Category — news

My mail-in ballot writ large, via: http://www.photofunia.com/

 

 

Is there anything as doleful as the last run of an old train before it is dismantled an melted down? Can we all just start crying now?

Japanese adventurer Yuichiro Miura, 75, whom I photographed at a lecture in Kyoto in 2005, climbed to the summit of Mt. Everest last week in an attempt to recapture bragging rights he previously held as the “oldest summiteer.” It didn’t quite work out. One day before he reached the top, a 76-year-old Nepalese climber got there first and set a new record. Man, I hate when that happens.

At the lecture, Miura pointed out that people are always surprised that he does not have an athlete’s body. he’s fairly short and pudgy, and could be mistaken for any average salaryman. But he walks around all day wearing a backpack with about 45 pounds of lead weights in it and more weights strapped to his ankles. Indeed, he arrived for the lecture wearing this gear, took it off before ascending the south face of the podium, and put it back on before leaving.

There was a forest fire yesterday climbing up the mountainside above us, but the fire department managed to get it under control within a couple hours. It seemed to be coming from Manshu-in Temple, which would be a great tragedy, but a gentleman coming down the hill later in the evening told me it started at a maintenance building for a nearby graveyard and spread to the forest. It got bigger and looked as though it was going to burn out of control, but somehow the fire department managed to get up there and attack it.  In my hometown in Southern California, where it rains so seldom and the hillsides are so dry and brown, we are accustomed to such fires lasting for days and devastating thousands of acres of brushland.

Fresh details on the Torturer-In-Chief’s schedule spotted by my wife: asahi.com

As noted earlier, bush is scheduled to come to Kyoto Nov. 15-16 before a summit in Korea.

Although I strongly suspect that Bush himself won’t be able to see me at all, I feel a strong civic urge to voice my objections upon this occasion, and so, judging by the news cylcle here and abroad, I have concluded that Wed. morning the 16th would be the best time to get media attention, but I am open to Tuesday evening if that is better for folks’ work schedules. If anyone is interested in joining me, reply here and we can coordinate further, perhaps with a mtg at Tadg’s some night this week.

In the comments on my previous entry (see link at left), a group may come on the evening of the 15th if you prefer that.

Another brilliant idea from his brain trust.
Asahi News (Japanese)
Mainichi Daily news (English)

I’ve always wondered what tear gas tastes like…

Unfortunately, Kyoto has just finished building a geihinkan, a huge state visitor guesthouse complex inside the grounds of the old Imperial Palace Park (aerial view). Thus, it will be easy for security to keep the common folk far away. You’d probably need around 80 stout men with a really boss battering ram just to knock down the huge, wooden eastern gate to the Imperial Palace park, and that would only get you inside the first wall.

I hope they announce his sightseeing itinerary.

The cat welfare scam has recently become a common sight in high-traffic areas of Kyoto such as bridges and station exits. Dubious-looking gentlemen (to say the least) solicit donations under the pretense that they are animal welfare angels, and indeed they have rounded up some stray cats and put them in boxes or cages, along with pictures that seem to be cut out of magazines or brochures. Please don’t feed the scammers.

Steve come down that hill making 90 miles an hour,
His whistle begin to scream,
He was found in the wreck with his hand upon the throttle,
And scalded to death by the steam.

“The Wreck of the Old 97″ (warning: 550kb QT audio) is a classic American folk song about a train crash, a song that somehow made a big, scary and permanent impression on me as a kid. I think I still have 3 or 4 versions of it (including punk!), but this is my favorite, a 1950 recording by a Southern street performer named Pink Anderson with a hard, raspy voice. The lo-fi “Gospel, Blues and Street Songs” album of Pink Anderson and New York’s Rev. Blind Gary Davis linked on that page, from which this even-lower-fi sample comes, is one of my favorite folk albums. Details of the very true story of the wreck and lyrics quite similar to Pink’s are here.

I’ve been singing it in the back of my head for the past five days, and now they’ve found the body of the young driver, just an insecure kid who made a bad judgment with such an enormous and terrible price that over a hundred souls had to pay.

I don’t agree that it was indicative of some big problem. The railroads are extremely safe in large part because of their punctuality. If the kid made a bad call based on fear of repercussions, it just means that recruits should be reminded about priorities and get constant reinforcement from trainers, and definitely more seasoning time before they get behind the throttle.

Today I was back on JR for the first time since the big accident, and my express train from Kyoto through Osaka (and, yes, Amagasaki) was six minutes behind schedule, so there was much muttering amongst the passengers (although many trains get behind during Golden Week every year). Everyone was eager to get a glimpse of the driver as he pulled in to the station (reassuring veteran driver, whew).

Of course, the conductor had to make a very awkward announcement that “…passengers normally transferring to the Fukuchiyama line should transfer instead to the Hankyu Railway, as ours is not in service at this time.”

I plugged in the headphone on my new cellphone and turned on the TV, but there’s basically only one thing on TV these days, and the wrecked train was exactly the same make and color as the one I was on, so it was kind of meta and not amusing at all to watch the news. Shut off the TV and get out a book instead.

You can no longer get to Lake Biwa by boat over the mountains via the “Incline” (left), but if you can get over there by more mundane means, as noted by Bob on Pure Land Mountain, There is an International Fireworks Symposium (mouse over the text for magic translations from Rikai.com) next week in Otsu with exhibitions every night at various locations around the lake. They’ll certainly shoot the works to try to outshine each other, so there could be some terrific shows. The tracks dating from 1890 lead from Kyoto’s canals pictured in recent posts over the mountains to the lake.