Back to Nature: Japanese SUV Wheel Covers

Back to nature- in an inefficient, unecessarily beefy vehicle. Most local SUVs have somewhat enigmatic mottos on the wheel covers. This is the first in a series (as I manage to get shots of them).


Profound question. Is one's choice of vehicle a reliable indicator of the answer?

Pick Your Poison

It appears there is still a lot of talk going on about fats in our diets- at least in North America. Not everyone in the world feels that way, apparently.


Behold, 4.4 percent milk!


After this, it's hard for me to get used to 1 percent or even 2 percent stuff, so I usually go rebellious and get half-and-half when I'm on the other side of the Pacific (virtually all the milk I consume is in coffee or ice cream- 2 other sources of dietary controversy).
Here in Japan the more restrained 3.5 percent milk is more common, but I guess someone wanted their product to stand out.
I AM concerned about my diet, but I feel stress is more likely to cause problems, so I opt for a moderate approach. A balanced diet of unprocessed foods, with lots of vegetables ought to take care of most of the problems, I think, but I know there are a lot of people out there who advocate a much more rigorous control of what they consume. I am left to wonder how many of them are as picky about what they allow into their minds as what they allow into their mouths. The former have eternal consequences, whereas food's effects are less dauntingly permanent.
Jesus' disciples were worried about food, because of Jewish kosher laws. Jesus said "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean'" (Matthew 15:17-18). What comes out of our heart, or mind if you will, springs from what we let into it.
We know what percentage of fat is in our milk, but what percentage of that which goes into our minds is from God, and what percentage is from evil? The balance of these 2 steer us either to God , or away from Him.

Ingenuity Plus

How to Remove Snow From One's Roof


How else? Take the snowblower up.
This is an example, spotted today (next door) of what I mentioned in my last post. Forget the sterotypes- there are some really creative thinkers in this country

Sa Sa Le Le

At least, that's how I read it...


I had business in Goshogawara today. It was a bad day for it. You would think that most people would be at work at 10:00 am on a Monday, BUT most of those who were working seemed to be moving snow

The road right in front of the Goshogawara City Hall


or working on construction projects. Yes, it's a dumb time of year for that, but the fiscal year ends in March, so the road department has to use their budget up quick. Everyone else was out driving around, or trying to. SO.. I had lots of time to contemplate this sign in a store while I waited for traffic to inch on a bit. And, I read it as "Sa Sa Le Le". Well, isn't it?
I have often marvelled at the "awful" things Japanese ad men do to English, and longed to get ahold of them and correct their "errors". But, then I realized something that should have been obvious- those signs weren't written for Anglophones like me- they are for Japanese consumers. And, Japanese consumers know what is being said- in this case, "Sale".
The genius of this country is in the curiousity and creativity of many of it's citizens. They adopt and adapt things readily: change has been one of the country's main features since the Meiji era began. But somehow, though things are always changing, it's always still Japan.