Economy | ANALYSIS
Households to take hit from tax hike
by Tomoko Otake
The consumption tax increase will hit every household in Japan hard, with many people’s financial future hanging on whether their wages rise enough to offset the hike's impact.
Global-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Sep 29, 2013
Air festivals, the costs of flight and budget flak
by Hiroaki Sato
The U.S. Air Force did not send its acrobatic team to the Misawa Air Festival this year because of budget cuts. Military flying machines can be exorbitantly expensive.
Global-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Aug 25, 2013
Still dreaming of a level field after all these years
by Hiroaki Sato
Wednesday will mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington that soon came to be equated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, “I Have a Dream.” Delivered with what I take to be a Southern preacher’s passionate cadence blended into skillful anaphora, ...
Japan-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Jul 28, 2013
Where to go to survive the day? the corbies say
by Hiroaki Sato
The word from a longtime Tokyo resident is that the jungle crow population, the bane of garbage piles, is finally in decline. Not everyone is happy about that.
Japan-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Jun 24, 2013
Going with the flow in the trade office for Japan
by Hiroaki Sato
There are some things to say as one leaves the New York office of Japan's JETRO, having worked amid the ebb and flow of trade for 44 years.
Japan-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK May 27, 2013
The transient rasping that captivates the poets
by Hiroaki Sato
Do cicadas create a shrieking hell? Are they ugly? There is a striking difference between English and Japanese Wikipedia entries on these transient insects.
Global-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Apr 29, 2013
Photos of carnage would check war sentiment
by Hiroaki Sato
Would most Americans remain indifferent to the wars their government wages in far-off lands if their media broadcast videos each day of the shattered bodies?
Japan-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Mar 25, 2013
It's not skin color, it's every way you're different
by Hiroaki Sato
What should a Japanese expat say to a mixed-race couple in New York who wonder how their children would be treated if they raised them in Japan?
Japan-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Feb 25, 2013
Endless effects of 'pacification' wars
by Hiroaki Sato
Unnecessary U.S. wars in the Middle East have unintended consequences at home just as Japan's war against China still casts its shadows to this day.
Global-related | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Jan 28, 2013
West never tires of the 'burden' of baiting Iran
by Hiroaki Sato
Is The New York Times inciting a U.S. war against Iran? As it did the war against Iraq? A decade ago, the paper’s Judith Miller, along with a few of her fellow reporters, so unabashedly agitated for President George W. Bush attacking Iraq that ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Dec 31, 2012
Supreme copout: twisted justification for guns
by Hiroaki Sato
Suppose a Seung-Hui Cho, Jared Lee Loughner, James Eagan Holmes or an Adam Lanza shot and killed or seriously wounded any of the families of John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Would any of them have given different opinions ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Nov 26, 2012
Punchy party names hark back to ignominy
by Hiroaki Sato
So, Shintaro Ishihara, who had abruptly quit the Tokyo governorship in October, set up a political party named Taiyo no To, then merged it with Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s political party that doesn’t sound like one, Nippon Ishin no Kai. Another political party that ...
Commentary | THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK Oct 29, 2012
Evidence of the Showa Emperor's deep regret
by Hiroaki Sato
Checking the galley of the endnotes to “Persona,” my biography of Yukio Mishima with Naoki Inose, I decided to augment a note on Japan’s monarchical system. The tenno institution had a singular meaning for Mishima, and I set aside substantial space in the book ...