Betsy and I were up in Washington DC today to see Zachary and watch him take part in a ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The Prime Minister of Japan, Yoshihiko Noda, is in town this week. And the Honor Guards will be busy. Here is some information about the ceremony.
I have lots of photos taken at several locations:
1. Arlington Cemetery
2. The Iwo Jima Memorial
3. The Lincoln Memorial
4. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial
6. The Jefferson Memorial
Starting from our hotel we visited all of these locations yesterday and traveled on foot. It was an eight or nine mile trek but the weather was not too warm and we enjoyed it. Betsy did it without complaint because, let’s face it, she’s tough and I did it because I’ve trained by walking almost every day since last August.
I’m working on the photos now. Here’s one of Prime Minister Noda and one of our generals walking up the steps at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I never did locate Zachary because everybody with a shaved head looks the same from a distance.
Prime Minister Noda is an interesting guy. In his first speech as Prime Minister last September he confirmed that Japan will phase out nuclear power by not building any more nuclear power plants or extending the life span of outdated ones. As we all know, nuclear power plants in some parts of Japan did not hold up well following a recent earthquake.
When he was in training to become a leader in Japan he had a part-time job reading electric meters for the residents of his district. I don’t think our members of Congress have ever read anybody’s meter.
But I may be wrong. What do you think?
Kudos to Mr. Noda. I’ve read that our nuclear reactors are in as bad or worse shape than the ones in Japan were at the time of the tsunami. I’ve read that we don’t have sufficient inspectors and thus inspections don’t get done and safety is compromised. We are staring in the face of our own nuclear disasters in the near future!
France, of course, has had multiple and compound problems with their nuclear plants…leakage being one of them leading to some rather horrible results in the French countryside. Don’t hear much of this is our press. Why, do you suppose, is that?
I think if our leadership were ever to read a meter, they would immediately give the meter business to one of their corporate friends who would in turn increase our payment by 50% (with 20% of the increase going to our cooperative politicians to help with their re-election and 10% going to corporate lawyers to assist in their efforts to keep the corporation from paying taxes on its profits!)
Thank you, Dave, for you very kind comment on Ocala DP! You made my day! Well, my night, too! Probably all of this week and most of the month. Would you believe much of 2012? Anyway, it was much appreciated!
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