visit with the neighbours

Today we visited with the neighbours.

It turns out that one of the other husbands shares my interest in photographing dilapidated things that have taken on a certain charm or beauty. He showed me some collections from various sites in Shizoaka: an abandoned hotel, a wave-collapsed train tunnel and a section of reinforced highway that was crushed in a rock-slide and then cut out of the road network. I stammered out an explanation of the Frank Slide in Japanese.

I also got into a discussion with another expat dad about the ongoing financial crisis-catastrophe. To my surprise, the Brit brought up the sudden mini-crisis in Canada, and wondered how on Earth Canada of all places had managed to manufacture such a thing. It's sad, really. At a time when absolutely everyone else is going through severe problems—even the Swiss managed to completely ball up their banks—Canada's have been largely intact. It's like Canada felt left out and decided that it needed its own home-made disaster. And then set about making it out of construction paper and dry macaroni.

I've had little but contempt for Harper and his creepy brand of crypto-Republicanism, but the lack of leadership he showed in bringing this farce upon us is downright embarrassing. And now the Governor-General has joined the game by allowing him to suspend Parliament with no valid reason. Where the hell is the "Peace, Order and Good Government" that our constitution promises? I guess if this decade's taught us nothing else it's that constitutions don't mean much to "Conservatives".