The Gimlet Eye

The Sic Society

FOR ME, matters came to a head on the morning of January 26. Queasily making my way through the pages of the Sunday New York Times I came upon a four-column photo in “The Week in Review” that summed it all up. A few days earlier, the Honorable Yoshio Sakurauchi, Japan’s answer to Speaker Foley, had denounced American workers as “lazy and illiterate.” Predictably, this had triggered another round of Nippopho-bia from American politicians, corporate bigwigs, and union hacks—few of them noted for their energy or cultivation. But the ultimate answer to Mr. Sakurauchi—in a sense, his vindication—came with this photo in the Times.

AB

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Aram Bakshian Jr.

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The Sic Society

FOR ME, matters came to a head on the morning of January 26. Queasily making my way through the pages of the Sunday New York Times I came upon a four-column photo in “The Week in Review” that summed it all up. A few days earlier, the Honorable Yoshio Sakurauchi, Japan’s answer to Speaker Foley, had denounced American workers as “lazy and illiterate.” Predictably, this had triggered another round of Nippopho-bia from American politicians, corporate bigwigs, and union hacks—few of them noted for their energy or cultivation. But the ultimate answer to Mr. Sakurauchi—in a sense, his vindication—came with this photo in the Times.