The Nikkei‘s latest poll [insert usual caution] finds support for the Koizumi cabinet up to 56%:

The Nippon Keizai Shimbun Corporation conducted a rapid opinion poll on 31 October and 1 November in response to the formation of the third Koizumi cabinet. Support for the Koizumi cabinet was at 56%, an increase of 9 points from the last survey at the beginning of September. The proportion (down 6 points over the same period) that did not support the cabinet was 30%, a manifestation of [the administration's] maintenance of its vigor since its crushing victory in the lower house elections. The percent of those surveyed who “had esteem” for the members of the new cabinet was 49%. That far exceeded the 24% who “did not have esteem”; expectations have solidified around the struggle for reform to be waged through the “post-Koizumi” candidacies of [cabinet members] such as General Secretary Shinzo Abe.

That last sentence is so deformed in my version it gives me physical pain, but I don’t really have the time to fuss over it. In any case, the idea comes through that, if the Nikkei poll is remotely dependable, Koizumi’s continuing popularity with the Japanese electorate, combined with the reputations that several of his new cabinet picks have already been cultivating, mean that his new administration is starting out once again with the public’s endorsement.

What’s funnier than the fact that someone landed on this page after searching Google for “discreet chastity” (a sorely underused phrase, more’s the pity)? That mine was the first site to come up.

Today Toshiba finally deigned to call me and tell me how much ransom I’m going to have to pay to get my laptop back with a new CD-ROM drive: about the equivalent of US $420. Not all that bad, I suppose. So I assume it’s going to be ready within the week, because Nittsu came to pick it up Monday a week ago and the last person I talked to at Toshiba said the turnaround time shouldn’t be more than ten to fourteen days. Yes, I’m aware of Toshiba’s rep for atrocious customer service, but the hype is that they’ve been working hard to combat it, and all the people I talked to in tech support (when I first thought it was a driver/software/settings problem) were great. So I’m hoping to be wired at home again by this weekend.

I’ll definitely need my Dynabook back within a few weeks, because I’m going to a company meeting at the beginning of December. I like travel, but I have to say that I find the idea of going all the way to the Caribbean a bit fatiguing, especially since Atsushi and I haven’t been able to take a vacation together for a year and a half. I will, however, be able to sneak in an extra week to stay in the States after flying back to New York. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to, but I have a month or so to get things arranged. I’ll be writing to people individually, but let this be the first notice to friends in the NY-NJ-PA-DC area that I’ll be around to shuttle frantically among you during the second third of December.

Actually, when the time comes, I don’t think I’ll mind the Caribbean so much. Today is the first day that the coldness is sharp enough that I may actually put on a sweater before leaving the apartment [!] later, and fall is my favorite season. (It’s such a relief to be able to use that word–most Japanese people don’t know what you’re talking about unless you say “autumn.”) But by December, there will be a fair amount of non-sharp, non-crisp, gritty-gelatinous rain. Love that particulate matter!

For those who are slow on the uptake–actually, your flue would have to be entirely blocked not to have noticed this–this is one of those scatty brain-dump posts I deposit here at regular intervals, usually when my datebook is beginning to do its tyrant act and I am VERY SLIGHTLY irritable. Time for home and a cup of tea.

Gaijin Biker has to be kidding.

Actually, what am I saying? The only surprise is that no one’s already paved over Yoyogi Park. Nothing in this archipelago escapes the cement mixer once some politician sets his sights on it. Ever:

Via Taro Akasaka at Japan Real Estate Blog, the Yomiuri Shimbun reports that Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara is talking about paving over Yoyogi Park and building a new sports complex there to beef up Tokyo’s bid for the 2016 Olympics.

…

This is, quite simply, a horrible idea. Tokyo is already one of the most under-parked major cities around. It needs more open spaces for the people who live here every day, not giant stadiums for athletes who will swing by once and then leave.

When I lived in Shibuya, I used to run at Yoyogi Park, one of the few places in the city where you can find enough trees together to call so much as a copse. To anyone coming here from just about any other world-class city, the paucity of green is something you don’t notice much at first because the riotous visual interest–from all the neon signs and weird architectural shapes and highways stacked on train platforms stacked on footbridges–keeps you distracted. But then you walk down one of the few streets that are treelined, and you’re like, Ooh! Wilderness! Do I have my Swiss Army Knife?

As Gaijin Biker says, vainglorious Olympic (or Olympic-equivalent) sports complexes nearly always end up windy, spookily underpopulated white elephants after the games end. The idea that Japan needs another underused monstrosity of a public works project is beyond lunatic.

Zak, who’s begun commenting around here lately and has mercifully not laid into me about any of my free ‘n easy translations from Japanese, has resumed his own blog and posted this today:

I’m sorry, I have no sympathy whatsoever for these people booted out of their church:

In a pair of decisions that bolstered conservatives, the highest court of the United Methodist Church defrocked an openly lesbian minister yesterday and reinstated a pastor who had been suspended for refusing to allow a gay man to become a member of his congregation.

Granted, I personally think it’s ridiculous to ban homosexuals based on the teachings of a man 2,000 years ago who apparently never said anything about gays and seems to have instead preached universal acceptance. For these homosexuals, however, I think it’s far more idiotic to want to worship that man in an organization that has confused those teachings to the point of exactly reversing them as far as you are concerned. Brings to mind the image of a woman who repeatedly begs her physically abusive husband to take her back: Who really has the bigger problem here?

My conclusion is basically the same as Zak’s, though I’d get there somewhat differently. I don’t think the Bible is infinitely stretchable, but there’s enough give that I don’t think people who are arguing for non-traditional tolerance of this or that are necessarily being disingenuous. Many of them probably do believe that the truest interpretation of whatever difficult scripture they’re looking at is the one that’s less obvious because of this ambiguity in Aramaic roots, or what have you.

Still, different Christian sects usually have a long-standing body of theological writing behind their doctrines, and it’s not unreasonable for them to reject new understanding of scripture that they think unfounded. If you’re gay or lesbian (or supportive of gays and lesbians), there are plenty of churches nowadays that will accommodate you. I suppose that switching sects to find the one that you think is most closely following Christ’s intent is difficult if you’ve been brought up to believe, say, that the Roman Catholic Church is the only legitimate vessel for Godly spirituality; but I don’t recall having been taught as a boy that the individual covenant with God was easy to navigate.

People who sincerely believe that the organizations to which they now belong are interpreting the Bible in error have what seems to me a pretty clear duty to present their arguments, but eventually someone is going to have to make a doctrinal decision, and it’s not necessarily cruelty that produces one that hews to tradition.

Prime Minister Koizumi has announced the results of his cabinet reshuffling:

Prime Minister Jun’ichiro Koizumi, at the first meeting of his third cabinet of the evening of 31 October, laid out the fundamental direction [of his latest administration] in five items:

1. To persevere in [transferring power and resources] “from public to private” and “from Tokyo to local districts”
2. Economic vitality
3. Ensuring safety and security in [Japanese] life
4. Diplomacy, national security, disaster management
5. Political reform

Concerning structural reforms, he stated that “the October 2007 privatization of Japan Post will be smoothly executed” and that “the scale of government will be limited through a review of the financing of programs, general labor costs for private sector employees, and the management of government assets and bonds.”

Particular positions of interest: Shinzo Abe is the new Chief Cabinet Secretary. Taro Aso is the new Minister of Foreign Affairs. Sadakazu Tanizaki was reappointed as Minister of Finance. Each has been tipped as a possible successor for Koizumi, who has vowed to step down in 2006 and has not been grooming any obvious candidates to take over at that point.

Aso, the new Foreign Minister, was previously Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications. A few weeks ago he got in PR hot water for calling Japan a “single-race” nation. You can imagine how resident Koreans and indigenous ethnic minorities loved that. He’s had a reputation for being tart-tongued for quite a while, though, and he’s been a rising star in the LDP for some time. The last outspoken rising-star Foreign Minister under Koizumi was Makiko Tanaka, and we all know what happened to her. The post of Foreign Minister is a particularly strategic one at the moment, given Japan’s delicate relations with the PRC and the Koreas and its push to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Aso’s profile on his website is here. A less interesting English version is here at his old ministry.

BTW, in addition to Minister of Finance Tanigaki, banking/Japan Post reform czar Heizo Takenaka was reappointed to his posts.

Added on 2 November: Didn’t anyone catch that “Heizo Tanaka” screw up? Glad I seem to have seen it first.