Thursday June 2, 10:42 a.m.
Well, from a lessonless yesterday to a fairly full day today: I've got Grandma FON, The Shareholder, the bossman's student and Mrs. Thursday. I haven't gotten anything on the messages about my first student, so I think the ol' gal will be coming here on schedule after cancelling last week. I hope she's doing well.
The overall situtation in
post-quake and mid-nuclear disaster Tokyo has been calm so far. A lot of the lights are still out in the subways and stores in the interests in energy conservation, but the escalators seem to have become exempt from the policy. For a while, I thought that I would be able to shed a few kilograms by being forced to use primitive stairs, but it looks like the government has decided to keep me portly. And apparently, the
Cool Biz movement started up back in the
Koizumi days has been upgraded to
Super Cool Biz. For those not in the know, Cool Biz was started up by one of the ministers,
Yuriko Koike, to actually encourage daily
Casual Days during the summer so that there isn't as much stress on the air conditioning systems. So, folks came into work without ties and jackets....kinda like an
Al Gore approach to casual wear. But with the current (no pun intended) electricity crisis, the national government decided to pull out all the stops and have employees everywhere come in stuff like
Hawaiian shirts, Polos and....gasp....even jeans and sneakers. Everyone can look like
the average Microsoft employee! But flip-flops and T-shirts are still verboten. That is, unless, things get really hot this summer and the government upgrades the sartorial version of the
Homeland Security Alert to
Mega Cool Biz....get those
Speedos and bikinis ready. Then again, would the working class really enjoy seeing their middle-aged bosses in a thong?
However,
the Diet is looking far from happy today.
The Opposition is ready to hand in their non-confidence motion as early as this afternoon during the session. A few days ago, pundits and reporters would've just scoffed at the idea that
Tanigaki of the LDP and his co-conspirators would've been able to pass this legislation; now, all bets seem to be off although it still looks like the motion will be defeated. A number of officials in
PM Kan's own party have handed in their resignations and sided with
The LDP to protest their boss' bad handling of the triple whammy disaster. The magic number is
82 or 85...the number of parliamentarians left to push through the non-confidence motion and thereby forcing Kan to either have his
Cabinet resign en masse or to dissolve The Diet and call an election. Not surprisingly, the public are dismayed about this state of affairs, complaining aloud about how backbiting politics could overtake the recovery of a nation.
On a personal note, I witnessed the return of my student to active duty. The Journo was back on his morning wide show. He didn't have a brace on his neck after his horrible auto accident back in early March; still, I'm not quite sure when he will be back to the
juku. I'm happy that he's OK now.