After reading the Nov. 15 Readers' Voice, two of the comments ("Japan's noisy election campaigns" and "Indignation over health care system") led me to one thought: Noisy election campaigns are bothersome, but I find the problem lies somewhere else. What really bothers me is that many candidates do not try to convey their ideas concerning politics. How do we know the candidate's policy and passion from repetition of his or her name? I believe I'm not the first person posing this question, but this ridiculous custom has never changed as though politicians know that many citizens do not have much passion and willingness to change this country for the better.

Now, look what we've got! Mr. Kanda wrote in his letter on health care: "I can't feel humanity in Japanese politics."

Luckily, we live in a country whose Constitution clearly states that the sovereignty is of the people. However, it does not mean that our lives are automatically guaranteed to be satisfactory.

We must remember that we cannot exercise our rights without expressing our opinion. We must remember that null and inhumane politicking reflects our attitude toward politics. I sincerely hope that the next Lower House election will be a turning point in Japanese political history.

These days, I cannot read articles on the working poor (Nov. 1 and Nov. 15 issues) and on the low birthrate in Japan (Sept. 13 issue) without feeling some kind of frustration.

I genuinely hope that the young people will get married to have large families. However, marriage is far from realistic for them unless their wages are adequate. There are some people around me who belong to the so-called "Lost Generation." They look to be in about the same situation as described in the articles. We Japanese live in an aging society. The future would be dark if the young people are not full of vigor.

Several years ago, the government barely began to propose new measures to reverse the low birthrate. I am wondering if there will be any politicians who will roll up their sleeves and speak for the young.

The young people are a great treasure in general. How I wish we all could unite together to restore society to where they can proudly talk about their dreams.

The bankruptcy of Yohan Inc. was quite shocking to me. I enjoyed buying a variety of foreign magazines and paperbacks at local bookstores. Since Yohan went bankrupt July 31, I feel that we have less and less opportunities to find foreign books.

According to the article about foreign magazines in limbo (Oct. 4th issue), people are increasingly shunning bookstores. They are buying books via the Internet. In addition, many young people in Japan prefer to use the Internet and cell phones to read books and the news. Some of them do not want to read anything even written in Japanese.

I feel quite strange that most bookstores are full of books to cope with English-language exams such as TOEIC-related books, and there are only a few English publications and magazines.

The Japan Times Weekly: Dec. 6, 2008
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