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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 21, 2013

Is the age of automation taking a toll on jobs?

American colleges aren't worse today, but the skills required for solving unstructured problems and working with new info have become more complex.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Jul 21, 2013

Martin rallies across U.S. urge 'justice'

In most places it was too hot for hooded sweat shirts. So they came with T-shirts.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Jul 20, 2013

Yokohama to name Katsuhisa coach

A familiar face will be on the sideline for the Yokohama B-Corsairs next season. Multiple league insiders have told The Japan Times that Michael Katsuhisa will be named the second coach in team history.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2013

On the trail of bear hunters' heritage

Takashi Yoshikawa is no easy man to figure out. Trim and well tanned, the 63-year-old owns a small ryokan (traditional inn) nestled in the foothills of the beautiful Shirakami Mountains which straddle 130,000 hectares of Aomori and Akita prefectures, and whose 17,000 hectares of beech forests were listed...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 20, 2013

Building a case for birds

Many people would consider Stonehenge in southwest England or the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt — which both date from around 4,600 years ago — among the crowning glories of human achievement.
LIFE / Travel
Jul 20, 2013

Theaters of war and peace in Kumamoto

The pamphlet tells me this is a "castle" — but the structure in front of me defies that description. Granted, my frame of reference is greatly informed by the impressive edifices of Kumamoto, Himeji and Matsumoto that date back to the gory Sengoku (Warring States) Period spanning some 150 years from...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 20, 2013

Paying a price in Japan for showing up authority

After Japan's defeat in World II, its art world fell into the same flux as the rest of the society, as the rules and values that had governed it for decades suddenly vanished. Styles and movements once censored and banned, from Soviet-style socialist realism to surrealism, were now permitted and even...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2013

Misconceptions about how Wal-Mart operates

Wal-Mart's supporters laud its low prices while its opponents charge that it exploits workers and pollutes the environment. The truth is more complex.
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2013

A labor market contradiction

I feel that Grant Piper's July 11 letter, "Abnormal way to run a workday," has vividly depicted a current contradiction in the Japanese labor market.
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2013

Myanmar isn't out of the woods

Regarding the July 17 front-page AFP-JIJI article "Myanmar leader vows to free all political prisoners": It's ironic that history's biggest perpetrators of human rights violations — the erstwhile colonial powers — have today become the biggest advocates of human rights. This becomes all the more...
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2013

The more inspiring dystopia

I'll have to disagree with Christopher Taylor's assertion in his July 14 letter, "Alternative muse for video game," that P.D. James' novel "Children of Men" would have been a more inspiring dystopian novel for the recently released video game "The Last of Us" than would Cormac McCarthy's "The Road."...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jul 19, 2013

That's me in the picture: how 'selfies' became a global craze

It starts with a certain angle: A smartphone tilted at 45 degrees just above your eyeline is generally deemed the most forgiving. Then a light source: the flattering beam of a backlit window or a bursting supernova of flash reflected in a bathroom mirror, as preparations are under way for a night out....
BUSINESS / Tech / ANALYSIS
Jul 19, 2013

Robots likely to steal jobs from poor, middle class

Computers and cyborgs aren't about to render the American worker obsolete. But they are tilting the U.S. economy more and more in favor of the rich and away from the poor and the middle class, new economic research contends.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / Japan Pulse
Jul 19, 2013

Konbini Raiders: The lesser-known cousins of Popin' Cookin' Sushi

We sample a few examples of Japan's notorious DIY candy kits.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2013

Family issues abound in Delpy's comedy sequel

If you were into art-house cinema in the 1990s, you were into Julie Delpy, whether it was her boho-romantic Celine in Richard Linklater's classic "Before Sunrise," her ice-cold vixen in Krzysztof Kieslowski's magisterial "Three Colors: White," or even the clichéd hooker-with-a-heart in Roger "Pulp Fiction"...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 18, 2013

All of Okinawa is a stage for Kijimuna Festa

Parents who have tried to take their children on museum outings might recognize what a formidable challenge it can be to get them excited about traditional arts. Kijimuna Festa, a theater festival in Okinawa for children and young adults, was founded with this issue in mind.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 18, 2013

African plan to end hunger

Earlier this month, away from the shadows of the Group of Eight, African ministers meeting in Addis Ababa made a pledge to end hunger on the continent by 2025.
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 18, 2013

Origin of gold found in neutron star bursts

Gold — atomic number 79, element symbol Au and the most widely beloved of the precious metals — might have its origin in extremely rare and violent explosions in the far reaches of outer space.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 17, 2013

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu "Nanda Collection"

"Am I an adult? Or am I a kid?" sings Kyary Pamyu Pamyu on "Furisodation," a song about the Harajuku blogger-turned-model-turned-pop-star turning 20 earlier this year. That's the question that looms over all of her sophomore album, "Nanda Collection."
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2013

Police action distorted as racist

Debito Arudou, with his July 9 article, "Police 'foreign crime wave' falsehoods fuel racism,'" manages as ever to confuse apples and oranges. Anyone knowing anything about Japan realizes that the large majority of foreigners in Japan are law-abiding, if only because they do not want to lose their visas...
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2013

Battling the language in Japan

I would like to comment on the July 14 editorial "More people studying Japanese." Around the world more people are studying the Japanese language for various reasons, which is good news for us Japanese. And I fully support proposals to encourage Japanese-language teachers and Japanese students to study...
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2013

Hope for a thinking politician

In his July 9 column, "Revolution and democracy, " Hugh Cortazzi mistakenly attributes an oft-quoted remark to Chinese politician Deng Xiaoping. It was Zhou Enlai who, back in the early 1970s, is supposed to have commented that it was too soon to tell when asked about the effects of the French Revolution....
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2013

Deserving of a medal of honor

Regarding the July 9 AFP-JIJI article "Man who battled Japan nuke disaster passes away": I am profoundly saddened by the news of the death this month of Masao Yoshida, 58.
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2013

Tribute to people like Snowden

Regarding Daniel Ellsberg's July 9 article "Leaker Snowden made the right call": Edward Snowden and Daniel Ellsberg are heroes. More than that they are true patriots. They love America and its fundamental values so much that they were willing to sacrifice their careers and, if necessary, their freedom...
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2013

Western work ethic is wanting

In his July 11 letter, "Abnormal way to run a workday," Grant Piper raises a philosophical doctrine that is very Western: We live not to work, but we work to live. Indeed, this supports the utilitarian theories of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, two British philosophers of capitalism who promoted...
WORLD / Science & Health
Jul 17, 2013

Stutters in Earth spin change the length of days

Three times in the past decade, the Earth's spin has missed a beat as seemingly random blips cause days to temporarily stretch and shrink. These stutters have emerged from the clearest-ever view of how long a day is.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 17, 2013

Pluralism Japan's answer: immigration expert

Japan's leaders need to confront the reality of the rapidly thinning labor force and acknowledge that a more ethnically pluralistic society can help ward off the looming demographic crisis, a British expert on immigration policy says.
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2013

Killer octopus not seen posing threat to swimmers

As the hot, humid days lure people to the beaches, some may worry about the deadly octopuses that have been spotted in the Kanto region. To the relief of many, experts say few of them are still alive and beach-goers don't need to worry about the possibility of being bit by the venomous little critters....

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic