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CLOUDY
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s private disco featured not only aspiring showgirls performing striptease acts as sexy nuns and nurses, but one woman dressed up as President Barack Obama and a prominent Milan prosecutor whom the billionaire media mogul has accused of persecuting him, ...
Recently I was asked to write a blurb for a new liquid plant-nutrient. As soon as I saw the name of the product, 早根早起 （Hayane Hayaoki), I smiled at this example of linguistic creativity. The four characters translate loosely as “early root, early sprouting”; ...
Life in Japan just seems tailor-made for certain foreign residents, who slip into the fabric of this society as smoothly as a hand slides into a glove. American Curtis Patterson, a professional koto player and music teacher, is a case in point. Not only ...
Denmark’s Emmelie de Forest won this year’s Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday night with her ethno-inspired flute and drum tune “Only Teardrops,” despite tough competition from spectacular stage shows by performers from Azerbaijan and Ukraine. Juries and television viewers across Europe awarded the barefoot, ...
One team’s quest for a first title has ended. The other team’s fight will continue next season. The Yokohama B-Corsairs outplayed the Rizing Fukuoka in Sunday’s bj-league championship game, controlling the tempo for larger stretches and making enough timely baskets to fill an instructional ...
Regarding the April 3 AP article “Death penalty sought in Colorado shooting case“: In the wake of each mass shooting, the question on everyone’s mind is always “why?” I do not presume to answer the question fully, but the comments by the best friend ...
Regarding the March 31 editorial, “Testing English versus teaching it“: I wonder why people who quote Educational Testing Service data ranking each country by people’s scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language overlook the fact that the TOEFL test provides accurate ...
For many years I didn’t hesitate to think of the Emperor as the head of state, despite disagreement from the Japanese I spoke with who said the Emperor was the “symbol of the state” — not the head of state. I tended to disregard ...
The March 26 Kyodo article “Only 30 foreigners pass nursing exam despite extra help” reminds me of a terrible experience. When my mother, who had developed dementia, was still alive, I hired a nurse to take care of her from a daycare center that ...
Regarding the Feb. 25 Bilingual Page article “The Japanese traffic light blues: Stop on red, go on what?“: I drove in more than 15 countries and have been driving in Japan for years. The first time I encountered the issue described in the article ...
Earth to Abe, Earth to Abe: Requiring the TOEFL test for university entry — or exit — will do diddly squat to enhance Japan’s global competitiveness. It’s just more harebrained “reform” from the Stone Age: If students need better skills, let’s mandate another test! ...
Recently we’ve had an earful of “Abenomics.” And now it looks like (wow!) “Abecation”! While any improvement in English education in Japan should be welcome, reservations regarding the prime minister’s proposals demonstrate, at best, skepticism if not mistrust. The first question we should be ...
The March 31 Japan Times editorial, “Testing English versus teaching it,” has it right: Money should be invested in teaching English, not testing it. Here is a suggestion that will save money and give excellent results. Instead of investing money on expensive standardized testing, ...
The March 31 editorial, “Testing English versus teaching it,” again raises many old issues, except for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) requirement proposed by the Liberal Democratic Party panel on education. One issue that is not mentioned is the hiring ...
Regarding Thomas Clark’s March 28 letter, “Review of the Easter message“: Clark would do well to take a look at the world he lives in rather than filtering his experience through the stained glass of dogma. It seems that all the places where human ...
Regarding the March 30 article, “Japanese-Brazilian beats the odds to win place at university“: Japan should offer more support to bicultural individuals such as this gentleman. (Twenty-year-old Rafael Yukio Kusuki, a third-generation Japanese-Brazilian, is said to be living in an Aichi Prefecture public shelter.) ...
Regarding The Washington Post article by Max Fisher, published March 25 in The Japan Times under the headline “Did success have a prayer in Iraq?“: Lessons will go unheeded by the “38 percent of Americans” who continue to think the Iraq war was “worth ...