::Sweeps away dust and cobwebs::
*cough cough*
Is anybody here?
I've been away so long that Google completely redesigned Blogger's dashboard, so that it took me a little while to figure out how to use it. Anyway, as you can see, I've cleaned up the blog, switched to a more minimalistic template, and removed dead links and obnoxious buttons and ads.
As for content, I'm still deciding what exactly I'm going to do with Observing Japan henceforth. It may be a little strange to revive the blog when wags are declaring that the age of the blog is over, but then, I've always had anachronistic tendencies. I don't think I'll match (or even try to match) the prolixity of years past. At the very least, I'll provide links to what I say and write elsewhere. Stay tuned for more soon.
Showing posts with label blog business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog business. Show all posts
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Observing Japan, now on Twitter!
After having resisted Twitter, I've decided to try it. I'm not sure whether I'll stick with it, although I'm enjoying it so far.
You can find my Twitter feed here.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Discussing the resignation
I will be on Asia Squawkbox on CNBC Asia at 8:30am Japan time Thursday to discuss the implications of the resignation.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Returning soon
I realize that it has been some time since my last update. No reason for my absence other than having a lot to do for my "day" job.
Posting to resume shortly.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
On the Hatoyama government's troubles
I have an op-ed in Friday's Wall Street Journal Asia on the Hatoyama government's struggles.
You can find it here.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Upcoming television appearance
Readers in Japan will be able to catch me live on Sunday evening from 10:10pm, where I will be appearing on NHK BS-1 to debate the future of the US-Japan alliance with Okamoto Yukio, Michael Green, and Magosaki Ukeru.
General information is available here (in Japanese).
General information is available here (in Japanese).
Monday, January 25, 2010
On the Nago election
My thoughts on the election of Inamine Susumu as mayor of Nago City can be found here, in the Wall Street Journal Asia.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
New finance blog
My father, Yra Harris, has just launched a new blog, Notes From Underground. A longtime commodities trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and regular commentator on CNBC and Bloomberg, he will be providing his (somewhat) stream-of-consciousness analysis of the day's market activities, with a focus on currencies, here.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Three years of Observing Japan
This week marks the third anniversary of the birth of this blog.
Needless to say, Observing Japan has grown in ways that I could hardly have foreseen three years ago when I returned to Japan to work for now-Lower House Member Asao Keiichiro — indeed, it has grown in ways that I could hardly have envisioned a year ago. After this past summer, I suppose that it's probably safe to say that I've made the transition from blogger to pundit (for lack of a better term). It was a busy summer, as the list of media appearances in the sidebar indicates. In August the blog had a record number of visitors and page views, a record that was easily broken when the blog reached more than 27,000 visitors and more than 36,000 page views. During the same period the number of subscribers rose from the mid-700s to more than 1,200 today.
I still cannot quite believe all that's happened to me since I began writing this blog. Perhaps I should not be so surprised, not in an age in which Nate Silver can use a blog as a platform to share his expertise and become a media superstar. (I'm comparing myself to Silver in a very broad sense: needless to say Time will never name me one of the world's 100 most influential people.) We all have to get accustomed to a new process by which society identifies "experts" — in place of a prolonged process of accreditation, there is the constant churning of the Internet, which has no shortage of nonsense but also provides a means for consumers of information to find quality sources of analysis and then quickly share them with others.
I hope that I have been such a source for all of you reading this blog. I'd like to think that my analysis has improved over the past three years, in large part because of writing this blog, by which I have developed my own conceptual framework for thinking about Japanese politics, a framework that will undoubtedly continue to serve me well in the future. Thank you for bearing with me as I've taught myself about the subject. I should also thank my teachers, those from whom I have learned directly and indirectly - and my fellow bloggers, most notably Michael Cucek and Jun Okumura, who from very early on have been excellent partners in an ongoing discussion about Japanese politics. (Incidentally a recent post by Tyler Cowen captures the power of blogging as a learning tool precisely.)
As I move into the fourth year of blogging, there will likely be some changes around here. Inevitably I will be writing less here, in part because I have more opportunities to write elsewhere, in (large) part because I need to devote more time to being a doctoral student, and in part because after this extraordinary summer, I am experiencing a mild case of blogger burnout. While I don't write nearly as much as he does (and have only been blogging for three years), the sentiments expressed by Andrew Sullivan in this post resonate with me. I was particularly pleased to return to MIT for the fall semester after my hectic summer precisely so I could start looking at the forest again.
In any case, thank you all again for reading, for commenting, for emailing, and for telling me when I'm completely off target.
(Also, some asked whether I could provide an English translation of the article I wrote in Asahi last month. While not a translation, I've posted the first draft of the article here.)
Needless to say, Observing Japan has grown in ways that I could hardly have foreseen three years ago when I returned to Japan to work for now-Lower House Member Asao Keiichiro — indeed, it has grown in ways that I could hardly have envisioned a year ago. After this past summer, I suppose that it's probably safe to say that I've made the transition from blogger to pundit (for lack of a better term). It was a busy summer, as the list of media appearances in the sidebar indicates. In August the blog had a record number of visitors and page views, a record that was easily broken when the blog reached more than 27,000 visitors and more than 36,000 page views. During the same period the number of subscribers rose from the mid-700s to more than 1,200 today.
I still cannot quite believe all that's happened to me since I began writing this blog. Perhaps I should not be so surprised, not in an age in which Nate Silver can use a blog as a platform to share his expertise and become a media superstar. (I'm comparing myself to Silver in a very broad sense: needless to say Time will never name me one of the world's 100 most influential people.) We all have to get accustomed to a new process by which society identifies "experts" — in place of a prolonged process of accreditation, there is the constant churning of the Internet, which has no shortage of nonsense but also provides a means for consumers of information to find quality sources of analysis and then quickly share them with others.
I hope that I have been such a source for all of you reading this blog. I'd like to think that my analysis has improved over the past three years, in large part because of writing this blog, by which I have developed my own conceptual framework for thinking about Japanese politics, a framework that will undoubtedly continue to serve me well in the future. Thank you for bearing with me as I've taught myself about the subject. I should also thank my teachers, those from whom I have learned directly and indirectly - and my fellow bloggers, most notably Michael Cucek and Jun Okumura, who from very early on have been excellent partners in an ongoing discussion about Japanese politics. (Incidentally a recent post by Tyler Cowen captures the power of blogging as a learning tool precisely.)
As I move into the fourth year of blogging, there will likely be some changes around here. Inevitably I will be writing less here, in part because I have more opportunities to write elsewhere, in (large) part because I need to devote more time to being a doctoral student, and in part because after this extraordinary summer, I am experiencing a mild case of blogger burnout. While I don't write nearly as much as he does (and have only been blogging for three years), the sentiments expressed by Andrew Sullivan in this post resonate with me. I was particularly pleased to return to MIT for the fall semester after my hectic summer precisely so I could start looking at the forest again.
In any case, thank you all again for reading, for commenting, for emailing, and for telling me when I'm completely off target.
(Also, some asked whether I could provide an English translation of the article I wrote in Asahi last month. While not a translation, I've posted the first draft of the article here.)
Sunday, October 4, 2009
On the DPJ's foreign policy
Newsweek International published an op-ed I wrote on the likely direction of DPJ foreign policy.
You can find it here.
You can find it here.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
A self-portrait in Asahi
The Asahi Shimbun's Globe section last week published a piece I wrote explaining how I came to be explaining Japanese politics on TV by the age of 26 and offering some ideas for how the DPJ can explain itself to the foreign media.
You can find it online here (in Japanese).
You can find it online here (in Japanese).
Friday, September 25, 2009
On Radio New Zealand
Readers in New Zealand can catch me on Radio New Zealand's "Saturday Morning with Kim Hill" from 8:15am on — you guessed it — Saturday morning in New Zealand. Oddly enough, I will be followed not long thereafter by British author Nick Hornby.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
On the DPJ and the alliance
Foreign Affairs is featuring at its website an article that I co-wrote with Doug Turner on the DPJ and its likely approach to the alliance.
It is available here.
It is available here.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Monday's TV spots
I will be on CNBC Asia at 8:20am JST (or thereabouts), Bloomberg from 12:20pm, and Brazil's Record TV, well, I don't quite know when.
On the BBC
The rain is falling in Tokyo, but given the early turnout indicators it seems unlikely that the rain will make much difference.
In the meantime, I will be appearing on the BBC at 5pm JST (9am GMT) to talk about the election.
In the meantime, I will be appearing on the BBC at 5pm JST (9am GMT) to talk about the election.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Election day open thread
I will be checking in periodically over the course of today — in between TV appearances. I should also be live-blogging the results this evening. I'll be watching the returns and blogging from Reuters's offices in Tokyo before commenting on the results for Reuters TV. (I would also recommend checking out the Trans-Pacific Radio webcast of the results.)
Meanwhile, please post your stories of things seen and heard on election day in the comments.
Meanwhile, please post your stories of things seen and heard on election day in the comments.
Why the LDP will lose Sunday
I have an article at The New Republic's website that, building on some ideas initially explored at this blog, offers an explanation for why we're about to witness a major pendulum swing in Sunday's general election.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
TV appearances
I will be talking about the election on Al Jazeera English at 1pm this afternoon and will also be appearing in a segment on the election airing on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's 7pm news and again at 10:30pm on Lateline.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Op-ed on the DPJ and growth
The Wall Street Journal Asia has published an op-ed version of the paper I wrote with Naomi Fink.
It's available here.
It's available here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)