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Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Society
Oct 13, 2013

Chinese prison bars U.S. doctor from dissident

Moved by the plight and failing health of a Chinese dissident imprisoned for a few lines of poetry, a retired American doctor traveled from her quiet life in suburban Washington to the gates of his eastern China prison on Saturday and asked she be allowed to give him a medical evaluation.
BUSINESS / Tech
Oct 13, 2013

On the offensive in the cyberspace arms race

Anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can launch a cyber "attack," even though the skills and tools needed to do real damage are still in short supply.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 12, 2013

Busan is still Asia's film-fest gem, but its sparkle is fading

During the Q&A session after the screening of his new film "Stray Dogs" at the 18th Busan International Film Festival, which ran Oct. 3-12, Taiwanese director Tsai Ming-liang mentioned that not only was his previous film not distributed in South Korea, it wasn't even shown at BIFF. Tsai was one of the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013

Capturing Olivier in his contradictory essence

Laurence Olivier was the greatest British actor of his time, primus inter pares of the trio who dominated our theater from the early 1930s to the 1980s. His superiority to his chief rivals, Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, resides in the role he played in the creation of the National Theatre and in...
Reader Mail
Oct 12, 2013

Veterans group sees last days

I have learned that the Japanese Disabled Veterans Association decided on Oct. 3 to disband because its members have aged. Few Japanese know that such an organization still exists in Japan, but it is something Japanese should remember.
Reader Mail
Oct 12, 2013

Limited time to learn essentials

Regarding Robert McKinney's Oct. 6 letter, "The kanji cultures pack a punch": The original debate was not about whether an "innovator" should be interested in literature or music in his spare time but about whether liberal arts courses in university programs for science, engineering and medicine can...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 12, 2013

Pynchon's multigenre novel loses itself in glib in-jokes and pop-culture references

Thomas Pynchon's new novel prompts a question relevant to him and to all contemporary artists, from writers to directors to choreographers: If the present day is atomized, paranoid, infantile, obsessive, can a work of art capture this without taking on these attributes itself?
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Oct 11, 2013

Meet the man who plotted America's shutdown

As an appetizer before helping to send the U.S. government into famine mode, Ted Cruz railed against Obamacare on the Senate floor last month in a publicity-seeking speech that lasted more than 21 hours and included a Darth Vader impression and reading Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" as a bedtime story...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 11, 2013

The U.S. Civil War continues

A big hoax of American history is that the Civil War ended in 1865. Unfortunately it continues — as a battle over redistributing shares of economic power in the clothing of cultural values.
EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2013

Police must take stalking seriously

The murder of an 18-year-old Tokyo high school student underscores a failed police approach to stalking cases and the danger in giving out contact info to 'friends' on social networks.
Japan Times
WORLD
Oct 11, 2013

Wales set to restore Dylan Thomas' faded reputation as centenary nears

The little park where he played as a boy in Swansea, on Wales' south-west coast, has had a facelift, and a bronze statue is to be erected outside his childhood home. Manuscripts and rare photographs have been borrowed from an archive in New York, and his quotations have been liberally applied to council...
Events / KANSAI: WHO & WHAT
Oct 11, 2013

Big Oktoberfest at Deutsche Schule Kobe

Deutsche Schule Kobe European School will hold Oktoberfest 2013 on Oct. 19 in Kobe.
Japan Times
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Oct 11, 2013

Camera Grandma's photos document Gifu village's demise

Izu Photo Museum in Nagaizumi, Shizuoka Prefecture, is exhibiting the work of late amateur photographer Tazuko Masuyama on the Tokuyama Dam in Gifu Prefecture, where a small village vanished under the waters of a reservoir decades ago.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013

TIFF is your chance to catch up with Japanese film

The Tokyo International Film Festival, now in its 26th edition, has had its share of detractors, dissing it for everything from competition lineups of major festival castoffs (no longer true since TIFF stopped insisting on world premieres) to a Special Screening section that is essentially a PR showcase...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013

'Kids Return: Saikai no Toki (Kids Return: The Reunion)'

Released in 1996, "Kids Return" was a change of pace for director Takeshi Kitano, whose films to date had usually starred Kitano himself as a cop or a gangster, meting out violence with a brutal efficiency and a wry black humor. Critics mostly admired them and moviegoers mostly shunned them, despite...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 10, 2013

'Cairo Time'

When you're young, flirting is an activity that dangles real promise, the possibility that with the right chemistry, a hook-up may happen shortly thereafter. But when you're older — married with kids, say, or just burned often enough to be sensible — the flirt becomes more its own reward. The adult...
JAPAN / Media / Japan Pulse
Oct 10, 2013

Psssst! Wanna bottle of fresh air?

Is that bottle of air half full or half empty?
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

Complex issues knitted into the fabric of art

It's difficult to say something new about the Holocaust in face of an immense body of work produced over seven decades. Consequently more outlandish forms of expression are often required to inspire a fresh reaction.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

'Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist in Modern Paris'

Despite his relatively short artistic career of two decades, the 19th-century painter Gustave Caillebotte became famous as a popular French Impressionist, alongside the likes of Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2013

'Documents from Medieval Japan: Functions and Styles'

This show of important early written documents helps shed light onto the life, politics and culture of medieval Japan. Beyond the messages of the words they convey, the materials used to create these documents, as well as the style of calligraphy, often reveal techniques that are unique to the era and...
CULTURE / Music / JAZZ NOTES
Oct 9, 2013

Hakuei Kim heads to the border for Yokohama Jazz Promenade

When you think about a so-called jazz capital of Japan, there are a couple of contenders. Kobe makes a claim to history, the first Japanese jazz band Laughing Stars started up there around 90 years ago. Tokyo has the overseas stars, being the actual capital gets you that kind of clout. Yokohama also...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 9, 2013

Nuclear arms also serve as instruments of peace

The sensible path to peace starts with the realization that peace can be secured only through strength. Nuclear weapons represent that strength.
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2013

Ultimate act of love and bravery

The whole world is reading about this story online. The pain for her family must be great, but over time they can be proud of her exceptional bravery. To give your life — intentionally or not — so that someone else lives is the ultimate act of love that one can show. Peace be with her and her family....
Reader Mail
Oct 9, 2013

Activists who act like terrorists

The Oct. 4 Washington Post brief "Russia charges 14 Greenpeace 'pirates" made me think, "Good!" I am instinctively unimpressed by the more aggressive tactics of activist groups — Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherds in particular.
JAPAN / BULLETIN BOARD
Oct 9, 2013

Special concert to remember deceased loved ones

A requiem concert will be held Nov. 4 in Tokorozawa Shimin Bunka Center Muse in Saitama Prefecture to offer audience members a special opportunity to remember their loved ones who have died — with the names of the deceased printed in the program.
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2013

Japan adults tops in reading, math but slip in tech-related tasks: OECD

Japanese adults excel at reading and mathematics but are less competent when it comes to using technology for problem-solving and other tasks.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2013

Keep Asia in the forefront of U.S. foreign policy

U.S. President Barack Obama's decision to cancel his visits to the economic and political summits in Asia is a setback for the U.S. position in the region.
LIFE / Digital
Oct 8, 2013

Big data has made privacy obsolete

Watching the legal system deal with the Internet is like watching somebody trying to drive a car by looking only in the rear-view mirror. The results are amusing and predictable but not really interesting. On the other hand, watching the efforts of regulators — whether British ones such as Ofcom, or...

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years