永原宣 Hiromu Nagahara
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hiromunagahara.bsky.social
永原宣 Hiromu Nagahara
@hiromunagahara.bsky.social
2.7K followers 830 following 700 posts
MIT historian of Modern Japan　
MIT教員・近代日本史
https://history.mit.edu/people/hiromu-nagahara/
Currently researching: cultural history of diplomacy, Japanese Anglophones and Anglophiles
City-walker and photo-taker
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hiromunagahara.bsky.social
LOLOL
9 "updates" on Canvas status from 10:31 MDT to 14:18 MDT, all saying: "We are continuing to work with Amazon Web Services looking into our Canvas, Mastery Connect and other Instructure products being down"
October 20, 2025 at 8:22 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Hardly the most important aspect of this agreement and I wouldn't want my own Japanese handwriting to be published, but still, the Ishin leaders' penmanship is...ooof:
Signatures from the Ishin-LDP policy agreement (Fujita Fumitake, Yoshimura Hirofumi, and Takaichi Sanae).
October 20, 2025 at 6:13 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Walking to Boston Common. No kings then, no kings now!
Betsy Ross flag over Longfellow Bridge in Boston.
October 18, 2025 at 4:16 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
鍋ディナーの翌日のご馳走は残り汁&野菜で作った雑炊ランチ。別の日の残りものだった鳥の胸肉と山椒をプラスして。
Leftover broth and veggies from last night’s hotpot dinner turned into a soup with the addition of rice, leftover rotisserie chicken, and some 山椒.
October 10, 2025 at 4:16 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
初鍋!
Hotpot full of veggies on a portable stove with a plate of meat next to it.
October 9, 2025 at 11:04 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
"Please clap."
(LDP presidential candidate Motegi Toshimitsu edition)

At 1:50~ mark in this clip:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vfy...
LDP presidential candidate telling his audience, "This is where I should be receiving applause."
October 2, 2025 at 4:21 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
its bold headlands. Its name, it appeared, was Noto; and the name too pleased me. I liked its vowel color; I liked its consonant form, the liquid n and the decisive t. Whimsically, if you please, it suggested both womanliness and will. The more I looked the more I longed, until the desire carried me not simply off my feet, but on to them.
September 24, 2025 at 12:45 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
For the love of god Victorian Boston Brahmin weebs stop being weird about Japanese geography challenge. (Percival Lowell edition)
NOTO: AN UNEXPLORED CORNER OF JAPAN. An Unknown. The fancy took me to go to Noto. It seemed a strange fancy to my friends. Yet I make no apology for it; for it was a case of love at first sight. Scanning, one evening, in Tokyo, the map of Japan, in a vague, itinerary way, with the look one first gives to the crowd of faces in a ballroom, my eye was caught by the pose of a province that stood out in graphic mystery from the western coast. It made a striking figure there, with its deep-bosomed bays and
September 24, 2025 at 12:45 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Well there's this image also....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pu...
Punch Magazine depicting an image of British and Japanese soldiers shaking hands with the caption: "Allies: 'Oh, East is East, and West is West...But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!' Rudyard Kipling. (October 4, 1905)"
August 29, 2025 at 7:12 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
I know that it’s way too easy to dunk on NYT these days and this complaint has been made repeatedly against them, but really…why are they so addicted to characterizing Trump’s illegal actions as fact, only to begrudgingly hedge the headlines with some mealy mouthed caveats?
NYT: “Trump Removes Lisa Cook From Federal Reserve Board President Trump took the extraordinary step of removing Lisa Cook from the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, in a legally dubious maneuver that could undermine the independence of the nation’s central bank.”
August 26, 2025 at 3:18 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Creating a blacklist of words Dems shouldn’t use definitely doesn’t scream “shaving off all of our edges”! Also what “edges” do the Third Way folks think Dems should reintroduce??? A little good ol’ “ethnic jokes “ here and a sprinkle of transphobia there?
“People can’t relate to something unless it has some edge about it,” Lanae Erickson, Third Way’s senior vice president, tells Playbook. “And we had shaved off all of our edges in an attempt to never make anyone upset about anything.”
August 22, 2025 at 1:47 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
I learn new things on this website everyday…or not.
@irminsulantifa.bsky.social: “Americans didn’t force Japan to surrender and plunk a bunch of military bases on their soil during the Meiji Era. Meiji was 1868-1912. The forced Westernization of Japan happened after V-J in WWII.”
August 20, 2025 at 3:00 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Late summer.
Enjoying the end of a late summer day with a decent s’more by a fire pit.
August 20, 2025 at 12:38 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Found this in my electronic junk drawer the other day.
iPod 3rd gen (2003)
August 16, 2025 at 8:28 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
It's August 6 in Japan now. I'm thinking of my family's experience in Hiroshima 80 years ago and feeling grateful that I spent some time in the city this past January. Photo taken at Shukkeien, where my great grandmother evacuated to escape the fire that engulfed her neighborhood after the bombing.
Photo of a pond inside the Shukkeien garden. You can see two carps under the shadow of a stone bridge, along with the reflection of the clouds above.
August 6, 2025 at 1:43 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Is this...the most NYT-est article ever? And this one can't be blamed on a bad headline. It's the entire framing of the piece.
NYT article headline: "El Salvador’s Leader Is Autocrat to Some, Godsend to Others Lawmakers approved constitutional changes abolishing term limits and allowing President Nayib Bukele to stay in power indefinitely. Why now?" Byline and introductory section of the article:" By Annie Correal and Maria Abi-Habib Annie Correal and Maria Abi-Habib have been covering El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele. Aug. 4, 2025, 8:53 a.m. ET He has swept away checks and balances. His government has made mass arrests. And his lawmakers just rewrote the Constitution to let him lead indefinitely, raising fears that the man who once jokingly called himself the world’s “coolest dictator” isn’t kidding anymore. But for many Salvadorans, President Nayib Bukele has been a godsend. By cracking down on gangs, which not long ago gave El Salvador a reputation as the world’s murder capital, Mr. Bukele has instead made his country one of the hemisphere’s safest. Average Salvadorans can walk the streets without fear, let their children play outdoors and run businesses without threats of extortion. Homicides have dropped from several thousand a year to just over 100, according to the government — a rate lower than Canada’s."
August 4, 2025 at 2:22 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Pretty sure that my Takarazuka/Rose of Versailles Rule applies to this one as well:
White House announcement on building a grotesquely blingy ballroom for Trump: "For 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed. President Donald J. Trump has expressed his commitment to solving this problem on behalf of future Administrations and the American people. The White House is one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in the world, yet the White House is currently unable to host major functions honoring world leaders and other countries without having to install a large and unsightly tent approximately 100 yards away from the main building entrance. The White House State Ballroom will be a much-needed and exquisite addition of approximately 90,000 total square feet of innately designed and carefully crafted space, with a seated capacity of 650 people."
July 31, 2025 at 8:52 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Lolol I thought I’d heard this line somewhere before (2015 film, The Emperor in August 日本のいちばん長い日, in which Emperor Hirohito asks Adm. Suzuki Kantarō to form a cabinet in April, 1945):
Screen shot from the 2015 film, The Emperor in August 日本のいちばん長い日, in which Emperor Hirohito asks Adm. Suzuki Kantarō to form a cabinet in April 1945, saying, “There is nobody else.”
July 28, 2025 at 8:34 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
あ〜、とうとうブルースカイでも確たる根拠を示さずフェイク呼ばわりしてくるアカウントさんが出てきましたね。しかもワクチン嫌いか〜。まあ、いろんな方々が利用するようになったみたいで、それはそれで歓迎なのですが、こういうリプは基本的に即ブロックで対応なので、悪しからず。ちなみに、トランプ関税の「根拠」とされている「国際緊急経済権限法（IEEPA）」には「関税」の「か」の字も入っていません。
「フェイクお疲れ様。大統領に関税設定の権限を授権する法律がありますから。その法律の範囲内だから、できること#トランプ関税」 “@tenhakusouyou.Baku.social 567 followers 2.1K following 8.7K posts From Nagoya To Nagoya. Haiku, chess and something more. No more HPV vaccine.
July 28, 2025 at 4:46 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
So, basically a standard-issue careerist FedSoc ghoul, with a sprinkle of TERFyness on top. Miller is a fascist ghoul but, in some ways, I have even more contempt for people like this:

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/26/n...
She entered Harvard Law School in 2012 and became president of the school’s chapter of the Federalist Society, a network of conservative and libertarian-minded lawyers, as well as an executive editor at its affiliated law journal, the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. The Federalist Society is well connected to Trump and prominent Republicans and is known for training conservative jurists, including many who get prominent judgeships. Harvard Law is not her only Boston connection. Her husband, David Mailman, is a former baseball player who was drafted by the Red Sox and played in its farm system. Mailman said that during her time at Harvard, the class did not feel divided by partisanship even though students had different leanings, a sentiment shared by her classmates who spoke to the Globe. Mailman had and maintains friendships with political liberals. In the years since, however, she said Harvard and other top institutions have lost their way, coddling students and “glorifying victimization” to create a culture that isn’t producing resilient leaders. She is particularly passionate about rooting out diversity initiatives — which some in her orbit attribute in part to her own self-made biography, strong belief in meritocracy, and distaste for elitism — as well as advocating for barring transgender people from domains historically reserved for women. Between administrations, she litigated on that issue with the Independent Women’s Forum, a conservative-leaning advocacy organization. She authored the Trump administration’s day one executive order on recognizing only two genders.
July 26, 2025 at 4:55 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Lol lost in (auto) translation? The original English narration in this Reuters video (at 1:33) refers to “the 1991 movie, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” but the Japanese sub somehow comes out as “Robin Hood/King of Tights” (the Japanese title for the 1993 Mel Brooks film).
youtu.be/ZJai99FMDjk?...
The Japanese subtitle for the AP News video on the sentencing of the two men who chopped down the Sycamore Gap Tree: 「ロビン・フッド/キング・オブ・タイツ」の中にも登場しており、
July 16, 2025 at 1:23 PM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
And here was the view off the other side of Toyomi-bashi during that same afternoon.
View from Toyomi-bashi (opposite to the Sumida River side), looking out towards a canal. Golden light of sunset shining on white the buildings on the right side of the canal.
July 13, 2025 at 12:18 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Another day, another photo of Eitai-bashi on Sumida River (with apologies to @gaijinmommy.bsky.social ;) ). Taken from Toyomi-bashi.
View of Eitai-bashi on the top right corner, taken from Toyomi-bashi. In the foreground: a fishing boat heading towards Eitai-bashi, with a shaft of light shining on a fisherman.
July 13, 2025 at 12:18 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Rockland, ME (2018, Kodak Portra 400).
A man on a beach, looking out towards the turquoise sea.
July 11, 2025 at 1:48 AM
hiromunagahara.bsky.social
Kamakura on my mind (December 2024).
Photo of The Great Buddha of Kamakura from the side, looking up towards the sky filled with streams of clouds.
June 30, 2025 at 12:08 AM