Atobe here. You will not fathom my shock--or joy--at some news I just checked up on from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In the critical Senate race scheduled for 19th January, polls say the Republican, a local legislator named Scott Brown, is now closing to within nine points of the Democrat, Attorney General Martha Coakley. For one of the most liberal states in the country, this is a telling reflection on the unpopularity of the Obama government's policies. Yes, Brown is not a model conservative, but if he won, the slipshod health care bill the Democrats are staking everything on would be killed in the Senate by a 41-member minority supportive of a filibuster--sort of like my graceful special move, the Rondo Towards Destruction. Crusader has already, he has told me, turned in an absentee ballot for Brown, but pity thing! I, Atobe, a foreigner, cannot vote in Massachusetts!

You may be wondering, You, Atobe, against universal health care? Japan has had welfare for a long while. From the dawn of Japan's history, the sense that Japan and the Japanese people are an integral whole, under our beloved Emperor, has been very strong, without the counterbalancing individualism which has shaped the American experience. This cooperative spirit is an irreplaceable strength of Japan, but these goods tend to be corrupted by the unnatural technological developments of the modern world, rendering us more vulnerable to the nanny state than our American cousins. The French liberal conservative philosopher, Alexis de Tocqueville, whom I'm thoroughly versed in from my elite education, spoke most eloquently describes the nanny state soft despotism he fears modern democracies will succumb to:

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks on the contrary to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness: it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances – what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

Though we have resisted its corrosive influence much better than the Americans have, our nanny state has nonetheless done untold harm in softening the proud Japanese martial spirit. (Japan, an inhospitable environment for the family, has another big complication: our dearth of young workers is causing incredible strains on our welfare state, which Americans will not face so severely as we are until years from now.)

While we won't know what the final bill will look like until the versions passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate are reconciled, this may be the only chance the Americans have

to stop the bill. Kids, get out there and win one for Scott Brown, and you will in turn win

praises from the King of Tennis himself. I, Atobe, am not in this for personal benefit; the Atobes could enlisted an entire team of John Hopkins-trained physicians to wait at my beck-and-call should I fall ill. And after all, athletes as physically fit as myself tend to avoid health worries.

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Also, write your congressman if applicable; there are several moderate Democrats in the House. There is yet, however, plenty of time to indulge in good cheer in the coming weeks. Hence I, Atobe, recommend that you watch A Gift from Atobe, starring yours truly as he throws an opulent party for my Hyotei teammate, Kabaji, when he's feeling down. The studio managed to work it so they get the lion's share of proceeds (though I certainly don't need any more money), so consider this short film, clocking in at just half an hour, as my gift, to you. Chock full of jokes from the anime, the mini-movie will nonetheless provide good cheer for the whole family--or at least the insomniac pleb otaku running out of ramen at 4:13 in the morning. Though originally shown after the inferior The Prince of Tennis: The Two Samurais, which recounted a less interesting anecdote concerning Ryoma Echizen and his brother Ryoga, A Gift from Atobe is set to displace The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. See it, why don't you?

Be awed at the sight of my prowess!