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The Ghost Passengers of Japan
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
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I can find no reputable news sites to link to for this, so you'll have to do your own research.
But a curious tale nonetheless. First reported in 2016, the lede is that after the 2011 Tsunami that hit Japan, in which some 16, 000 people were killed/disappeared, Taxi Drivers started getting "Ghost Passengers", people who needed a ride home, usually from the zone of disaster, only to disappear before being dropped off. Some 7% (Skepticism is healthy!!!) of Taxi Drivers reported this. If indeed this is a real story (and in some ways I believe it is) than you could safely presume that number to be a great deal higher. Most people prefer to keep tales like this to themselves.
In any event, a curious look at how collective trauma and grief imprint itself upon our collective consciousness, and how we might deal with it. IN this there are echo's of "The Vanishing Hitch Hiker", wherein a driver picks up a hitchh-hiker only to have him or her disappear before they get home. This is often followed by the driver confirming the circumstances of the disappearance or tragedy by checking with the address given them by the passenger.
Everyone loves a good ghost story, and so you can see how this grew legs. And, who knows? Maybe there's something to it...
The Pursuit of Happiness
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 37
You see this everywhere, everyone looking for what they can't have.
The problem, is of course, in the question. When there's no ready answer you need to think it through and come up with a better question. The question is better asked "What can I do to improve the world", and, understanding your own unique skills find a way to contribute them to the general well being of the both your community and the world.
There are other things that rather follow naturally from this, such as exposing oneself to new ideas, art, people and culture, to forge meaningful and hopefully lasting relationships, and to - very hopefully, find one's "tribe" in an increasingly fractured and diverse world. But start at the beginning and you'd be surprised at how things start falling into place...
I just saved you $20 bucks on some lame-assed bestseller, and 3-4 hours reading 50-100, 000 words of drivel that would try and tell you the same thing.
2024 Solar Eclipse
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 36
Everyone going on about the Solar Eclipse yesterday, here in Nelson it was pretty cloudy, but I still managed to snap a couple of good photos...
Crackheads & Tent City
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 51
The town has become overrun.
Not just this town, everywhere I'm sure, but summer brings them out, and from where I wonder?
Walking home from dinner last night, along Front Street, Past City Hall and the homeless encampment set up there, for the most part the legitimately homeless, people with no other issues other than a want of reasonably priced housing.
And crossing Vernon towards Baker there's a homeless person, shopping cart tipped over in the middle of the street, walk over to help them upright it and reload their possessions...
A new face, although I can't see it, obscured between masses of matted hair, and she's swearing at me "FUCK OFF!! GIVE ME A MINUTE!! JUST GIVE ME A FUCKING MINUTE!!" and my helpful disposition expires, carry on, fuck you you little crackhead.
In the time I try to upright her shopping cart I notice her pants are down to her knees.
The locals, by and large, they're not like this, they're not this degree of sketchy, adversarial, violent, and we have all of that, you can tell summer's coming by the non-stop sirens, and I've asked before where they come from, and why here of all places, but to find out...
Everywhere, the alley behind the liquor store, the parking lot behind share, needles, single-use crack pipes, it's not just this town, it's the country, the world, that largely invisible but growing subset of the disenfranchised, the overlooked, the unhoused, the wedges have been set and the hammer's being pounded and we all pretend that nothing's wrong.
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