So the voting is now underway for the Democratic Party of Japan’s presidency, and thus the next prime minister of Japan. Tomorrow all the papers will carry their pieces on “the ninety-fifth prime minister.”* Which is odd, really. The number 95 doesn’t refer to the number of prime ministers who have headed up Japan’s government, [...]
Archive for the ‘politics’ Category
You voted for who?
With the rising number of celebrity candidates in Japan’s Diet elections comes a rising number of possible ways to vote for them, according to this article: 「柔ちゃん」○「金メダリスト」×＝ニックネームで投票すると…―総務省・参院選. A hurried sort-of-paraphrased translation is below. Many candidates for the House of Councillors election taking place this Sunday] are famous figures from the sporting or entertainment worlds, and [...]
Matayoshi Jesus poster
Matayoshi Jesus poster Originally uploaded by Durf A quick translation of this year’s election poster for Matayoshi Jesus, running once again in Tokyo 1. If I were doing this as a proper translation I would get rid of the repetition and the WALL OF TEXT single paragraph approach, but then you wouldn’t get the full [...]
Fukuda up?
I wrote earlier that I wasn’t so sure about Aso becoming the next prime minister. The papers yesterday had lots to say about the LDP’s wrasslin’ match—particularly the evening sports rags, which were filled with exciting stuff from LDP faction bosses (Aso? Not on our watch) and Koizumi (“I am 100% certain that I won’t [...]
Reformer without friends?
Abe had a reform agenda, he just had zero skill in actually communicating it to the public, or pushing it through his own party. This is a theme I’ve seen in some recent commentary. Clay Chandler, the Asia editor for Fortune, writes in this post about someone else who agrees: As news of Abe’s abdication [...]
