What's it like to be young in this most elderly, least youthful country on Earth?
Wooing voters in Nagano Prefecture in the closing days of this month's election campaign, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said a mouthful, perhaps more than he intended, when he rousingly declared, "We are moving forward to a Japanese society in which people can have hopes and dreams."
Not "to a society in which hopes and dreams come true." To a society in which hopes and dreams are possible. The implication is plain: They are not possible now.