The Backbencher

The Original Taste of Breakfast in Japan

Konichi-wa! I am writing to you from Sapporo, Japan. And I am a bit dizzy because I haven’t had much to eat.

Now, I don’t care how much you say you love Japanese food. It’s a daunting prospect when you wake up jet-lagged, having survived 30 hours of travel from Grand Forks, North Dakota, and it’s time for breakfast.

Just think for a second about everything you know of Japanese food, and now think about breakfast. Kind of confusing, isn’t it? And besides, I never said I was crazy about Japanese food. I’ve certainly enjoyed many things I’ve eaten in Japanese restaurants, but, to be honest, I’ve got a palate slightly more adventurous than that of my three-year-old son, Joe. And he’s never tried a strawberry.

So I wandered out of my hotel, found a small convenience store, and walked the aisles. The only food product I was able to conclusively identify was a bag of dried octopus. Believe me, even if you’ve never seen dried octopus packaged like beef jerky, it’s the kind of thing where, you know it when you see it. Rows of suction cups on tentacles is a dead giveaway. Everything else on the shelves was utterly mysterious. Now, at one point, I thought I had identified some pretzels, but the fact that they were hanging on the peg next to the dried octopus made me think that I really had no idea what I was looking at.

I overheard a German couple talking – and I don’t know much German – but I did hear the word “Frühstück” spoken with some degree of distress. “Frühstück” means “breakfast.” And doing that translation in my head is about the highest use to which I have put my two years of college German. (Kids, take Español.)

Finally, in a corner of the store, I ran into an old friend: Tony the Tiger. He was perched, broad-shouldered and smiling, on the label of a box of “Frosties.” The color illustration depicted food that certainly looked like Frosted Flakes. So I decided to give it a go.

But now I faced a new problem: milk. After some searching, I found a refrigerated carton bearing a picture of cows in a pasture. Where I come from, that is a clear indication of something that is dairy-themed. And while almost all of the labeling was in Japanese, it did say, in English, in small little letters:

The original taste of milk.

Close enough. I snagged a carton and headed for the checkout.

I’ll note that one thing many travelers struggle with is understanding the value of foreign currency. The exchange rate in Japan is currently one yen to 0.009316 U.S. dollars. With ratios like this, it’s impossible to calculate the exact cost of items on the fly. So you have to make do with estimating. For me, the easiest, if not most accurate method of estimating, is to assume that one yen equals one dollar. The resulting figures make it seem like prices in Japan are astronomically high, but it also makes me feel insanely rich.

Walking out of the store I thought to myself: Did I just drop 475 big ones on a box of Frosted Flakes? Oh yeah, I did!

Back in my hotel room, I selected a small cup intended to hold afternoon tea, and poured in some Frosties. Then I opened the carton and sniffed the white liquid inside. It smelled like seafood.

Okay, I freaked out for a second. But then I remembered that the Japanese are passionately careful in their preparation and handling of seafood. So I took the fishy smell as an indicator of high quality, and I filled up the bowl.

Hmmm. I needed a spoon. The closest I could come on a moment's notice was the complimentary toothbrush the hotel was kind enough to provide me with. Not only did I get a belly full of delicious cereal, but my teeth felt refreshingly clean afterward.

And to think my mom said frosted breakfast cereals would give me cavities!

Avoiding the Tragedy of Low Prices on Beer

One of the great benefits of living in a federal system with 50 sovereign states is that, compared to a normal country, we're 50 times as likely to create really silly laws.

I recently captured these photos of a Marathon service station in west central Ohio selling “beer and wine at state minimum prices.”

Now I’m sorry, but that is just funny. Of all the evils to protect people from, the Ohio legislature, in their infinite wisdom, has seen fit to protect the citizens of the Buckeye State from getting too much of a bargain on beer.

God forbid. Maybe they should outlaw rainbows and cute, fuzzy bunnies while they're at it.

Let me make a clarifying observation: The Ohio legislature is not protecting people from cheap beer. (Natural Light, for instance, is still legal.) They are protecting people from paying cheap prices for beer.

You can see exactly how this plays out in the next two pictures. The minimum prices are different for different beers. A “fancy” beer, Miller Genuine Draft, has a minimum price of $5.19 for a six-pack of bottles. The state allows a longneck six-pack of Busch, however, to be sold for $4.19.

That’s right, the state of Ohio, in its infinite wisdom, forces people to pay more for MGD than for Busch. I’d love to have been there during the committee hearings.

“Esteemed members of the legislature, please put down your tasters. All in favor of making Ohioans pay a buck less for Busch, please signify by stumbling over a lobbyist.”

I’d have taken more photos, but I was stopped by the store clerk. She said the owner of the store, watching on closed-circuit television, was upset. Why? He was, she said – and this is best part – worried that I might be from a competitor store. Huh? What’s a competitor going to do with that information? Undercut his prices??

The law, Ohio Administrative Code 4301:1-1-72, that dictates minimum prices on beer has a preamble explaining its purpose. One aim is to prevent sales that would “improperly stimulate purchase and consumption” of beer.

Oh, okay. That makes sense. So if a “good” beer, like Budweiser Select, were sold for $3.49 per six-pack of 16-ounce cans, then people would go crazy and drink too much. But it’s okay to charge that for Milwaukee’s Best Ice, since, presumably, the taste of “the Beast” serves as its own limit on consumption.

Another purpose of the law is to “eliminate discriminatory sales practices that threaten the survival of wholesale distributors”. That’s a good point. As we all know, a lack of state-minimum prices on beer has led to the tragic loss of beer distribution in most of the rest of the United States.

Now, some of you may think that the real purpose of the law is to eliminate competition on the basis of price. Not so. The law says that part of its purpose is to “preserve orderly competition”.

If we could only put the high-minded geniuses of the Ohio legislature in charge of college sports, we might get more orderly competition in football – for instance, a rule that mandates all teams named “Ohio State Buckeyes” start national championship games with an automatic extra 30 points. That way we could prevent “disorderly” results such as Ohio State losing in back-to-back years.

Bare and Balanced in the Sin City of the Upper Midwest

You are probably like me in that you’ve been wondering for several months now why in the world the Republicans would hold their national convention in that great bastion of liberalism, Minneapolis.

Minnesota, after all, is so liberal, it was the only state to vote for Mondale instead of Reagan in 1984. In fact, the Land of 10,000 Lakes is so left wing that more than 50 percent of the radio stations are National Public Radio. If you don’t believe me, come on up and give the radio dial a spin. And bring some cassette tapes with you. Anything you can spare. I’ll listen to Air Supply’s greatest hits at this point – I’m that desperate.

Well, I have figured out why the RNC picked the Twin Cities. It’s as simple as this. Republicans want to party. And for conservatives, Minneapolis is a virtual buffet of sin. It’s where Republicans can go to let their hair down, kick off their heels, and wag their feet.

You’ll recall that late last year, Larry Craig, Republican senator from Idaho, was caught soliciting sex in the Minneapolis St. Paul Airport by making certain foot motions under the divider of a bathroom stall.

Now there’s this: I can report, as the result of my own investigative journalism (or at least my bored wanderings during a layover) that at the very same airport, and just yards away from Mr. Craig’s haunting grounds, the voice of American conservatism, Fox News Channel, is selling pornography. Yes, that’s right. Fox News is selling porn. And not just any porn. We are talking videos literally labeled “HARDCORE”.

No joke. I obtained photographic evidence, which you can see above right. On close inspection, you may be asking if I actually pixelized a portion of one of the photographs. Yup. Not family friendly, I’m afraid. Wow, this blog actually has a stricter decency policy than Fox News Channel. There you go.

I should note that these pictures were obtained at great cost. That is, at great cost to Fox News Channel. Or at least I figure as much. Anytime someone whips out a camera around the porno-mag rack at a newsstand, there’s gonna be some lost sales. I know I saw one guy scurry away.

Now, in all fairness, I should point out that there is no indication that Fox News Channel is selling pornography for prurient purposes. Their slogan is, after all: “We report. You decide.” In other words, “We sell porn. You decide what you’re going to do with it in the privacy of your own home, including using it as research for your upcoming Heritage Foundation white paper.”

Nonetheless, I’ve got to say that this is a disappointment coming from the network that employs Sean Hannity.

Sean Hannity is a great American. How do I know he is a great American? I know because everyone who calls into his radio show tells him, “Sean, you are a great American.”

Then Sean, without missing a beat, turns around and says, “Thank you, and you are a great American, too.”

Now, how does Sean know that all his callers are great Americans? I’m assuming that his call screeners, after thorough investigation, flash a message on his monitors: “CALLER IS GREAT AMERICAN.” Otherwise, it’s possible that Sean considers the act of calling into his radio show to be sufficient in itself to make someone a great American. And I’ve got to say, of all the ways there are of becoming a great American, such as dying for your country in combat, I would definitely recommend going the route of being a caller on the Sean Hannity radio program.

Let me just anticipate the comments some of you will have. “It's not fair to say Fox News Channel is selling porn when this is clearly just a newsstand at an airport which has a logo-licensing deal with Fox News Channel.”

To that, I have to pull out my intellectual-property-professor card and say, under trademark law, you are your trademark, and vice versa. The only way a trademark license can be legally acceptable is if the trademark owner controls the quality and characteristics of the thing on which the trademark appears, which, in this case, is the newsstand. To wit, viz., ERGO:

Fox News Channel is selling porn.

So, to the thousands of Republican delegates traveling to the Big Minne, I hope you whoop it up and have a grand ol’ time together. But on the off chance that you find yourself lonely, at least you know where to go to find a few hundred pages of great Americans to keep you company.

A Legal Analysis of Timeshares and Other Consumer Fraud Issues

I recently heard North Dakota’s attorney general, Wayne Stenehjem, speak on the important issue of consumer fraud. He’s a smart and talented guy. And that’s why it was all the more disappointing to hear his legal opinion on timeshares.

“A valid timeshare contract is not consumer fraud,” he said.

Now, when you read those words, you are probably saying to yourself, “Hmmm. That is a really boring quote.”

Fair enough, but this is the Attorney General of North Dakota we are talking about. And since I live in North Dakota, I’m not about to go dressing up his quotes.

The other thing I recall Attorney General Stenehjem saying did not constitute consumer fraud was delayed pancakes.

Apparently Attorney General Stenehjem’s office received a complaint from the patron of a restaurant advertising “all-you-can-eat pancakes.” The man said that when he was done eating a pancake, and he would ask for another, the waitress would sometimes make him wait as long as an hour and a half for the next pancake.

Not consumer fraud, according to the attorney general.

Now, I’m just going to disagree with that. I think that guy got ripped off. And, so, yes, I think that constitutes consumer fraud. Have I researched the issue? No. Do I have any experience with North Dakota’s consumer protection statutes? No. Have I done a keyword search on “pancake” in Westlaw? No. Do I have even a scintilla of precedent or so much as one reasoned argument from accepted legal principle? No. But I’m a law professor in North Dakota, and I think that entitles me to make my own legal pronouncement. So here it is:

Pancake delay, if both persistent and substantial, constitutes consumer fraud under the laws of the state of North Dakota.

There. That felt good. I’ve established a two-pronged test that would make the Supreme Court proud. And now that poor ripped-off restaurant patron can cite my blog in his doomed small-claims action.

But back to timeshares.

A couple of years ago my wife and I got a cold call from a major timeshare operator and we actually took the bait. We would get a deluxe room at a resort in Phoenix, access to the pool (with waterslides and a lazy river!), and, of course, a free gift. All we had to do in return was sit through a timeshare sales-presentation lasting no longer than one hour.

I was confident in my ability to resist high-pressure sales tactics and the intoxicating aroma of fresh-baked cookies. So we went for it. How bad could it be?

At the appointed hour, we went down to the timeshare sales office and met our sales guy. The first thing he said, motioning to our 12-month-old son who was just learning to walk, was, “He looks like a little drunken sailor.”

I took extreme offense at this, particularly because our son, Joe, looked exactly like a little drunken sailor. I was ready to deck the guy. It was all the more intolerable since this sales guy was one of only two people we’d ever met who did not react to our son like he was the cutest, most adorable thing in the world.

The other person was – and this is the actual truth – interviewing to be our nanny. As my wife held three-month-old Joe in her lap, and we sat across from this woman in a coffee house in Santa Monica, she actually – and this is entirely accurate – recoiled in horror when she saw Joe spit up a little. Grimacing and turning her head slightly to the side, she pointed to Joe with a crooked finger and said, “Um, there’s something, um, leaking out of his mouth. You might want to get that.”

As you won’t be surprised to learn, we opted for daycare.

So since the timeshare salesman not only insulted our kid, but actually seemed annoyed by him, we decided we would not pick Joe up, but, instead, let him walk FOR THE ENTIRE TOUR.

This was hilarious, of course. It took us eons to do the walk-through. Joe staggered in a halting zig-zag through every room of the model condo, grabbing wildly at flimsy simulated televisions and silk houseplants to keep from careening over. By the time we got back to the sales guy’s desk, our hour was, blessedly, almost up.

The sales guy went in for the close. “What I’d like to do now, is show you some of the numbers on how much money you’ll save with the timeshare plan.”

I stayed strong. “Well, whatever you want to do with the next two-and-a-half minutes is fine by me. It’s your time, and we’ll listen. But when the hour’s up, we’ll be going back to the pool.”

At this point, our guy sensed the sale was getting away from him, so he went to his A-game. For the next 150 seconds, we were barraged with such an onslaught of pathos as you could not believe. His being orphaned as an infant. His cruel aunt and uncle who made him live in a closet under the stairs. That time that he was almost killed by Voldemort. It was unbelievable. But when the minute hand reached the top of the clock, I picked Joe up, and we were out of there.

We strode confidently back to the pool, our bank account intact. But it turns out we didn’t get off scot-free. The fact is, years later, we still bear the emotional scars. I mean, it really was pretty sad that his mother sacrificed herself to save him from Voldemort’s death spell. You know, maybe we still have his business card around here somewhere.

Disney’s Epcot: Slow-Moving Boat to the Future

Built about 25 years ago, Epcot opened as the second theme park in the vast Walt Disney World resort complex. An acronym for “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow,” Epcot is a vision of what the world will look like about a quarter of a century into the future – but from the perspective of 1983. Which means that it is basically a vision of the world today. Except highly inaccurate.

Epcot is the brainchild of Walt Disney, who, after creating his original Magic Kingdom theme park, had the creative spark and boundless imagination to envision a concept that he movingly described as “yet more slow-moving boat rides” and, also, “gift shops.”

Taking its cue from world’s fairs, the park consists of various pavilions. My wife, my three-year-old son, and I dove into what Epcot had to offer by visiting “The Land.”

The Land pavilion consists of a common area of hundreds of tables and chairs surrounded by various walk-up food vendors offering food that is – get this – grown on land.

If you are picturing something that looks like a food court in a modern mall, then you’ve almost got it. But remember: 1983. So, in other words, it looks almost exactly like the “sad mall” in your town. You know, the one even Sears moved out of. All that’s left is a vacuum-repair shop, some community college satellite classrooms, and the DMV express office.

Oh boy, vacuum repair shops break my heart. Throwing away an old vacuum and buying a new one is too much guilt for me to bear. Ask my wife. She had to go to Target to get our latest vacuum last month. She can show you where in the garage I keep the old ones that I “might get repaired someday.”

But hold on, Epcot’s better than the sad mall. There is a reason you paid $300 per person for admission. This food court has RIDES, baby! My wife, son, and I considered the options and selected an attraction called Living with the Land.

Standing in line for nearly 30 minutes, we were forced to view rainbow-hued walls decorated with inspiring quotes about the environment that were variously written by grade schoolers and political leaders (note: indistinguishable from one another).

I was so “inspired,” I penned my own quote about the environment. I’ll write Disney so they can put it up as soon as possible. Here it is:

We are not Earth’s owners

We should not treat the Earth as if it belongs to us

We are here only for a short time

We are more like renters

Would you sink a bunch of time and effort

Into maintaining an apartment you were renting?

Of course not

Just spray some Lysol on the carpet where you spilled that beer

And fill the holes in the walls with Colgate toothpaste …

Let us do just enough

Just enough

To get our security deposit back

It was finally time for the ride, which, despite being themed around “the Land,” involves – SPOILER ALERT – a slow-moving boat ride.

The journey involves drifting through scene after scene lushly decorated in silk plants. The artificial foliage is so intense, it rivals aisles 6 and 7 of your local Michaels craft store.

Yes, it’s that good.

But there’s more. A door whisks open and you enter a greenhouse, demonstrating the future of farming. It is, to be precise, exactly as fascinating as watching plants grow.

You know the only thing more exciting than watching plants grow? Us neither. But we were ready to find out.

We entered that portion of Epcot called “World Showcase.” This area contains charming re-creations of various foreign countries – Germany, France, China, etc. There’s not much in the way of attractions in this part of Epcot. Instead, you are meant to relax and take in the culture. Offered are the authentic cuisines of foreign lands: funnel cake, churros, ice cream, funnel cake, and ice cream. Oh – and also churros.

In fact, the only two rides in the World Showcase section are at the Mexico and Norway pavilions.

In Mexico, you enter an Aztec pyramid to board an attraction called the Gran Fiesta Tour, which involves – SPOILER ALERT – a slow-moving boat ride. The tour is hosted by Donald Duck and his friends, including anthropomorphized rooster pal, Panchito Pistoles. As your boat meanders, you are serenaded by a mariachi band, taken to a party in Acapulco, and shown fireworks in Mexico City. The ride ends in somewhat dispiriting fashion when Lou Dobbs arrives on scene to accuse Panchito Pistoles of having crossed the border illegally to take a good-paying job away from Foghorn Leghorn.

The Norway ride is Maelstrom, an adventure involving – SPOILER ALERT – a slow-moving boat ride. Your journey to “seek the Spirit of Norway” takes you past some trolls and polar bears, and then climaxes by revealing an enormous, looming model of an offshore oil-drilling platform.

The ride was so odd, it left me with one thought (as I strolled past the trolls in the disembarkation gift shop): This thing must have been financed by Norway.

Consumed with curiosity, that night back at the hotel I actually paid $9.95 (!) for Mickey’s Hi-Speed Internet Access. What did I learn? Norwegian investors fronted tens of millions to get the ride built, and at least up until 2002, Norway’s government made annual payments of $200,000 to Disney. Apparently in return for this support, Disney toned down the trolls and played up the offshore drilling.

Hmmm. Not exactly the proudest feature of most countries. But like I said, we are not the Earth’s owners.

The Author is on "Vacation"

I can’t write much now. I am on vacation with the family at Walt Disney World.

I do have one tip for you if you are making the trip here. On your way down Interstate 4, as you come up on the four exits for Walt Disney World, take a careful look around.

These few moments, before you enter the Disney realm, are crucial. Be vigilant. What do you see? My wife spotted an outlet mall. Bam! That was it! The threat we could use throughout our 10 days here.

“Stop chewing on that boat railing, or we’ll put you right back in the car and you can spend the next six hours at Mikasa and Ann Taylor Loft. Is that what you want?”