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COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2015

What U.S. 'upward mobility'? Elites replicate themselves

There cannot be any doubt that America's renowed upward social mobility is a thing of the past. If anything, the U.S. now excels in the self-replication of economic elites — as Europe did in the 19th century.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2015

Welfare state rises as exceptionalism declines

America's national character will have to be changed if progressives are going to implement their agenda to increase the size of the entitlement state.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 2, 2015

'Selma' and the biopic perversion of history

The Ava DuVernay-directed film 'Selma' is at the center of controversy due to its semi-snubbing by the Oscars and correct observations that it plays loose with history.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Feb 2, 2015

Hair-care industry has anxious consumers coming and going

An underground health movement says over-shampooing leads to hair loss.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 2, 2015

South Korean children navigate rocky road to K-pop stardom

Nine-year-old Kim Si-yoon has no time to throw tantrums.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Feb 1, 2015

Veteran mourned by freelancer support group

The murder of Kenji Goto highlights the dangers facing freelance journalists around the globe who bravely report from the world's most dangerous conflict zones — but without the institutional backup enjoyed by full-time reporters at mainstream media organizations.
WORLD / Science & Health
Feb 1, 2015

U.S. proposes effort to analyze DNA from 1 million people

The United States has proposed analyzing genetic information from more than 1 million American volunteers as part of a new initiative to understand human disease and develop medicines targeted to an individual's genetic make-up.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jan 31, 2015

Call to arms: Hunters dwindle as animal numbers explode

Asians who crossed land bridges into today's Ryukyu Islands more than 30,000 years ago encountered plenty of game. In addition to deer and boar, they hunted elephant and steppe bison until the larger mammals were hunted to extinction in Japan about 17,000 years ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 31, 2015

Hallucinating in print with Keiichi Tanaami

Prolific is a word that hardly does justice to Keiichi Tanaami. Born in Tokyo in 1936, Tanaami has worked ceaselessly, imparting a lasting legacy on the landscape of Japanese Pop Art. He has been described as "Japan's Andy Warhol," but unlike Warhol, Tanaami's works are consistently psychedelic; full...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jan 31, 2015

The mountain village that tried to disappear

Our arrival at Yunishigawa-Onsen Station in Tochigi Prefecture is more than a little disconcerting.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jan 31, 2015

Counting the blessings of sheep

I had been a long time away from my native Wales — in the Arctic, in Ethiopia and in Japan, where my books were beginning to sell and I was even being paid to appear in television adverts drinking whisky (not "whiskey," but Scotch), munching ham and wearing boots.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 31, 2015

Dendera

Though there's still plenty of debate about whether it was ever common for Japan's rural communities to deal with elderly relatives by leaving them to die on a mountain, it makes for a great story. Depicted in Keisuke Kinoshita's 1958 period drama, "Narayama Bushiko" ("The Ballad of Narayama") — remade...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 31, 2015

Ground Zero, Nagasaki

Ground Zero, Nagasaki, by Seirai Yuichi, Translated by Paul Warham.Colombia University Press, Fiction.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Jan 31, 2015

Crime and punishment: Abe's Mideast crisis

In general, crime prevention is a good thing — it helps stop crime. By punishing people for minor transgressions, you stop them from committing larger misdemeanors and discourage crime overall. If the principle is applied blindly, however, it can produce some awkward results.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Jan 30, 2015

NBA has a different look as All-Star break nears

Up is down and down is up in the NBA these days.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jan 30, 2015

Fate of hostages unclear as swap founders

Japan and Jordan await word on Kenji Goto and pilot Mu'ath al-Kaseasbeh as the Islamic State group fails to provide proof of life for the hostage swap.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 30, 2015

Japan's fertile architectural evolution

Today, Japanese contemporary architecture enjoys an outstanding international reputation, but the story of its emergence to a position of such accomplishment and acclaim has not yet been told comprehensively. A pair of exhibitions at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa presents a postwar...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jan 30, 2015

Building social change after the earthquake

In 2011, the devastation of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami forced Japanese architects to rethink their understanding of architecture at a fundamental level — to consider closely society's systems and the affect buildings had on not only the life of, but also the psyche of the people.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 30, 2015

Inflation slows more than forecast in December

Japan's inflation rate slowed more than forecast in December, adding to central bank chief Haruhiko Kuroda's challenges in reflating the world's third-biggest economy.
WORLD / Science & Health / FOCUS
Jan 30, 2015

Safety concerns cloud promise of powerful new cancer drugs

A new wave of experimental cancer drugs that directly recruit the immune system's powerful T cells are proving to be immensely effective weapons against tumors, potentially transforming the $100 billion global market for drugs that fight the disease.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2015

Goto’s wife breaks silence as Jordan demands proof that pilot is alive

Speaking for the first time since the outbreak of the hostage crisis last week, the wife of Kenji Goto, the Japanese journalist now being held by the Islamic State group, released an audio statement Thursday begging the Jordanian and Japanese governments to save her husband.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2015

Goto gets sunset deadline extension

A new audio message purportedly from hostage Kenji Goto on Thursday morning declared that Jordan must present female prisoner Sajida al-Rishawi at the Turkish border by sunset on Thursday, or Jordanian air force pilot Mu’ath al-Kaseasbeh would be executed immediately.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jan 29, 2015

San Francisco Zoo lets spurned lovers name roaches, scorpions after their ex

The San Francisco Zoo is giving the spurned lovers a chance to adopt a giant scorpion or hissing cockroach and name it after their heart-trampling ex.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jan 28, 2015

Kawabuchi to help lead task force charged with solving Japan's basketball impasse

FIBA, basketball's world governing body, on Wednesday announced the formation of a task force to lay a new foundation for the sport in Japan, and former J. League chairman Saburo Kawabuchi was appointed co-chairman.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2015

Jordan reportedly offers to swap would-be bomber for captured pilot; no mention of Goto

Jordanian state-run television reported Wednesday that Amman was ready to release an Iraqi failed suicide bomber on death row if the Islamic State group freed a captured Jordanian pilot, citing a government minister in the Middle East country.
JAPAN
Jan 28, 2015

Prisoner swap without pilot thought difficult, Jordanians say

As an apparent Wednesday evening deadline approached, in which extremists again threatened Kenji Goto with death, the freelance journalist's friends, relatives and many others nationwide listened for word of whether Amman would free Sajida al-Rishawi, the Iraqi woman the extremists named as the price...
MORE SPORTS
Jan 28, 2015

McQuaid: Armstrong 'was scapegoat'

Banned cyclist Lance Armstrong was the victim of "a witch hunt" and made a scapegoat by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), says former International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 28, 2015

Back to the love hotel for ex-pink film director

Interviews with people you know well can turn awkward if you try to be the probing questioner instead of the coffee-shop companion. No such worries with 61-year-old Ryuichi Hiroki, the former pink film (i.e., soft pornography) director who made his commercial and critical breakthrough with the erotically...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past