Politics & Diplomacy
Hashimoto to retract sex suggestion for U.S. military
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto aims to retract his remark that U.S. servicemen in Okinawa should use its adult entertainment industry to avoid committing sex offenses.
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Mar 25, 2012
Right and justice shine through the infernal prism of wartime Poland
by Roger Pulvers
One of my most treasured possessions is an old photograph. Taken in 1910, in Krakow, Poland, it shows five generations of my ancestors on my mother’s side, beginning with my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Pinkus Krengel, who was born in 1818. Due to the unusual nature ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Mar 18, 2012
There may be no time like the present — but the present's no time at all
by Roger Pulvers
“Japan is so small: What’s the hurry?” This catchphrase, from a road-safety campaign in 1973, was created to help Japanese people slow down. In those days it was common to see drivers racing up to lights, people sprinting through a station to catch a ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Mar 11, 2012
Japan's disasters must prompt a radical rethink of citizens' quality of life
by Roger Pulvers
It’s a long time now since my first visit to Uluru, the stupendous sandstone formation in Australia’s Red Center that European settlers called Ayers Rock, but which has now officially reverted to the name by which it was always known to the Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Mar 4, 2012
In the realms of true love and devotion, few could fault Akiko Koyama
by Roger Pulvers
On Feb. 21, 1996, Akiko Koyama, the actress wife of renowned film director Nagisa Oshima, received a phone call at her home in Kugenuma Kaigan, Kanagawa Prefecture. It was from an official at the Japanese Embassy in London. “Is this the home of director ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Feb 26, 2012
Welcome to the world we've made but don't want to share with children
by Roger Pulvers
“Love … casts itself on persons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be hateful, contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. … It seems as if, in making a marriage, either the individual or the interest of the species must come off badly.” ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Feb 19, 2012
Has anything changed? Americans still feel the need for moral supremacy
by Roger Pulvers
When he published his brilliant cartoon in the Washington Post on Dec. 12, 1961, American cartoonist Herblock, may, oddly enough, just as well have been addressing one of the primary concerns of today’s political debate in the United States. In that cartoon, arch-conservative Republican ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Feb 12, 2012
Depression is a national ailment that demands open recognition in Japan
by Roger Pulvers
The greatest public health issue facing the people of Japan today is not cancer. It is not vascular diseases than can cause heart attacks and strokes. It is not the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in the ever-rising number of the elderly. It is depression ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Feb 5, 2012
Facts, facts and more facts: 'Education' in Japan now only befits the past
by Roger Pulvers
Last week in Counterpoint I wrote about the three deep gaps crisscrossing this country, turning it into a kakusa shakai (society of disparities). These rifts, amply recognized today among the populace and in the media, are: the income, or wealth, gap; the goal gap; ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Jan 29, 2012
In disparity-ridden Japan, don't mind the gaps — just get out of them
by Roger Pulvers
This is a nation of gaps. When the term kakusa shakai came into vogue in 2006 — a fairly self-explanatory expression given that kakusa means “gap” or “disparity,” and shakai means “society” — it was a clear sign of Japanese people having finally recognized ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Jan 22, 2012
Self-effacement is a fine thing, but does Japanese culture take it too far?
by Roger Pulvers
What is it that has aided the people of Tohoku in coping with the tragedy inflicted on that region of northeast Honshu by the earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011? The entire world marveled at their resilience, courage and stoic altruism. Over the ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Jan 15, 2012
Recall, for inspiration, that young people made the last 'Japanese Spring'
by Roger Pulvers
How can Japan extricate itself from the morass it sank into two decades ago when its asset-inflated bubble burst? This is the question on nearly everyone’s mind in this country today. One thing is for sure: You can’t get out of quicksand by pulling ...
Commentary | COUNTERPOINT Jan 8, 2012
Akira 'Harry' Mimura: A life uniquely focused on both sides of the Pacific
by Roger Pulvers
“Iwas put in charge of this unbearably painful filming job. Even if you consider a war between two countries to be unavoidable, why, you wonder, must innocent civilians be forced to go through such suffering? “But a cameraman must face up to whatever he ...