Monday, November 03, 2008

and another thing

This month is the first anniversary of the demise of the Howard Government. My views on that are well known, so I wont bore readers (oh, you have readers?? ed) with further barbs. I only note that the sky hasn't fallen in. Nor have any apocalyptical horsemen ridden into town.

Tuesday, I hope, sees the demise of Republican control of the White House and any other house, for that matter. Now I don't mind John McCain and more's the pity that he didn't win the GOP nomination against Bush a decade ago. He was the worthier of the two by a long shot. But I think that Obama has a real opportunity to break some of the political molds that are holding back real American leadership on the planet, whether it be on climate change, or proliferation or solving the multiple crisis's that dog us all. The US is an important player.

Other than politics, I should explain or perhaps even apologize for the terribly prosaic nature of my scribblings about Japan. My idea, such as it was, was to document in the simplest terms possible my sense of attachment to place, that place being the physical environment of my life in Japan. So details like train lines and parks and shopping centres, often pedantically rendered here, loomed quite large in my daily scheme of things, then. They help me to remember.

It's also partly a grieving process. The years spent in Japan were amongst the happiest and most productive of my life, and they are unlikely to be revisited. The school is sold. We now have a young family. And that's that.

So if I bore you with trivial detail, I will make amends later. And perhaps you will understand.

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