Pure Land Mountain - Robert Brady

We provided a view from England before, so let's go in the other direction and get a view from Japan by Robert Brady.

This year is Red fire, dog year

Robert writes about the leap second:

Yes, Virginia, believe it or not, there is an International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. How do I know this? I know this because the astronomers and the clock community are at each other's throats again. Some modern things just never change. Sorry Virginia, I don't really know what the "clock community" is, though it seems to include everyone who isn't an astronomer.

Robert writes haiku

slow arrows
cedar trees
pierce the falling snow

Robert writes on the growing Japanese population:

Don't look now, but at any minute, for the first time in a century, fewer people in Japan are being born than are dying. These days there just seems to be less general interest in those two types of experience. Which brings us to the aging society, with Japan once again the world's canary in a coal mine, entering a new realm before anyone else, and with yours truly pretty much up there in the local silver vanguard, looking for the champagne bar.

Read more of Robert here.