Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

I do not normally comment on Japanese politics. It is not because I am not interested in politics or the country. But it is much more because, for much of the past decades, it has not been a source of change or inspiration. As the country struggled with deflation, economic stagnancy, and depopulation, politicians had little to say about solutions, preferring to muddle on with a combination of quantitative easing and pensioning off the growing cohort of old people, buying political capital in a land where the youth are largely characterized by political apathy .

When the Russo-Ukrainian War first broke out, the battlefield success of Ukrainian drones in blowing up Russian armored vehicles made me wonder whether columns of armored vehicles still have their place in modern warfare. Three years since then, the power of the drone has proven to be far more potent and game-changing in the blood-soaked fields of Donbas. Ukrainians have managed to smuggle them into Siberia, launching them against Russian strategic bombers located thousands of miles from the frontlines. And in exchange, Russians have pummeled Ukrainian cities, even without established air superiority.

Israel's latest attack on Iran was entirely unprovoked. Even as American and Iranian diplomats prepared for the next round of nuclear weapons negotiations in Oman, Israeli airstrikes lit up the night sky across the country, hitting not just suspected nuclear weapons facilities, but also government and residential compounds, in a bid to simultaneously damage military hardware but also take out its military, political, and scientific leadership in one fell swoop. The surprise attack was followed by Israeli government announcements that, confusingly, also called on the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the regime.

The young Chinese woman in the photo is certainly a beautiful one. In a recent social media post I came across, the poster spoke of how the woman, the girlfriend of a fellow American engaged in cutting-edge technological research in Japan, may be a front for Chinese state-sponsored spying. His evidence? That the attractive woman is just way out of his friend's league, and that her being enamored with him cannot realistically be possible without some sort of ulterior motives. Through the story, the poster cautioned others to stay far away from overly enthusiastic Chinese women in their midst.

The schedule of an educational consultant unaffiliated with a regular school can be an odd one. With students occupied with their classes until late afternoon on weekdays, the consultant is not in a position to speak to the same kids until their evening hours and weekends. The result is that the consultant's work becomes not so different from a barman: busy from the dinner hours late into the night, with no possibility of a free weekend. For someone like me who has always worked in corporate jobs where weekends and holidays are almost sacred for otherwise busy employees, the service industry work schedule is new.

While the world worries about the repercussions of the reciprocal tariffs that Trump has thrown at the world, he is quietly making his next move. Yesterday, in response to the South Sudanese government's refusal to take back its citizens deported from America, the Trump administration unilaterally revoked the US entry visas of all South Sudanese citizens, irrespective of their personal stance on their home country's government. With the attention of governments and investors the world over fixated on his Liberation Day, he is opening a new front on his determination to bend the world to his will.

If there is anything consistent about the inconsistent Trump administration so far, it has been a belief in self-importance. Amidst the endless threats and flip-flops of tariffs on other countries, the vague words around peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza, and the winding road of the domestic war against left-wing wokery, the administration has never stopped believing in one underlying principle: that the other countries fundamentally need the US more than the US will ever need them, and that in the face of the administration's agreessions, its enemies cannot credibly muster effective counterattacks.

"You know, all the countries in the Gulf...they are very different!" Almost as soon as the taxi driver heard that I had just flown into Bahrain from Kuwait he began listing out the subtle nuances that distinguish his Arab petrostate from the neighboring ones. "In Kuwait, they have so much money...but the roads are no good," he pointed out as we drove on the smooth highway into the city. I had to agree, even though I had been in the island country for less than an hour. The spiffy international airport and roads in Bahrain were a far cry from the not-so-well-maintained counterparts in Kuwait.

Spare a thought for American election pollsters. After predicting massive victories for the Democrats in the two previous presidential elections, they again forecasted a tight election with a lead for the Democrats led by Harris. As the votes are counted, they are again proven wrong. Rather than waiting for days for ballots to be counted and then recounted to ensure that slim margins of errors are minimized in tight races, a picture emerged of the Republicans taking a massive lead in places they should not be, most notably in Florida where Trump won by 13%.

By the standards of often blank-faced  Japanese politicians, the incoming prime minister Shigeru Ishiba is certainly charismatic. Years of going on TV shows and giving media interviews, not to mention running around rural Japan to shake hands with voters have given him a folksy, joke-filled talking style more reminiscent of George W. Bush than a Japanese bureaucrat in a suit. It is no wonder that he has earned the likes of the grassroots, while attracting skepticism among his fellow politicians, even within the same party. Being different does not help in the subdued one-party democracy that is Japan.

The much-awaited Joker sequel starts with the titular protagonist in prison, pending trial for his murders committed two years ago. The man, frail and emaciated, chooses to remain quiet in the face of constant taunts from the guards, too happy to jump on any perceived infringements to beat up inmates. Gone is the confidence of the clown defending his actions, and inspiring millions who saw him as the symbol of fighting back against the authorities that seem to exist to protect Gotham's powerful bullies. As Arthur, the man simply retreats into an inner world of fantasy, shriveling as he heads to an inevitable death penalty.

The 1960s and 1970s were the height of the decolonization movement. Centuries of European presence across the globe, particularly in Africa, disappeared in years. Sometimes it was the result of sheer violence, such as how the Algerian independence fighters took down an increasingly exasperated colonial French army and drove out millions of white residents fleeing in fear. But others, like Malta, simply saw the breakup of colonial empires as inevitable for the overstretched colonial powers, feigning allegiance to symbols of continued colonial rule in exchange for concrete progress toward self-governance.

The Middle East is grabbing the world's attention once more for all the wrong reasons. Months after a war that plunged Gaza into unprecedented destruction and threatened Israel's international standings , the conflict threatens to spill beyond a small part of the Levant. Israel has gone on the offensive to preempt others from reinforcing the embattled Hamas, wantonly bombing Beirut, Damascus, Tehran, and Yeman, seeking to erode the military capabilities of its enemies through assassinating military and political leaders while destroying military hardware and critical infrastructure that could be used to support war efforts.

In the past election cycle, the dichotomy of America's two-party system has been rather simple and consistent in the eyes of casual observers. The Democrats stand for the downtrodden little guys, fighting to survive in a harsh, competitive world. Its policies advocated redistribution, ensuring that big businesses transfer some of the massive financial resources available so that the average Joe and Jane can have what they need to feed, clothe, and house themselves while staying healthy and aspiring to self-improvement through education. The Republicans, in this narrative, would be making lives easier for business owners.

People get old. Old people's mental processing power and ability to react quickly to new information are weaker than those of younger people. These are plain biological facts that govern the human body. Absent radical scientific breakthroughs that allow people to retain their brainpower and youth through chemical and biological enhancements, these facts will befall everyone, including the most powerful and important individuals in the world. A more efficient world requires that some older people retire from their positions and let more mentally qualified youths take over.

Malta's infrastructure is bursting at the seams. An island of narrow streets is now having to handle ever-increasing inflows of foreign tourists enjoying summer holidays and foreign workers lured by the growing economy. The quaint two-lane "highways" crisscrossing the island are now frequently home to snaking traffic jams, with motorists having nowhere to escape amidst the lack of alternative thoroughfares in densely populated towns and rugged rocky terrains of the mountainous interior. As the economy and population continue to grow, Malta will see more frustrations on the road.

I monitor the viewer stats of this blog from time to time. In recent months, the blog stats have shown some suspicious stats that make me worried about where and how the blog is viewed. Whereas individual blog posts have no more than 20 pageviews each in total in the months after publication, sometimes the blog itself registers more than 500 views in a single day, all coming from Hong Kong, mainland China, Ireland, and Singapore, none of which match my traditional viewership in the past years, the vast majority of which originates in the US, combined with the foreign population in Japan.

The terrorist attacks launched by Hamas against Israel should be a time for soul-searching. The pre-attack Middle East was defined by a cautious embrace of the Jewish state among its Arab neighbors. Despite opposition from their respective populations, the likes of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and others were increasingly willing to see Israel as a permanent political presence in the region, and a useful economic partner to help them diversify away from natural resource extraction. Hamas needed a dramatic measure to remind them, and the world, that the embrace should not come at the expense of the Palestinians.

In his The Bible and Zionism , Dr. Nur Masalha argues over and over that the founding leaders of the State of Israel, despite being a generally irreligious bunch, attempt to leverage religious language to advance the idea that the land of Israel belongs exclusively to the world's Jewish population, while Palestinian Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, are considered squatters who must be evicted to right a historical wrong. By evoking passages from the Old Testament that discuss how the ancient Israelites defeated the Canaanites and the Philistines, the Zionist leaders somehow managed to form an alliance with Christian evangelicals.

The first Dune movie was beautiful but predictable. Gorgeous cinematography courtesy of endless deserts simply could not make up for the predictable plotline. On the eve of being reassigned to rule another realm, a powerful house of aristocrats was backstabbed and wiped out by another house with the acquiescence and assistance of the emperor. Just as predictably, the native population of the realm was unconsulted, or even acknowledged, in the entire process, leaving the new rulers of the realm, just like the one before it, fighting a constant insurgency that disrupts economic production.