, but there are ample military bases in Okinawa which I'm sure could use the entertainment. It'll be a beautiful marriage: no one loves poising for pictures more than US military prison guards, and no likes taking them more than the Japanese. But seriously, who would have expected this; Japan with it's free loving society and arms open to the wide wide world, doubting, no, actively SUSPECTING those whom it habours so graciously? Oh yeah, everyone. This is the Japan that during sakoku had armed guards attend every translator in the government when they negotiated trade with the Dutch and Portuguese. Not for the safety of the translator, but so that in the event the man was suspected of giving away national secrets, he could dispatched before his mouth ran too far afoul of him. They believed there to be something traitorous about a brain that understands other languages, yet how the guard, being a true and thoroughly ignorant patriot, was supposed to assertain the difference between a national secret in Dutch, or just the secret colour of a European women's private forest, is completely beyond me.

They have got to be on the right track, eh. Two massively xenophobic countries with long histories of military aggressionism and racial exclusionism...they wouldn't be fingerprinting foreigners if those people didn't have something dirty to hide. And if you don't like it, YOU must have something to hide too. Every morning when I wake up, I think to myself that there is entirely too much tolerance and goodwill floating around, and it's high time someone put an end it and reserved trust and honesty only for those who truly deserve it, like the starfish, and people who see Jesus in the water stains of their poor-ass ceilings. Heaven knows, I won't be able to go back now, not with my citizenship from Duel Country and my $300 in unpaid local residence tax. It all started apparently, after a French national was suspected of trying to form a terrorist cell while he resided there in the early 2000's.

Cest la vie.