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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2013

Exercising society's right to ignore the ignorant

Regardless of their reasoning, people have a right to choose ignorance. But letting that choice drive public policy constitutes a serious threat to scientific and economic development.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / CHILD'S PLAY
Aug 20, 2013

A big day out at the sumo

They're sweaty, they're chubby and they love pushing each other around. But enough about the folks at my family reunion, let's talk about sumo. This quintessentially Japanese sport is a lot of fun to witness with kids, and the Ryogoku neighborhood surrounding Tokyo's Kokugikan sumo stadium has several...
LIFE / Digital
Aug 20, 2013

Britain's new 'smart meters' not so clever

Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make credulous. In the case of technology, especially technology involving computers, that's pretty easy to do. Quite why people are so overawed by computers when they are blasé about, say, truly miraculous technologies such as high-speed trains, is a...
JAPAN
Aug 19, 2013

Hanford offers Tepco lesson in cleaning up Fukushima

Hanford Engineer Works produced the 9 kg of plutonium for the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. It's among the most toxic nuclear waste sites and the place Japan is turning to for help dealing with the melted reactors in Fukushima.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Crime & Legal
Aug 19, 2013

Officials search for fortune of Chun Doo-hwan, South Korea's last dictator

South Korea's last dictator lives in an L-shaped mansion protected by 5-meter stone walls and a plainclothes security team. He almost never goes outside, his longtime lawyer says, given the scrutiny he would face. Highlighting the extent of change in the nation he once ruled, Chun Doo-hwan is whiling...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Aug 19, 2013

Abe and his ministers give anti-foreigner rallies tacit green light

To the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe:
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / ON: TECH
Aug 19, 2013

Affordable storage, Sony's laptop-tablet hybrid, tracking lost goods and more

Storage space that won't break the bank
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2013

Global threat of nuclear deterrence

lmost half a century after the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was signed, the world is still perched precariously on the edge of the nuclear precipice.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 18, 2013

For Obama, racial progress tied to economic woes

President Barack Obama has only occasionally used his bully pulpit to confront racial inequality in the U.S., even if race inherently has been a backdrop of his tenure as the nation's first black leader.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 18, 2013

Was rodeo mask act more than just a case of clowning around?

As some people at the Missouri State Fair see it, the rodeo incident earlier this month in which a ringleader taunted a clown wearing a mask of President Barack Obama and played with his lips as a bull charged after him was neither racist nor disrespectful.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 18, 2013

Japanese women and the summer chill — a love story

Meet Matt, a software engineer in Silicon Valley, California, who recently married his college girlfriend from the University of Southern California. Her name is Miho. The pair are both in their late 30s and there was a 10-year period after university when he didn't lay eyes on Miho or feel any interest...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 17, 2013

Cyber-kids get a break during Bon holidays

You didn't need prophetic powers, back in the 1980s when the personal computer was starting to show its potential, to foresee something like Internet addiction. It should have been obvious. It was, to science-fiction writer William Gibson. Reminiscing to Time magazine in 1995, he recalled his shock,...
Reader Mail
Aug 17, 2013

A distraction from a tragedy

In his Aug. 11 Big In Japan column, "'Haiku killings' recall infamous horror story," Mark Schreiber does a great job of summarizing the recent beating and arson deaths in the mountain hamlet of Mitake, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Given my plodding translation skills, it certainly would have taken me a long...
Reader Mail
Aug 17, 2013

Clean up Fukushima or else

Two months since The Japan Times' June 11 editorial "Cease promoting nuclear power," things seem to have gotten alarmingly worse. The Japanese and the world community should come to terms with the hard reality that this island nation is the only one in human history to have suffered three nuclear disasters....
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Aug 17, 2013

China hit by rash of fake officials peddling 'power'

He had the swagger and trappings of a senior party cadre, and a natural authority that made him hard to contradict. The walls of his office in the heart of the Chinese capital were adorned with photographs of him next to retired generals and government officials. He drove a top of the range Audi and...
BASKETBALL
Aug 17, 2013

Knicks sign ex-Tokyo Apache big man Tyler

Jeremy Tyler made a positive impression during the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas last month, playing for the New York Knicks. That prompted Knicks general manager Glen Grunwald to offer Tyler, a former Tokyo Apache forward/center, a contract for the 2013-14 season.
EDITORIALS
Aug 16, 2013

Mr. Abe's mistaken war speech

Shinzo Abe's revisionist views toward Japanese history, implied by what he didn't say in his Aug. 15 speech, is likely to deepen international suspicions about Japan.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 16, 2013

Flying reptiles that weren't so scary after all

For most of us, "pterodactyls" are large, vicious and ugly gargoyles with leathery wings and jaws lined with savage teeth, the sort of disreputable brutes we find in Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World," the "Jurassic Park" franchise — even a recent episode of "Doctor Who."
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Aug 16, 2013

Chelsea, Man City start as favorites

We know the short list from which the Premier League champion will come.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Aug 16, 2013

Inside Nazo Tomo Cafe

What awaits visitors to the pop-up puzzle cafe in Shibuya? Read the details of our hands-on experience!
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 15, 2013

War dead kin waged peace since '45

Tamami Watanabe was 7 when her father died in 1945 in the Philippines while fighting for Japan, and her memories of him are fading.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Aug 15, 2013

Jackson, wife given jail terms

Jesse Jackson Jr., a once-promising Illinois congressman, was sentenced to 30 months in prison Wednesday for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money to fund an extravagant lifestyle.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013

'Jokyo Monogatari'

So many Japanese have relocated to Tokyo over the years to make their fortunes — or simply to escape rural poverty — that there is a word to describe the act: jōkyō (which the dictionary defines as "proceeding to the capital [Tokyo]"). Something similar in English would be "New York" as a verb:...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013

'Populaire'

It's "My Fair Lady" meets "Flashdance" meets the sweet, earnest rom-coms of the 1950s. "Populaire" is the feature debut by French filmmaker Régis Roinsard (most famed for Jane Birkin's promotional videos) but the film has the look and feel of a veteran artisan: "Some Like it Hot" director Billy Wilder,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013

'Playing For Keeps'

Gerard Butler, most famed for his muscled marauder performance in "300," always seems on the verge of burning rage or spontaneous combustion — which is why he was a disaster in rom-coms such as "The Bounty Hunter" and "The Ugly Truth." For all his handsome-guy demeanor, he just doesn't seem nice to...
CULTURE / Film
Aug 15, 2013

'It's Such a Beautiful Day'

Director: Don Hertzfeldt
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 14, 2013

Hard rock, J-pop rule Summer Sonic

Veteran Japanese rockers Mr. Children attracted so many fans to this year's edition of the Summer Sonic music festival that they made Smashing Pumpkins' frontman Billy Corgan upset.

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