In Japan...

I was very taken by the colors that I saw and the use of wire to attach something that is seemingly out of place. At first, I thought that the extingusher was long forgotten about, but then realized that the blue wire was a new addition to the dangling strange reality. It makes me wonder how long this has been going on and how long it will continue.

If you travel around this time of the year (April), you will see many of the colorful fish wind socks here and there. Most are around 5 to 10 feet long, but some get as big as 50 feet. Often one will see a dozen or so, but sometimes I see hundreds of the fish in one spot flapping their tails in the breeze. All those fish socks are one reason I like April. It makes those sunny and breezy April days all the more beautiful. A family puts up one for each child in decending size and order.

Most Japanese towns and cities are rather ugly. One reason is the haphazard and piecemeal way urban areas are built. However, from the artistic point of view Japanese cities are chalked full of interesting and sometimes perplexing images.

No... it's just a picture of the owner of a small real estate company. Everytime I see it, a whole host of questions arise. Here is the main one. Is the owner's reason for putting up such a large picture of himself the same as Kim Jung's reason for putting up such large pictures of himself?

The large square of new black asphalt is where a new building was built in the late spring of 2008. Then, just a few months later, that nice building was torn down. How much virgin raw materials when into that place? How much air pollution was created making that place? Again, how much waste and air pollution was dumped and pumped into our environment disposing that place? The sad and maddening thing is that it happens quite often. When are the people of this nation going to stand up and say no more to this kind of senselessness. In my book, this is a serious crime. I think someone should go to jail for this kind of insane inept planning.