Day of the Living Dead Non-Profit Organizations...

A new interesting word has emerged here in Japan, a word that is unlikely to become an established "False Friend" (as my big bro taught us earlier). The word is "Zombie Organization" (ゾンビ事業).

When the DPJ ousted the LDP out of power in Japan, they started a public hearing of government sponsored NPO's (Non-Profit Organization) to sort out the inefficient and unnecessary organizations and "put and end to the wasteless and irresponsible spending of tax payer's money of the LDP". But also, making the hearings public and televising them made quite a spectacle of it and brought the chairwoman Rehno to further public fame. The hearings likely was mostly boring and dull, but some amusing bits were shown repeatedly on tv where bitchiness reigned supreme, both from the committee and and NPO's getting the sharp end of the stick.

In theory, I guess the principle was good since it seems like there's a lot of NPO's there whose prime objective seem to secure government money and comfy jobs with no real demand for any output or results and the change in government probably severed a lot of networks from any " 'ol boys club" where mutual back-scratching was rampant.

But, like most of the DPJ's initiatives, it seems like it was well meant but just horribly poorly implemented. What has happened now is that many of the NPO's that got their grants cut in the first round have changed their names and resurrected themselves as a completely new organization and again managed to get the government money crane flowing. These old-new NPO's have gotten the name Zombie Organizations now in the media as they come back to life after being killed once (see an article in Japanese here).

I think it's common knowledge that for the modern zombies, the only way to really kill them is to shoot them in the head and destroy their brains (filling the mouth with salt and sewing it shut is old school), but how do you kill a zombified organization? I will eagerly follow the news here to see if they come up with an answer!