Hello from Yokosuka, and welcome to the “retired gaijin” version of Japan-gazer, which I think will continue to morph over time, but just wanted to get it started and see where things go through what’s ahead. This short “Update” version, I hope to send once in a while, using Japanese internet news blurbs/sources to follow […]

I am going to step away from the crises de jour this morning. There are reports that Pyongyang is moving some rockets around, and China and Russia are starting to actually get serious. Who knows? Perhaps this will work out. But I recall that pinching the Japanese with sanctions on oil, steel and rubber exports […]

I had two separate conversations over the last few days that summed up a lot about what is going on and how people are reacting to it. I was working on the astonishing litany of events that have occurred over the last week for the Swamp Postcard feature I have fun with each Wednesday and […]

The hits just keep on coming. The Eastern Seaboard breathed a sigh of relief as Hurricane Maria arced to the northeast, sparing us the wind and rain. Unfortunately, Maria has linked up with Hurricane Lee and is intensifying again. Great Britain may be directly in its path. The power of nature is a poignant reminder […]

Editor’s Note: The rhetoric flying around these days contains a lot of archaic terms- “White Supremacist” seems to be a favorite, which makes me remember when such despicable creatures actually existed, attacking children of color during integration times, and “KKK,” of whom there may be a few hundred sprinkled in a population of 320 million. […]

Editor’s Note: Japan-Gazer has ended his government career, and this is the first of his retirement essays. He will stay on as an ExPat, and his observations are as keen as ever in our most important Allie in Asia: Japan. With rhetoric rising between the DPRK and DC, he will have a ringside seat for […]

Editor’s Note: It was a couple cycle of advertising slogans ago for the recruiters, but one of the ones that resonated with me long ago was “Join the Navy and see the world!” We did, in grand style. But we were also seen by the world we visited. CDR Gilmore has a thoughtful appreciation of […]

Swamp Postcard I swear, you could not make this stuff up. no one would believe it. The address by the President drowned out the 140 MPH winds slamming Puerto Rico, right across the old Navy base at Roosevelt Roads. Mom always said, don’t work on the other side of a bridge from where you live, […]

As a function of habit lately, I got out of bed and shuffled to the living room to check on the storms. We are just looking at reporters under blue skies looking at heaps of wreckage. From what we have been hearing, a difference of just twenty miles in the storm track may have saved […]

(Pentagon, 11 September 2001. I thought I lost my whole GDIP Budget Staff. Instead, I lost my pals in the CNO IP). I have already been in tears this morning. I must be getting soft. Or just old. One of the cable networks was re-running the coverage from The Day sixteen years ago on the […]