Nancy Pelosi got into trouble when she pointed out that abortion has not always been the sin in Christianity that it has been painted to be. She pointed to the works of St. Augustine in the 4th century, who subscribed to “delayed hominization,” and wrote, “the law does not provide that the act [abortion] pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation.” That was Saint Augustine on Exodus 21:22, the source of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”–but also specifies (in a far less quoted preamble) that if one hits a woman so as to cause her unborn child to die, only a monetary fee is required.

Pelosi was quite right–the church has been all over on the matter of abortion, and for most of its history did not frown on abortion itself early in pregnancy. If one is to be perfectly honest, it is a matter which is less ordained by god and more of a detail that church leaders have arbitrarily decided upon–with life beginning at conception being a relatively modern invention (1869, to be exact). What Pelosi was saying is that life-at-conception is not the sure thing that some Christians try to claim it is, and in this, she was right.

The right wing is jumping all over this, with Fox leading the charge saying that “Pelosi blew it” (and that she “committed a major gaff,” which I can only presume is Fox’s bad spelling and not to mean that Pelosi committed a barbed stick) and the Washington Times warning Pelosi that she should not cross the bishops, or else. Much of the media is following their lead.

So, why is Pelosi wrong? Because a bunch of religious authorities decided to interpret biblical works differently than she did, even if Pelosi’s interpretation is closer to how the church has judged abortion for about 90% of its history. But the texts could be read either way, in that biblical texts can say just about anything you want them to say if you stretch and generalize them as much as church scholars and officials have. If you remain more strict to original writings, then interpretation favors Pelosi’s views. Doing it otherwise strays into the territory of letting the church have it both ways–give unequal weight to identical dictums in scripture, or allowing rationalizations about how the “ovum wasn’t discovered until 1827” but we’re supposed to base science on what the bible says.

But hey, with the only thing in the balance being the Catholic Church refusing to give Pelosi Communion and therefore damaging her politically as well as personally, we can at least be grateful that religion is not dictating law. It is only trying really hard, and won’t fully succeed until McCain gets elected. So relax.

I don’t think Lieberman will be the Veep choice for McCain. Why not? Too much foreplay in the press, too much noise that seems to come from inside the campaign that Lieberman is seriously being considered. They know full well that choosing Lieberman wouldn’t impress the left- or center-leaning enough (a turncoat is rarely popular to anyone but those they turn to), and it would really tick off their base, turning way too many people away from the polls on election day.

So why the buzz? Because they want to give the image of a centrist maverick, while still being reassuringly hard-right for the base. It’s only because of the Liberal Media’s™ tireless campaigning for McCain that anyone believes that he is a (1) straight-talking (2) centrist (3) maverick who (4) has not reinvented himself (shame, shame, Brokaw). All 180 degrees away from the truth, but the media loves an image, however false. That, and the constant hammering of Obama has allowed an ineffectual, flip-flopping, gaffe-ridden old charlatan even in the polls with a strong, young, charismatic Democratic candidate.

Who ever knew it would be such a good birding spot, that hotel? They just happened to give us a window out on a meadow full of birds I usually don’t see, including a few I couldn’t even identify without the help of the good folks at the Bird Forum, always on hand to ID a photographic avian catch for you. Here I thought I had a Daurian Redstart, and it turned out, after magnifying the image, I had a few birds I had never caught on camera before. The first was a Narcissus Flycatcher, a disappointment only in that I didn’t catch it in it’s brilliant yellow, orange, white, and black colors–instead, I got the tamer variety. Still, a new bird!

And then there was the plucky little featherball that turned out to be an Asian Brown Flycatcher.

Those, plus the Long-tailed Tits and even the Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker made for an interesting show without even leaving the comfort of my room. Quite a view, as it turned out.

The nearby Wild Bird Park turned out to have quite a few interesting birds as well. Even the Tree Sparrows had interesting variety, like this white-dominated fellow:

The Varied Tits flitted quickly in and out of the feeders, while the sparrows stayed put, as did the kijibato, or Eurasian Turtledoves, whose larger frames would dominate some of the feeders.

As I reported yesterday, the kawarahira, or Oriental Greenfinches were all about in the park.

I spotted a nice Meadow Bunting in a clearing. I love it when birds fluff up in cleaning, they look like a mess of exploded furry feathers.

There was even a Gray Wagtail down near a pond that Sachi spied and pointed out to me, in this frame doing the weird stretch-my-wing-out-over-my-extended-leg move they sometimes do.

For a rainy couple of days, it was a nice draw.

Since it was raining so much our one full day in the area, Sachi and I decided to try out the local Ice Caverns. Sounded grand, and the images in the pamphlet showed towering columns of glittering ice. You get the impression that you’ll be wandering around this great cavern with these things jutting up around you, reaching up to the roof of the cave. Okay. So we went, and paid our three bucks each. By the time we were out, I was commenting that they should have paid us six bucks for going through that.

Sachi had a great time, but only because she really enjoys it when I get royally pissed–she thinks it’s the funniest stuff ever. Me, I was amazed they could keep such a place open. First off, the railings that you absolutely needed to grip on 90% of the time were freezing cold. The caves themselves were cold, but you could bear that because it was atmospheric–the railings you had to grip hard, which froze your hands stiff in a minute or less. No warnings outside to use gloves.

Second, the cave got really claustrophobic the last half of the way down, making you crouch as you went more and more–then got incredibly narrow at one point, so much so that you either had to slide down a freezing, wet, rocky surface on your ass, or else do the damnedest imitation of low-as-you-can-go limbo in order to avoid that. Seriously, it was so narrow you couldn’t even crawl through unless it was on your stomach–not to mention that part was a 30-degree downward angle on wet, cold rock. One thinks they could note this before you commit yourself, which, by that point, you were. I remember praying that they didn’t let seniors down there. Below is Sachi after the narrow part (I wasn’t able to un-contort myself enough to take a photo of the worst part), smiling because she’s learning so many new cuss words.

And the payoff, once you were down there? Dirty ice, followed by a quick glance at some things that were probably ice columns behind a small grated opening. Below is a flash photo of them:

Then you climb out. That’s the whole show.

When we got out, Sachi went to the restrooms while I waited near the entrance gate where an employee, maybe fifty years old, was taking tickets. I paid attention because a couple of seniors just happened to be there. They asked the guy, “Is the cave wet?” The guy answered, “Not at all!” A total lie–like many caves, maybe this one more than most, all the surfaces were wet to dripping. It was an ice cave, for crying out loud.

I tried to tell the couple that, aside from being wet, the hand rails were freezing cold and gloves would be called for, if they had them. They looked to the ticket guy for confirmation. “Oh, it just seems like they’re cold because it’s an ice cave, it’s cold in there!” I then tried to describe the really narrow part, pantomiming the contortions you needed to go into. The guy laughed it off and encouraged the couple, easily in their 60’s, to go on through.

That guy should be taken out and shot.

Since I was unable to blog from my laptop while on vacation, and I couldn’t get photos from my birding camera to the iPhone blog, I’ll have to catch up after the fact.

One of the biggest disappointments of our trip to Kawaguchi-ko was the weather–we just happened to pick a weeklong stretch of constant drizzle and rain, and so we were very limited in terms of what we could do. Fortunately, the view out our hotel room was the best I’ve seen for hotel-based birding. There was a nice little grove with some visible branches, and there was a good bit of activity there at times. I’d love it if I lived in a place like that, especially if I could set up a few nice bird feeders.

One of the biggest shows was an Enaga, or Long-tailed Tit. I was happy at this catch because I had never caught this bird with its brown coloring before.

All of Sunday and Monday were wet, but we lucked out a bit as Tuesday–the day we had to head back by noon–cleared up and even had some sunshine. So we ate breakfast and went to the local wild bird forest. Among other birds, we got a ton of Yamagara (Varied Tit) and Kawarahira (Eurasian Goldfinch).

There’s more, but I’ll get to that later–too much to do tonight to fit it all in.

One last note: the lake where we stayed was not really Lake Kawaguchi, but Lake Sai (“Lake West,” translated). Since the Japanese form is to use the name followed by -ko (“lake”), we stayed at “Saiko,” pronounced the same as “Psycho” in English.

I should have gotten a better look at that innkeeper….

One peeve I have is washroom hand driers. If the place you’re at doesn’t give you towels, the least they can do is give you a viable alternative, and most electric hot-air blowers don’t come close to doing it. You sit there for two minutes rubbing your hands, and the rubbing probably does more than the air jet. But there is one type I actually prefer over towels, and it’s this kind:

It’s the Mitsubishi Jet Towel. You dip your hands in and pull them up slowly as two blades of hot air on either side and gravity scrape the water from your hands. Works like a charm. Wish they were all like this.

So far, the place where we’re staying is proving to be far less impressive than the places we’ve stayed at before. “Ma Maison” is, at best, a mediocre hotel.

Some thing are nice: they have an indoor swimming pool (if you enjoy that), the rooms are spacious, and the service is very good. However, that is offset by the fairly disappointing food, the bad towels, the minimal water pressure, and outside the pool, the lack of anything to do if you have no car.

One thing that Sachi and I have gotten used to in these places is the fantastic food. I suppose that if we hadn’t been spoiled at the other places by top-flight cuisine, the food at this place wouldn’t seem so bad. And it wasn’t bad–just not too good.

The first course was salmon and scallops with onions and dressing. The scallops were very good, but the salmon was tasteless.

The second course was a cold potato soup, coninuing with tastelessness theme–one which would dog the whole meal. The cook definitely needs a refresher course in spices.

Along with the soup they gave us bread. It’s hard to get bread wrong, but they certainly didn’t get it too right. The cook again got spices wrong, using Thyme in the olive oil, leaving a very strange aftertaste.

The next course was Tai (sea bream), again very bland. We forgot to take a picture before eating….

Last was a filet steak with potatoes. I know from experience that it’s very hard to screw up filet, but they managed to somehow. Maybe the cut was just bad, it was stringy and hard too chew, even tough. The red wine sauce was simply unremarkable.

Like I said, not a terrible meal, but hardly all that great. Just not what we expected from our countryside inn. Still, there’s always a good opportunity for a photo… And as I said, the staff are one of the better things about the hotel. After we finished the steak, we didn’t feel like coffee and cake, so we asked if they could bring it to our toon, and they did–a big tray with the coffees and desserts, all the more impressive considering the up-and-down trek from the kitchen to our room, at the far, far back end of the building.

Breakfast this morning was more of the same–food that looks classy but was not all that great. A salad for breakfast, followed by runny eggs and a sausage that was somehow bland. And why do restaurants serve rock-hard butter with soft bread, so that you can’t spread it and instead have to litter the bread with chunks of butter?

Later we went swimming in their pool–not bad, until I got a look at the junk in the water. Seems like with this place, every silver lining has a cloud…

We’re here at the inn, and have discovered that Softbank’s coverage here is a matter of meters; the mountains block coverage in the hotel, but if you step out on the front porch, you can get the barest of intermittent signals–coverage is better across the street (which is the lakeshore). I found out when I went there and took this photo:

So I can blog… I just have to go across the street to send. And to check my email, or make a call.

Here we are in Kawaguchi-ko, just off the bus. We’re at the base of Mt. Fuji, though you wouldn’t know it just by looking. We un-lucked into a stretch of rain, and you can’t see much of anything…. But you can tell that you’re in the countryside from all the English mistakes.

We took the bus up here because it’s a good, hassle-free way to get to the area. Now that we’re here, and especially since it’s raining and my foot happens to be hurt, we’ve decided to go wild and rent a car for a few days.

That’s the bus just above; we won’t pick up the car for another hour or so. More from our adventures at Kawaguchi-ko soon!

Edit: here’s a bonus Engrish photo from the gyoza restaurant we’re at:

This should be a complete no-brainer. Obama is pro-choice, and like almost all pro-choicers, he does not like the idea of abortion but is not willing to make that decision for others. Expect reasonable, law- and constitution-respecting judges to be appointed.

McCain, however, is flip-flopping from his original stand, which was to outlaw abortion but leave exceptions for rape, incest, or the risk of death of the mother, and now accepts the party’s policy of outlawing abortion with no exceptions. Which means that if a pregnant woman is carrying a non-viable fetus which would surely die a few minutes after birth due to congenital defects, and the mother’s health is such that she has a high risk of dying in any kind of childbirth, then too bad. She’ll have to simply risk death for no reason, even though there is a simple procedure to ensure she will live. Similarly, if a 14-year-old girl is raped by her father and the child is expected to be badly deformed or dead on delivery due to double recessives, she’ll just have to bear down and go through with the emotional terror of bearing her father’s child. Sorry, kid, but you gotta respect the life of a clump of cells–we respect those cells more than we respect you, for sure–so just man up already and quit sniffling.

Expect his judges to be the same as we’ve seen from Bush, too–McCain has vowed (link to 3-minute video clip of McCain babbling about court appointments) to appoint right-wing strict constructionists, which means that one or two of the liberal justices on SCOTUS who are more than likely to retire or pass away in the next four years will be replaced with another Alito or Rehnquist, and choice will sure die soon after.

Add that to the laundry list of reasons not to vote for McCain, if that reason alone is not more than enough.

Is this how rich people do irony?

A nine-car motorcade took him to a nearby Starbucks early in the morning, where he ordered a large cappuccino. McCain otherwise avoided reporters.

Forced into damage-control mode, his campaign aides counterattacked to reinforce their claim that Obama is an elitist.

So, McCain rides in a 9-car motorcade from his $1.65 million estate (where he’s roughing it by avoiding his $5 million condo at Camelback), disrupting local traffic so he could buy a cappuccino… and then went after Obama as an elitist because he vacationed in Hawaii–his home state, where his grandmother lives.

Hey, at least he didn’t get a latte!

The latest:

“At approximately 3 p.m. Mountain time, a McCain staff member in Denver opened an envelope that contained a threatening letter and an unknown white powder. As a precautionary measure, the campaign office was immediately closed and staff was sent to a local hospital for medical evaluation. Local authorities as well as the FBI and United States Secret Service have investigated the scene and determined that the substance poses no threat,” Communications Director Jill Hazelbaker said in a statement.

“Also yesterday afternoon, a similar letter was found in the campaign’s Manchester, New Hampshire office. After closing that office, the Manchester Police Department determined that there was no threat. Senator and Mrs. McCain thank the local and federal authorities for their swift response and will continue to monitor the situation closely.”

What the media, in general, is leaving out is the fact that the New Hampshire alert was a complete fake with nothing behind it, and the “powder” in the Denver office was, at best, a “few grains” and turned out not to be anything but dust, probably. But the media continues to play this story as if it were a legitimate scare, and not a hoax perpetrated by the McCain campaign, using law enforcement illegitimately and probably illegally in an attempt to control the news cycle.

They really went too far in faking this, creating major inconveniences not just to their staff, but to rescue personnel:

Four members of McCain’s staff admitted themselves to a nearby hospital, and seven other staff members and four emergency personnel were quarantined as a precaution, Wiley said. He added that those in quarantine were likely to be released later in the evening.

Wasting public resources, derailing lives, scaring people… all to score a few political points. And it’s gonna work, too, because the media is playing along and no way anyone calls them on this.

You thought the Bush administration was corrupt, dangerous, and beneath contempt? Hold on to your hats, boys and girls–we’re just getting warmed up.

Threats and mysterious powder sent to McCain just as McCain is scrambling to escape scrutiny over the latest effective attack by Obama? The stuff was even sent from Denver, where the Democratic convention will be held–nice touch. But I don’t buy much into the whole idea of coincidence.

A closer read of the article, however, calls into question whether there was any “powder” at all:

“Our guys did not find any powder. There were maybe a couple of grains of something inside an envelope and they had to kind of work to get a sample,” [Andy Lyon of Parker South Metro Fire Rescue Authority] said.

Did the McCain camp simply decide to manufacture an anthrax scare by taking one of many threatening letters any campaign gets, choosing one from Denver for effect, and then claim there was powder inside to create the scare? They would certainly know what it would do to the news cycle, and how much it would help them.

Ever wonder how McCain gets the press on his side? Apparently it’s not too hard–just barbecue some ribs and let them all cavort at your luxury residence in Sedona. Watch this video narrated by McCain’s daughter and tell me if you agree that it’s appropriate for journalists to be partying with a candidate they also happen to be giving huge breaks to in their reporting.

Isn’t it just precious that they gave Cindy flowers? How sweet.

By the way, the Sedona property has five houses on it. Does that Mean McCain owns eleven homes instead of just seven? Apparently, McCain’s trying to push the “four houses” count by claiming that four of them are ones “that actually could be considered houses they could use.” Yeah, that sounds a lot better–they own so many homes that seven go unused. That’s not elitist at all.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of Obama hitting his stride. His message today seems to have been that John McCain is so rich that he’s completely clueless as to what troubles Americans are going through economically. He touched on McCain’s saying that the economy is “fundamentally sound,” that things have been OK under Bush, and on Phil Gramm’s “Nation of Whiners” and “Mental Recession” quotes. Then he quoted McCain from the Rick Warren event, where he said that “rich” is when you make $5 million, and wound it up with the punch line that McCain, when asked, said he couldn’t remember how many homes he owns.

Obama on the trail:

And his new ad:

The message: Obama’s not the elitist, John McCain is. And the punch was delivered with power, not to mention McCain’s own words. This is where Obama needs to go. This is the track Obama needs to get on and stay on until the election.

I mean, really, imagine that–you have to check with your staff to find out how many homes you own,and you think that anyone making less than $5 million a year is middle class. I mean, wow.

However, I think I’m going to have to give McCain a break here. I don’t believe that McCain was really ignorant of how many homes he owns. I think he was simply lying. Why? Because he knows what the answer is, and that is at least seven homes (what Obama’s ad claims), maybe more. And if a reporter asks him how many homes he owns, he doesn’t want to say “Seven, and that’s why Obama’s an elitist.” So he used the normal dodge when politicians (usually under investigation for something) want to avoid answering something self-incriminating, namely that he couldn’t remember and would have to check, hoping that (a) people would forget, or (b) at least his staff, and not he himself, would have to answer the question. Unfortunately, that instinct led him to say something that sounded even worse, that he had so many homes that he lost count.

His staff, reportedly, came back with the classic weasel answer: “at least four.” They know full well it’s at least seven, but by saying “at least” they can claim they weren’t lying. They also undoubtedly had a conference to figure out what number they could pitch which sounds high enough to be credible but low enough so he doesn’t sound too outrageously rich and elitist.

I think that McCain was also lying about the $5 million-being-rich thing too. I think he knows full well that, at the very least, a million minimum is actually rich–I don’t think he’s that stupid and out of touch–but he also knew that if he answered with a lower number, then he’d be hit with questions about how he wants to give so many of his tax cuts to the rich. $5 million is probably beyond a cutoff point his staff made him remember where he can say that the majority of his tax cuts, counted in some arcane fashion, go to people below that number, or something along those lines.

So, in order not to look elitist, John McCain instead comes across looking even more elitist, and a fool to boot. And that’s what Obama took advantage of today.

McCain’s counter-attack continued: Obama makes four mill a year, loves Arugula, and vacations in Hawaii! Yeah, except that this is old hat from McCain, a retread that people have heard a million times before–so it’s lost its impact.

Also, McCain undercut his own attacks: by noting that Obama makes $4 million a year, he makes the point that Obama isn’t an elitist–because $4 million, according to McCain, is not “rich”! You see, you have to make $5 million to be rich–so Obama’s just a regular guy!

Obama definitely wins today’s round–and if he keeps on this tack, he’ll win a lot more down the road.

One problem with the Obama campaign is that they’re not cutting enough. That’s McCain’s strength–he’s become as vicious and unconscionable as Bush was to him in 2000, even more so in fact. Obama doesn’t need to become more nasty–in fact, he should do his best not to appear negative at all–but he does need to become far more effective on the attack. He probably got along in the primaries rolling on his organization and his rock-star image and Clinton’s lack of same. But with McCain, he’s going to need to take on a new tactic if his Kumbaya unity message and popular appeal won’t do the trick.

Take for example his statement about it being time for McCain to acknowledge that Obama’s patriotism is not in question. Had the roles been reversed, the Democrat would have withered under that attack (which is why they bend over backwards lauding McCain as a “hero” and not questioning his patriotism), in large part because Democrats would take the criticism seriously, the media would glom onto it and portray Obama as an underhanded liar, and pretty much everyone involved would say, “yeah, that’s below the belt.”

But with the roles being the way they are now, the attack doesn’t work–because McCain knows he can get away with such nasty attacks and nobody will question him on it. So instead of McCain withering under the admonition, he instead twisted it into an attack, jabbing at Obama by saying “I don’t question his patriotism, I question his judgment”–when in clear point of fact, McCain was absolutely questioning Obama’s patriotism. And as I just pointed out, he is getting away with it and nobody, especially in the media, is questioning him on it.

What Obama needs to do is formulate a strategy that will make McCain wither. But he has to do in a light fashion, one that will send McCain running without seeming nasty. And to me, the best way seems obvious: use McCain’s own words against him. One way to do that is to take McCain at his word; McCain is saying so much stuff which he doesn’t mean, the pickings should be easy.

Take, for example, a recent town hall where a woman said we need to bring back the draft, and McCain said he “didn’t disagree.” (A story, by the way, that the media completely ignored–and again, had it been Obama, the reverse would have been true.) Obama should run with stuff like that: make announcements that McCain is going to institute the draft, using that very clip. McCain won’t be able to say Obama is twisting his position, because McCain is on video agreeing with the idea; instead, he’ll have to waste time denying he’s for the draft, which will bring up a lot of other questions in its wake. If the media, predictably, makes McCain’s case for him, pointing out that McCain didn’t really mean that, the counter would be easy: he said it, and if he didn’t really mean it, was he confused or was he being untruthful? [Edit: here’s another one: McCain loudly proclaimed on CNN that he had a secret plan that would catch bin Laden–no way he could equivocate his assuredness that he has a plan and it will, by god, work. What Blitzer didn’t ask was, “why haven’t you given the plan to Bush so we can catch bin Laden now?” Obama should play McCain saying he has a secret plan, then smack him for not thinking it’s important enough to get bin Laden now.]

Along those lines, Obama should present a series of “McCain vs. McCain” ads, because there is so much video and audio of McCain saying stuff he now has turned 180 degrees on. He should begin with McCain vs. McCain on Energy, showing McCain now saying drilling is immediately vital, then showing McCain a few months ago saying it would not help, followed by definitive expert statements on how drilling is ineffective. These ads would show up McCain’s two-faced flip-flops, and at best could put McCain on the defensive.

This would also lead into making his own another Republican strength: ridicule. Going from the “McCain vs. McCain” ads, Obama could then lead into a series of ads based upon Apple’s “I’m a Mac” ads, where you have two guys introducing themselves, first a cool, hip, young guy saying, “I’m an Obama supporter,” and an uptight, older business guy saying “And I’m a McCain supporter.” They could mirror the Apple ads almost entirely (would they have to get Apple’s OK on that? As parody, maybe not), and run with that angle. No, it’s not original, but it could be just as effective as Apple’s ads are against Windows, and could be entertaining as well as deeply cutting.

These campaigns could run side by side with positive ads which did an even better job of laying out Obama’s policies and ideas.

Not that I think Obama will do this. It’s just that i think it’d be his best shot: go negative, but n a light-hearted fashion. Because, as Tim has pointed out, whatever it is Obama thinks he’s doing now, it’s not working.

McCain, like Bush, is reactive when it comes to foreign policy, and reacts in a way that is bellicose and ultimately impotent. You get the clear feeling that McCain, like Bush, if he does anything at all, will push a foreign policy agenda which goes no further than the immediate interests of his patrons, whether they be the energy industry or other lobbyists. Otherwise, he will simply be surprised when various problems like Georgia come along, and deal with them clumsily with braggadocio.

It looks like Russia is going to stay lodged in Georgia after all, and all of McCain’s chest-thumping did nothing to help, and probably only hurt. If Russia in Georgia is still a problem in a month’s time, Obama has a great opening: for all of McCain’s foreign policy “genius,” he is impotent here. What’s the benefit of having McCain in office if all he’ll do is spew impotent bluster? Then there are McCain’s lobbyist issues with Georgia, which, frankly, should be taken advantage of immediately.

Sachi and I both now suffer from sore butts, but we had a very nice day. We got to have our bike ride from Ikebukuro to Shakuji Park, planned for last weekend but canceled due to bad weather. And today turned out to be a perfect day for it; sunny, but not too much; hot at first, but with good breezes, and halfway to the park, the temperature dropped to a much more comfortable level. And we needed that: the ride, one way, was 8.4 miles (13.5 km), or over sixteen and a half miles (27 km), equivalent of riding a bicycle from Shinjuku to Tachikawa, or (in San Francisco terms) from Stanford University to SFO.

It was also a perfect example of the iPhone to the rescue. Without it, I would have had to lug around a giant map book, or at least make copies of the relevant pages, fishing them out of my pockets and unfolding and refolding them, trying to figure out what sheet was which. The iPhone and its GPS worked great to guide us there and back, allowing us to take the optimal route but change our path if we wanted to. I could easily just pull it out of my shirt pocket and turn it on with one hand, checking our route to make sure we stayed on the right roads.

But the iPhone really came to the rescue when we realized that Sachi’s tire was deflating again and again. She had not used her bike in almost a year, and the tires were flat, naturally we thought. So we pumped up at a gas station–but 10 minutes into our trip, they were deflated again. So we pumped up again at another gas station–but again, they started deflating. This would have been a big thing normally–we probably would have had to cancel the trip and head back. But the iPhone’s Map app showed us the nearest bicycle shop just a few hundred meters away–which we never would have found otherwise–and a few minutes and 700 yen later, Sachi’s bike was fixed, and we were on our way again. The little gadget is very much earning its keep.

The ride one-way took an hour on the way back, though a bit longer on the way in due to the bike issues. But we got to the park just fine, and I got treated to some very nice birdwatching. No new species or anything, but some nice birding nonetheless. The first event was the best, a family of Common Moorhens. At first, it was just the one bird, or so I thought at the time, and with such a lovely bird, that would have been good enough. (Some of the following images enlarge to 1200 x 800 versions on click.)

But then the Moorhen pushed out into the water and started doing something strange: it circled around and started making repeated calls. We didn’t understand why until a minute later, when we noticed a little fuzzball emerge from the reeds:

Still not completely covered with feathers (though its beak showed the distinctive red-and-yellow Moorhen trademark) and eyes looking like they were only recently opened, a tiny Moorhen chick tentatively waded out, but only so far.

Mama had to come in and encourage the little fellow. And then another chick came ambling out:

The hen then led the chicks out into the water for a little swim, followed by sunbathing (or whatever) on stumps a little farther out. But that wasn’t all of the Moorhen family; apparently, last season’s chicks had grown up, and were still milling around. What’s interesting is that these birds lose their red-and-yellow bill colors, but only in their “teenager” phase–then they get those colors back when they mature.

Soon after that, we were chasing some Little Grebes…

…when Sachi just happened to spot a Kingfisher nearby.

For a public park, there were a good many interesting birds to be found. We also spotted the usual crows, sparrows, and Spot-billed ducks, in addition to a Little Egret and a Grey Heron. So, not bad birdwatching for a non-birdwatching venue.

But birds were not all that were there; some domestic animals also came into view.

But the real pleasure of the day came when we spotted a couple with a little Shiba Inu puppy. Now, Sachi just loves Shiba Inus, can’t get enough of ’em (she’s always tuning into YouTube on her iPhone to check out the latest Shiba puppy videos), and puppies are the best of all. Whenever we see a Shiba when we are out and about, we consider it a good result for the day. So when we passed the seated couple with the puppy, I just had to ask if Sachi could pet it–she was too shy to ask herself.

(The string is intended to train the pup not to bark too much, so we were told.)

Well, Sachi got a bonus–not only did they let us pet the puppy, but she got to hold it, too. Her idea of heaven.

So, it was a good day.

I tried watching it again today, this time podcasts, two or three different shows, and I just couldn’t take it. It was just one hit job on Obama after another, one set of headlines giving better coverage to McCain after another. When it got to the point where the reporters on Cooper’s 360 show were trying to show Obama as a corrupt, cutthroat Chicago ballbuster and they used his line of “nobody questions my patriotism” as an example of “nothing illegal,” but showcasing his “brass knuckles politics”… I just got ill listening to it. The tissue-thin connections and blatantly politicized innuendo could easily have been written by the McCain campaign.

The more I watch the U.S. political news media, the less I wonder why John McCain is keeping up or even gaining in the polls.

Sachi heard a weird sound in the dryer, and discovered why she must check my pockets before doing my laundry: there was an ink pen and a USB flash memory stick in the pockets. Miraculously, the ink pen did not leak in the wash (must have been the tight cap), but we both figured that the USB flash stick, my 1-year-old 1GB Kingston “Data Traveler,” was toast.

Nope. Still works perfectly. There’s a lot to be said for solid-state technology.