Here's another election upon us — a fitting time to reflect on tranquility and its opposite, cacophony.

The tranquility of tearoom and meditation hall, the stillness of the cicada's cries "sinking deep into the rocks," are long gone — mourned by some, forgotten by most. The cicada image, borrowed from the 17th-century haiku master Basho, appeared in this very newspaper, in an editorial titled "Worsening noise pollution." The editorial itself is something of an artifact — it ran on Aug. 18, 1984.

It notes, "Grievances about noise accounted for more than 30 percent of all 63,559 complaints about environmental pollution filed with ward offices and other local authorities in fiscal 1982."