“A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.”
~ Ecclesiastes 3:8
Joel Bowman with today’s Note From the End of the World: Kyoto, Japan...
Iran’s Supreme Leader is dead...
The United States of America is at war...
Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are all under attack...
We write to you today from the Far East, dear reader, grateful that we are not in the Middle East.
There, over lands sacred and holy, an ungodly swarm of drones and missiles criss-cross the blue yonder, striking military installations and civilian targets alike, while heaven watches on.
Of course, war between the tribes is nothing new... and each “side” has its own scriptural passages that deal with such moments of conflict and bloodshed.
From the Hebrew Bible, the voice of the son of David declares…
“To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven…
A time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.”
Likewise do the Christians read in their holy text:
“You will hear of wars and rumors of wars,” said Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew, “For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.”
As do the Muslims. From the Qur’an 9:29:
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah… among the People of the Scripture [Jews, Christians] until they give the jizyah [tax] willingly while they are humbled.”
What does a creator god think of the brutality and barbarism among his children? It is not for us to say… or even to know. From the Book of Acts: “It is not given man to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power.”
There being plenty of time for postmortems and political pontifications in future Notes, we pause today only to notice that bombs fall on the just and the unjust alike, same today as at the beginning of time. Sigh.
West to East
Meanwhile... here in Japan, we are traveling across this impressive land, from the old capital of Kyoto, in the west, to the new capital, Tokyo, in the east. The distance of ~500kms (320 miles) is covered in comfort and ease upon the Shinkansen “bullet train,” which cruises at speeds of ~300kms per hour (185 mph). Propelled by linear motors and levitated by magnetic forces, the ride is smooth and quiet, as are the wordless passengers who nod and bow politely as they board and disembark at the various stations in remarkably orderly fashion.
Outside the window, time and space rush by in a blur of quaint little fishing villages, soaring snowcapped mountains and sprawling metropolises. Next to us a smartly dressed young woman eats her meal in monastic silence. When she is done, she neatly collapses her cardboard meal box, carefully wipes her seat back tray clean, folds the napkin and returns her attention calmly to the passing countryside. Our carriage, number five, is as quiet as a library.
We recall a popular meme seen on social media a few weeks back, in which someone had posted a short clip showing another of this country’s many engineering marvels, along with the gripe:
“How come Japan gets cool things like suspension monorail trains, and we don’t?”
To which the delightfully uncensored X community promptly offered up a plethora of helpful explanations, including many you can already imagine... and plenty more besides. Have your say in the comments section, below…
Among the community responses, this pithy rejoinder:
“Because Japan doesn’t spend resources babysitting foreign illegals from third-world sh!tholes at home and bombing them abroad.”
Which is true enough, today. Of course, it wasn’t always this way. Japan, too, has suffered the blight of imperial aspirations, as we shall see next week...
Meanwhile, please enjoy our Notes from the week past, in which we mused on the looming population collapse, marveled at the timeless art of laughing at our so-called masters, and checked in on the radical experiment in free market economics back at the other End of the World, down in Argentina. Please enjoy, below…
And now for your Notes From the End of the Week…
Final Notes…
As always, a special thanks to our paying Notes members, who kindly support our work with their dues. (Paying for a good or service voluntarily… without the compulsion of The State. Imagine that!)
If you’re not already a member, but would like to join our small but growing community, please consider doing so today, right here…
Wherever you’re traveling this weekend, we hope the skies over your head are clear and the road ahead free.
Right now, as our stop is approaching at breakneck speed, we still have a sushi box to fold, a tray back to clean and a family to marshal. We’ll write again from Tokyo.
As always, stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World…
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
