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Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Aug 3, 2013

School wins prize for paddle power in its paddies

In mid-July, together with a couple of celebrities, a reporter and some staff from Aeon Co., Ltd., Asia's biggest retailer, I took a half-hour bus ride from Nagoya Station to the city of Aisai in Aichi Prefecture to visit Saya High School there.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 3, 2013

Chicago's young rappers find their voice in a violent city

Human tragedy has always been processed through song, and this summer it's happening most vividly in the city where America's blues turned electric.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 1, 2013

Where does Manning rank in the annals of espionage?

Cleared of the most serious charge — aiding and abetting the enemy — but convicted of most everything else, including espionage, Pfc. Bradley Manning is now facing sentencing, which could land him behind bars from roughly zero to more than 100 years.
Japan Times
WORLD / Society / FOCUS
Jul 22, 2013

Pope Francis starts first trip abroad on wave of hope

On the tiny Italian island of Lampedusa, the Rev. Stefano Nastasi threw the ecclesiastic equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 22, 2013

Standing up for a longer life span

Michael Jensen, a researcher at the Mayo Clinic, in Rochester, Minnessota, is talking on the phone, but his voice is drowned out by what sounds like a vacuum cleaner. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm on a treadmill."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 20, 2013

Satirist's hilarious stories tenderly feature the deluded, feckless

These are golden times for American satirists. After years of relentless brilliance, George Saunders finally seems to have crossed into the mainstream with his absurdist short-story collection "Tenth of December." Now Sam Lipsyte seems to be making his move, backing up his smart and very funny 2010 novel...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 19, 2013

Pioneering Australian's outdoor adventures invigorate Hokkaido

Australian Ross Findlay is a doer. Name any outdoor sport and chances are he's done it, from kayaking to rock climbing to snowcat skiing and snowshoeing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 18, 2013

Vampire Weekend to go 'Modern' at Fuji Rock

Over the course of three albums, Vampire Weekend has cultivated a unique sound from a wide spectrum of influences, including experimental rock musician Keigo Oyamada (aka Cornelius). Vampire Weekend lead singer and songwriter Ezra Koenig has a fond memory of the musician, often described as Japan's counterpart...
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 17, 2013

Body fat sheds calories when chilled

Transforming fat cells into calorie-burning machines may sound like a fantasy — the ultimate form of weight control — but the idea is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LABOR PAINS
Jul 15, 2013

Unwritten perks can trump work rules, contracts, even laws

At a certain company, workers take their lunch break every day from 12 to 1 p.m. But just 10 minutes before noon, a small contingent of workers get up and leave the room. A few minutes later the fragrance of miso soup wafts in from the kitchen. Employees take turns making the soup for the benefit of...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jul 15, 2013

Walk away from dessert or literally walk it off

If you knew that a 340-gram chocolate-chip frappe (530 calories) would cost you up to two hours of brisk walking, would you still order it?
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 14, 2013

Furigana: read the fine print, decode the hidden meanings

Years ago, a colleague at a company where I worked had a surname written using a character so obscure, that when handing out his business card he used to joke apologetically, 名前の漢字、ほとんど誰も読めない (namae no kanji, hotondo dare mo yomenai, hardly anybody can read the kanji in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 11, 2013

'Shanidaru no Hana (The Flower of Shanidar)'

Gakuryu Ishii has made something of a career of confounding fans and critics alike with his big shifts in artistic direction, his long silences and, in 2010, his name change from the unusual, if memorable, Sogo to the pretentious, if still hard-to-forget, Gakuryu (a combination of the kanji for "mountain"...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2013

Who'll stand for spied-on?

By hearing only the state side of the story, the U.S. secret surveillance courts lose the appearance of impartiality. Court disputes need to have adversaries.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 5, 2013

'Wind farms are not the answer to our problems'

Why do you think scientists and politicians have been slow and reluctant to confront population growth? It might be useful to first distinguish between growth and behavior. The problem is less the current number of us in itself (yet) but more the way the majority of the 7 billion of us live and consume....
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jul 5, 2013

Children of the 1960s will pay a higher price

To some, it must have been a very long time coming but here it is at last. That smug, gold-plated, bloated slice of the population, whose main preoccupation appears to be, on the one hand, continually bragging about their unique birthright of rock 'n' roll, flower power, feminism and the sexual revolution...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jul 5, 2013

Hate pornography, sure, but be wary of banning it

Prosecutions for the possession of the filthiest pornography confirm foreigners' suspicions that the British care more for animals than people. Between 2008 and 2011, the English and Welsh authorities charged 1,922 men for having images of bestiality about their person. By contrast, they brought only...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2013

The petty source of Lincoln's majestic vision

It could be that Abraham Lincoln's triumphs of the intellect were made possible by his very proximity to the mundane events that are said to exhaust politicians today.
Japan Times
WORLD / FOCUS
Jul 2, 2013

Boehner 'soft' approach boon, bane

When someone crosses John Boehner, he or she can expect a couple of reactions from the House speaker. Sometimes it is a thwack on the back and a disapproving shake of his head, quickly followed by a begrudging smile to indicate that all is forgiven. Sometimes it is a fake yell and then a shrug. One recalcitrant...
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 1, 2013

Beef all you want, Helicopter Ben was dropping hints since May

Shoulda, woulda, coulda. It's been a week since Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke "surprised" financial markets by telling them exactly what they expected, yet the whining is still going strong.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 9, 2013

T.S. Eliot's life in letters

In this fourth volume of collected letters, the limitations of the project show up clearly. T.S. Eliot's correspondence documents his life but rarely expresses it.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 4, 2013

Witnesses reluctant to talk about Tiananmen

From a young age, Qi Zhiyong's daughter asked him how he lost his leg.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 26, 2013

Kan Yasuda's tactile art brings new life to Bibai

Kan Yasuda's art somehow draws in the landscape, and entices in people, so that it is natural to explore the view through his structures and keyholes, to sit awhile atop a sculpture or to pose within their frames.
Japan Times
WORLD
May 25, 2013

Africa's Lincoln or a tyrant exploiting Rwanda's tragic story?

Paul Kagame is angrier than I've ever seen him. Rwanda's president is famously direct with his critics. His contempt for governments he's crossed swords with, led by the French, is only marginally less vitriolic than his view of human-rights groups daring to lecture him, the rebel leader whose army put...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
May 14, 2013

Inose's slurs anger, bemuse Turks in Tokyo but may boost Istanbul's Olympic bid

It's prayer time at Tokyo's biggest mosque and the congregation is pondering God, community and Naoki Inose, the city's governor, who many here say has revealed himself to be, well, a bit of a bigot.
WORLD
May 13, 2013

Cursive handwriting disappearing from schools

The curlicue letters of cursive handwriting, once considered a mainstay of American elementary education, have been slowly disappearing from classrooms for years. Now, with most states adopting new national standards that don't require such instruction, cursive could soon be eliminated at most public...
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
May 11, 2013

Defending champion Ryukyu big favorite against Kyoto

The Ryukyu Golden Kings are one of three bj-league franchises with two or more championships. But the other two — the Osaka Evessa (three titles) and Hamamatsu Hiagshimikawa Phoenix (two) — are not playing in the conference semifinal round of the playoffs.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Apr 27, 2013

Welcome to the Japan Jalapeno Hotline

It's April, which means new recruits in companies across Japan. And as the new school year starts, new foreign English teachers all over Japan are settling into their positions in Japanese public schools, getting shocked out of their socks. The newbie English teacher social media chatter has begun! Statements...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’