iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

J’ai grandi entre Montréal et Kobe, ce qui me permet de lire les romans japonais dans le texte. Je préfère de loin les romans d’une autrice comme Mieko Kawakami à ceux de Haruki Murakami.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

En fait, j’ai bien trouvé votre remarque sur le fait de voter pour Jean-Paul Sartre amusante!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

His literary accomplishments are largely undisputed in Japan, but less so elsewhere. I have Chinese friends who are literary aficionados and well versed in Japanese literature. They have read much of Murakami, admittedly in translation, and have plenty to say about his work, much of it unflattering.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I agree the Nobel can be awarded for many reasons including political ones. Ann Carson, whose oeuvre was undeniably innovative, neither sought nor attained mass popularity. I also agree being popular & accomplished isn't mutually exclusive but with Murakami the latter is hotly disputed.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The real issue is Murakami's worthiness. Personal animus is merely a complicating factor. Murakami's is popular, but so what. Five Japanese authors more substantial and more deserving easily come to mind.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

I have been told by a Swede I know, who moves in literary circles in Stockholm, that there are members of the Swedish Academy who consider Murakami Haruki a light-weight and who will never, ever vote for him to get the Nobel

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

日本でも海外でも、急増する観光客に日本がどう対応すべきかという記事が後を絶たない。しかし、女性首相が誕生した今なお、日本社会のほとんどの分野で、重要な意思決定に女性が十分に加わっていないという問題に比べれば、観光客の急増は、問題としての重みがはるかに小さい。実際、世界経済フォーラムの2026年版男女格差報告書では、日本は145カ国中117位にとどまっている。日本を一度訪れる観光客のマナーよりも、こちらのほうが私たちみんなが気にすべき問題ではないだろうか。

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

"Military action"? Seriously. This is supposed to be a bona fide media organization and they won't say "invasion". American media is a joke

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Why didn't the call it "Trump intelligence" or TI? Surely Xi Jinping could get behind that!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Discussion? There is no discussion—only the blathering of rich and powerful oligarchs whose hubris allows them to dismiss physical realities as minor inconveniences that their wealth will somehow circumvent or resolve.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

In the Anglosphere this would be considered 'woke'!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

You are thinking of this all wrong. The first thing to be done to seriously deal with the debt is to make the top of the American income and wealth distribution actually pay taxes. This can be sustainable. Then you can confiscate the Trump family's ill-gotten gains which is a one off.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

That misses the point. There shouldn't need to be 100s of plans tailored for specific groups each of which claims they are uniquely worthy of receiving preferential treatment. Most Americans may feel there is little to learn from the rest of the world but with regard to health care, they are wrong

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 15/08/2026

whether or not it counts as a 'visit' depends entirely on 习近平

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

I’m an admirer of Kevin Anderson. A comparable figure is outspoken French energy and climate consultant Jean-Marc Jancovici. Both are engineers, not economists, with a physical rather than monetary conception of the climate problem—but their divergent conclusions and politics are instructive.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

The world would be better off if Americans bore the consequences of U.S. wars of choice more directly. Complaining about higher gasoline prices is hardly enough to constrain how readily U.S. administrations decide when and how to wage war.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I guess the advanced metrics show that Gausman, like many of the other Jays, had an unexpectedly good season in 2025. But even if his numbers for this year appear to be consistent with years before 2025, we can all see that there IS something different.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Why would anybody be disappointed by this trade? What more can you expect for an aging pitcher, however much of a stalwart he's been for the Jays in the past, and who's struggled to get swing and miss on his fastball all season?

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

The British far right may be clowns to those of us outside Britain, but the American and Israeli extremist regimes are more worrisome, willing to go to great lengths to destabilize their political enemies, in this case the government of Pedro Sanchez

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

If you went around the cabinet table I'm sure you'd get unanimity that he looks like a young Elvis

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

To many of us in the rest of the world Buttigieg and the mainstream Dems represent smarter, more tolerant and less prejudiced imperialists who 'get' that alliances matter, but they still fetishize the military (a more inclusive one) and believe in absolute US dominance.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

I, and most Jays fans would rather keep George, who's currently on a heater, than receive some team's fifteenth ranked prospect for him.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Good news for New York Times readers, I guess

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

`The world, i.e., the non-USA part of it, has moved on. We expect no reversion to the mean, nor do we want one!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Ce qui sera intéressant, c'est de se souvenir de ces gros titres et de ce qu'on ressent à chaque nouvelle vague de chaleur record, puis de voir dans quelle mesure le climat pèsera réellement dans la prochaine élection présidentielle.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

How many contemporary athletes would heed the words of the great Roberto Clemente. Perhaps 1%. The rest do the exact opposite

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Does everything really have to be framed as US vs. China? It all feels depressingly reminiscent of the US–USSR rivalry at the height of the Cold War, followed by the equally tiresome US–Japan obsession of the 1980s.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Para la extrema derecha estadounidense, la extrema izquierda es cualquiera que defienda medidas tan radicales como un salario mínimo, la vacunación infantil o la recopilación de datos científicos básicos.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 12/07/2026

We all know about the Japanese or Chinese examples because they are glaring. But Schindler's List, with English-speaking Nazis, or Saving Private Ryan where Normandy of June-July 1944 is devoid of French people, are other examples of films that liberal Americans love but the make historians cringe

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Screw with the Football gods and that's what happens!!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

How can he, or anyone else, be comfortable wth Patrick Corbin in the starting rotation?

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 21/06/2026

One of the most beloved Japanese films of the 1950s, 喜びも悲しみも幾歳月 is little known outside Japan today. Following a lighthouse keeper's family across the archipelago, Kinoshita created both a moving family saga and panoramic portrait of postwar Japan seen from its often-overlooked periphery.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

No irony here, Trita? The same people who enabled Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the rest of Israel's extremists at every turn—and who actively supported Israel's attempt to kill its way out of its so-called Iran problem—are now suddenly asking Israel what its proposal is. Seriously?

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

Like all US wars, there will be zero accountability among American political elites for the terrible decisions that led to needless destruction and death as well as the totally avoidable economic shock to the livelihoods of millions across South and Southeast Asian

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

This is not just an American story. It's as much a story of the Japanese political economy as it is of what's sadly transpiring in N. America

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

English is the first foreign language of almost every EU country. Ditto for East Asia. There still has to be some accommodation even if monolingual anglophones don't get why. The Chinese never, ever see the English version of a contract or agreement as 'the' operative version.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

To those of us who live in, study or engage seriously with Europe, Japan and or Korea, we know this well. The problem is how the Americans have been able to frame Chinese cleantech in the context of the US-China rivalry and all questions end up being about lessons for America!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Les climatosceptiques qui contrôlent aujourd'hui l'État américain pensent que, si on supprime les sources de données, il devient plus facile de faire croire que les problèmes liés au climat n'existent pas, ou qu'ils ne sont que le fruit du hasard.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Fifty two years later and the NY subway system looks the same. 52 years of disinvestment!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Waiting for the ten percent of rich people who are actually inclined to fund the public goods that are otherwise lacking is neither a good political strategy nor good public policy!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

No, but his actions as a central banker, and then later with his shallow and misleading attempts at promoting central bank de-risking to promote bond-fund financing of 'green' investment show exactly who he is!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

The American state will exercise its leverage globally to blunt this resistance as it did with social media and e-commerce oligopolies.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

"Infrastructure" has a distinct meaning in the Anglosphere, especially in resource extractive countries like Canada & Australia, that differs from what comes to mind for most people in Europe and Asia.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

American liberals may expect some reversion to the mean post-Trump if the Democrats retake the White House, but it's in the interest of most allies, particularly the EU & contiguous countries like Canada to maintain strategic distance and eschew being drawn into US attempts at renewed 'leadership'.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

The sad thing is that most Americans don't care about US standing in the world, about reckless unilateral wars of choice, about killing innocent civilians or humiliating allies. They only care about the price of gasoline in their trucks and SUVs!

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

We are all deeply appreciative of your yeoman's work, particularly how you refuse to allow US commercial media outlets to get away with using Trump's interminable tweeting and talking points as the basis for framing their war coverage.

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Mitch Bernard @mkbernard.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

The other option (not mutually exclusive) is to watch less and read more. That could include your books in whichever language one prefers!

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