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Pope Francis’ fascination with the devil took on remarkable new twists Tuesday, with a well-known exorcist insisting Francis helped “liberate” a Mexican man possessed by four different demons despite the Vatican’s insistence that no such papal exorcism took place. The case concerns a 43-year-old ...
Kazuhiro Shiraishi, 66, is a guest-house manager in the Izu-kogen Highlands, a famous resort area on the Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture. Looking out onto the Pacific Ocean, and just 90 minutes by train from Tokyo, Izu has a warm climate all year round ...
“I was stopped by two men in a government-registered vehicle, blindfolded and dragged off the street. They took me away to a house in a place I did not know. I was forced into a room with blood all over the walls and floor, ...
Guitarist Dustin Wong hesitates for a split second. It’s a pause that would go unnoticed during most other sets, but Wong has spent the last 40 minutes seemingly in a trance while playing guitar and looping the notes via an array of pedals in ...
Tim Duncan saves the day as the Spurs hold off the Grizzlies in overtime
Debito is the Just Be Cause columnist for the Community Page and has been contributing to The Japan Times since 2002. Author of seven books, including “Handbook for Newcomers, Migrants and Immigrants” (2nd Ed.), “Japanese Only” and the novel “In Appropriate,” he has been a naturalized Japanese citizen since 2000. His daily blog and archive is at www.debito.org.
For Arudou Debito's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Japan is not renowned for its courtroom dramas. But occasionally a landmark ruling does make the front pages. Witness the Sep. 14, 2005, Supreme Court decision on absentee voting. Plaintiffs sued the government for not guaranteeing their constitutional right to vote from overseas, and ...
The Community Page has commented at length on socially-sanctioned exclusionary practices in Japan. However, it has rarely touched upon their quantifiable, longer-term effects. Exclusionism is bad for business. Why? Because non-Japanese residents are not the only ones affected by “no-foreigner” policies. So are visiting ...
“I don’t like black people! Shoo!” This is what Steve McGowan, an African-American resident of Kansai for nearly a decade, alleges was said to him last October at a nearby eyeglass shop. A past customer (he had accompanied his Japanese wife purchasing her glasses ...
Japan’s aging society and low birthrate demand dramatic measures, some say. A 2000 UN report stated unequivocably that Japan must import 600,000 workers per year to maintain fiscal balance. A Prime Ministerial commission that same year concurred: “Japan should set up an explicit immigration ...
The National Police Agency recently announced that the number of crimes committed by foreigners on temporary visas jumped by 25.8 percent. Serious crimes like murder, robbery, and arson, were up 18.2 percent. Feasting on the statistics, the mass media headlined such salient points as ...
Last April, telecoms giant NTT announced the largest annual corporate loss in Japanese history — 2 trillion yen. More than a third of it came from its cell phone subsidiary, NTT Docomo. Measures were deemed necessary to stem the red tide. So, on April ...