What the %$#@ is wrong with Noda!

It is mindboggling. To the max. I just cannot understand how he can allow the restart of the Oi nukes. After what happened in Fukushima? What the %$#@ is wrong with him? Is he completely braindead?

Friends Feed My Soul

Here in Tokyo the skies are dark. Too much concrete and steel weigh down my spirit. Everything seems outrageously expensive. So why am I so happy?

I am surrounded by love. Love from my family, love from my friends, even love from my former radio show listeners (the fans who I have gotten to know well.) It is a humbling experience.

After decades on air, I was sick of it all. I didn't need the stress, the endless hours of work, the exposure, the fan mail... Ugh. Get me out of here. 

What an ingrate I was.

Most of the year I live in silence and isolation. I tell Big Dog, that's why I talk so loudly in my sleep. I have not found a new "tribe" to replace the one I had in Tokyo, but it was okay. I had all the great energy from nature to commune with. But now in Tokyo, reconnecting with all these people, I realize how much they mean to me, how so fortunate I am.

My wacky family and our amazing dinner conversations that can go from heated political debates to potty humor. MM who has inspired me to lighten my life in preparation for The Big Change that she/we believe is coming. Q with all her spiritual wisdom. MS who never ceases to push my creativity buttons. My oldest friend G, always making me laugh. Remember how you made me laugh even on the day of my father's wake?

I can't wait to meet up with the others.

I used to think the best part of homecoming was the fantastic food here. Now I know it's really my friends and family who so completely feed my soul.

Last Day in Japan

Plutonium is leaking from the Fukushima nuclear power plant... Politicians who were bought out by TEPCO are madly trying to get rid of Prime Minister Kan... Commercial media (also bought out) makes it seem like he is being brought down by his ineffectualness during the crisis... People who rely only on TV for information are swayed... Soon, another politician bribed by TEPCO will be in power and Kan's promise of shutting down Fukushima by January (including getting rid of all radioactive materials -- not sure how, but there have been many discussions of methods to do so) will disappear like so many homes in the tsunami... Tokyoites are forgetting the lessons of only a few weeks ago, tired of being in post-disaster mode... It's starting to heat up here and those who swore to reduce their air con use are now saying "shoganai yo ne (can't be helped), we can't possibly get through the summer without it"...

Only a little while ago, I thought the Japanese were on the right track. The population is highly educated, hard working -- we can get through this and make the country even better, I thought. My optimism is crumbling.

I want to go back to the hills and the fields, the forests and my garden, the life I love. But I am also torn. I feel like I need to stay and be a part of the solution. It's making me crazy on my last day in Japan.

Urgent!!

Email from Tokyo:

Dear Friends,
I do not normally bombard my friends and family with petitions, but this is critical. We live on a ranch in Central California -- an area that is breathtakingly beautiful -- AND only a few miles from the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant.

I am in Japan right now where the nuclear disaster is an on-going nightmare. It is the beginning of rainy season and damaged facilities at Fukushima Daiichi are now being flooded with rain water -- the new threat of radioactive contamination. We wait anxiously to see what else may happen, as the radioactive materials seep into groundwater.

There's only been a trickle of new news about Fukushima in the US/World media, but here, it is a daily reality. The newspapers are filled with new information, as are the tv shows. Daily regional radiation counts appear in the newspaper like weather forecasts, or sports scores. It is surreal.

The anti-nuclear movement has been put on hyperspeed in Japan. One good thing to come out of the Fukushima disaster. People who have been working hard, despite opposition from pro-nuke neighbors and government, are finally beginning to feel like their decades-long struggle has not been in vain. The other day, there was a news item on tv about a lady who lives 300 meters from a nuclear plant they had just started to construct. She was the only one who refused to sell her land to the power company!! It was a tiny house (a small log house she built herself for her mother!) but equipped with solar panels and wind turbines. In a conformist country, you can imagine the kind of struggles she's had to go through. But she was feeling optimistic, at last. The plant's construction has been put on hold for the moment and she hopes it will be canceled. She was saying how glad she was that things have started to change before they had brought in any radioactive materials.

Another news item was about rural areas trying to do small-scale hydroelectric, using the abundant streams and rivers without damaging the environment. Everyone is thinking of renewable energy. I believe a non-nuclear future IS possible -- if we all work together.

It is raining today, too. Back on the ranch, I can go outside, spread my arms and enjoy a downpour. Here, I will be covered from head to toe. I am reminded of the line from Joni Mitchell's song Big Yellow Taxi. "You don't know what you've got til it's gone." PLEASE click here. PLEASE forward this to as many people as possible.

With gratitude and respect,
Bad-Dog

Full Circle

I think it was earlier this year. I came across Alicia Bay-Laurel's website.

If you grew up during the 70's you might be familiar with her book "Living on the Earth." Or maybe "Being of the Sun." Alicia lived on a commune and wrote beautifully hand-scripted, illustrated manuals.

Reading how Alicia wanted to one day learn Japanese compelled me to write to her. I told her that her books became a sort of inner guide as I navigated through the time and space of Tokyo. During the following decades, as I worked in the World of Media, that guide faded into the background, but one day, as I was cleaning out my mother's attic, I found my old, beat-up copies of her books. How crazy, I thought. Look at me now. Trying to "live on the earth" much as I had dreamed all those years ago. "I feel like I've come full circle," I emailed her. And that I would be happy to assist in any language related matters.

It read like a dumb fan letter. Ready to be ignored. But, no! I got a lovely, warm reply and we started exchanging emails. She made me feel like I had known her for ages. (Actually I HAD! I just had to wait more than 3 decades for her to know me!)

And then the synchronicities started flooding in. We had mutual friends! And now we were going to be in Japan at the same time!

We met in Japan for the first time, although for me it was like reconnecting with an old friend, as the synchronicities kept adding up. Not only had I come full circle, but the circle (en) of connections (en) kept growing. Keeps growing.

But, why should I be surprised? We are ALL connected...really...in the en(d).

(Indigo plant from Alisha and my new friend, B.'s yard. He uses it to dye his silk, made the traditional way.)

Obamans for Obama

Fukui Prefecture, on the southwest coast of Japan, was always linked in my mind with nuclear power plants. I thought that it was a relatively poor area that could not refuse the revenues these power plants would bring. Power plants aside, I was wrong about the poverty.

There was a little article in today's newspaper that showed a very different Fukui. Lowest unemployment rate in the nation, third in terms of individual savings, second lowest infant mortality... it's also tops in terms of female employment as well as second in birthrate, proving equal opportunity for women has nothing to do with the ever-declining birthrate in Japan. Who knew Fukui was such a progressive prefecture!

But right now, the prefecture's number one claim to fame is the little town of Obama. Previously known only as an unpretentious seafood processing town, today, it is the base camp of the "Obama-koho wo katteni o-en suru Kai." ("The Unofficial Group for Unofficially Supporting Presidential Candidate Obama")

The town is filled with tributes to the American politician -- support posters are plastered throughout the town, the senator's mug is baked into Obama Buns, there's a pachinko parlour named "President" and every Tuesday is "Super Tuesday." Now, there's a CD. I haven't heard it yet, but someone who has says that they sing mostly about the beautiful shores of Obama (Fukui) and Obama's boyhood home, Hawaii.

And to think, before the senator's rise to the political stage, the only political thing associated with Obama, Fukui was the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korean agents.

But sometimes I think everything is connected and there are no accidents. Maybe in time, we will see how all of these small coincidences come together.