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COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 25, 2012

Right and justice shine through the infernal prism of wartime Poland

One of my most treasured possessions is an old photograph. Taken in 1910, in Krakow, Poland, it shows five generations of my ancestors on my mother's side, beginning with my great-great-grandfather, Joseph Pinkus Krengel, who was born in 1818.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 25, 2012

Petals 'perfect beyond belief' stir poetic

Two natural facts have had a disproportionate impact on Japanese culture: cherry blossoms are beautiful, and they fall.
Reader Mail
Mar 25, 2012

High road to a proper lunch

Regarding the March 20 Kyodo article "Cafeterias at government offices serve up buffet of corporate culture": When the Tokyo Metropolitan Government moved to Shinjuku from Marunouchi in 1991, a lot of public servants became "lunchtime refugees", meaning that there were not enough places in the Shinjuku...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 25, 2012

Media's gender roles push LGBT groups into corners

Last week, NHK aired all 22 episodes of the second season of "Glee" over seven consecutive nights. "Glee" is an American TV series centered on a high school glee club whose members are considered outcasts because of their love of singing. One member is a gay youth named Kurt. In the first episode of...
CULTURE / Books
Mar 25, 2012

An unserious look at the work of Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu

NORIKO SMILING, by Adam Mars-Jones. Notting Hill Editions, 2011, 239 pp., £12.00 (hardcover). "I can hardly be accused of being an expert on Japanese film," Adam Mars-Jones assures us early in "Noriko Smiling," his monograph on Yasujiro Ozu's "Late Spring." Such protestations at the beginning of a...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Mar 24, 2012

Outpouring for Muamba unusual

Patrice Muamba appears to be making steady progress after the Bolton midfielder's cardiac arrest during last Saturday's F.A. Cup tie against Tottenham. Let us hope Muamba, and anyone in a similar position, makes a full recovery.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2012

'My Week With Marilyn'

In his book "Retromania," music critic Simon Reynolds makes the case that pop music/rock has gone distressingly meta, feeding on its accumulated history at the expense of any further forward evolution musically. It's a bold argument — and well worth a read — but one could probably make the same case...
EDITORIALS
Mar 23, 2012

Resistance to bigger pension roll

The Democratic Party of Japan has been calling for incorporating irregular workers into kosei nenkin (a pension scheme originally for permanent corporate workers) as a means of helping to stabilize their life. But the plan the government and the DPJ adopted March 13 shows that they bowed to pressure...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 23, 2012

'Bokutachi Kyuko: A Ressha de Iko (Take the "A" Train)'

Yoshimitsu Morita, who died last December at 61, would seem to be a classic example of a brilliant young independent filmmaker who ends up as a mainstream journeyman, a career path all too common in Japanese films.
Reader Mail
Mar 22, 2012

Big risks without nuclear power

Since March 11, 2011, there has been a backlash against nuclear power among the public. Many people now equate nuclear power with danger. I, however, feel that the Fukushima nuclear accident was more of a human/managerial problem than a nuclear one.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 22, 2012

"Centenary of Venanzo Crocetti's Birth"

Italian sculptor Venanzo Crocetti (1913-2003) is best known for his figures cast in bronze, and in particular for his bronze relief "The Door of Sacraments" at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 22, 2012

"Centenary of Venanzo Crocetti's Birth"

Italian sculptor Venanzo Crocetti (1913-2003) is best known for his figures cast in bronze, and in particular for his bronze relief "The Door of Sacraments" at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Mar 21, 2012

Zen Master has nothing to gain by coaching Knicks

You know me; I'm too professional, polite and reverential of the coaching profession to speculate about interim Mike Woodson's successor while he still retains the Knicks' (favorite) title . . . at least as long as he's undefeated.
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2012

Nearing the end of tyranny?

President Vladimir Putin in Russia, President Bashar Assad in Syria and President Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe are detested by many of their fellow countrymen who would like to see them overthrown and tried for human rights abuses. They depend on a close coterie of guards and aides who have to be kept happy....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Mar 20, 2012

Reflections on 3/11: reporters' dispatches

Initial hopes turn to frustration In the immediate aftermath of 3/11 I penned several optimistic pieces for European newspapers predicting that the disaster might jolt Japan out of its long period of economic torpor and social ennui. I wouldn't write the same today.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 20, 2012

Author sees parallels between prewar, nuclear indoctrination

The March 10, 1945, Great Tokyo Air Raid was the most destructive air attack in history. Nearly 100,000 people lost their lives after approximately 300 B29 bombers attacked Tokyo's present-day Sumida, Koto and Taito wards. Some 1,700 tons of napalm and incendiary bombs created a firestorm that raged...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 20, 2012

Mistaken presumptions about Assad's Syria

Syria's uprising against President Bashar Assad, which began peacefully in Damascus a year ago, has become increasingly brutal and splintered. As the death toll nears 9,000, calls for international intervention have increased — but what worked in places like Libya won't necessarily succeed in Syria....
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2012

Whose sovereignty is it anyway?

Despite the huge sums expended to write down Greece's foreign debt, there has been an outcry of censure against "interference" with the country's national sovereignty.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2012

Authoritarian democracy looking less Asian

The world is being shaken by tectonic changes almost too numerous to count. The economic crisis is accelerating the degradation of international governance and supranational institutions amid a shift of economic and political power to Asia.
EDITORIALS
Mar 19, 2012

Preparing for the next big one

A year after the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Pacific coastal areas of the Tohoku region, the government and people need to realize that 3/11 will not be the last large-scale natural disaster to hit Japan. The nation needs to prepare for powerful quakes and tsunami that have been forecast...
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Mar 18, 2012

Putting the 'fortune' back in fortune telling

It pays to shop around when looking for a fortune teller.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Mar 18, 2012

Goro plays up comic side; the journey of the cherry blossom tree; CM of the week: Kirin Hyoketsu

Goro Inagaki adds his peculiar comic touch to the role of a prosecutor's investigator, thus muscling in on fellow SMAP member Takuya Kimura's territory. Kimura's most famous character is the irreverent (at least in terms of sartorial choices) prosecutor in the "Hero" series. In the special two-hour drama...
LIFE / WEEK 3
Mar 18, 2012

Lucky Dragon's lethal catch

At just over 25 meters from stem to stern, and 140 tons, the wooden long-line tuna-fishing boat Daigo Fukuryu Maru (No. 5 Lucky Dragon) is hardly imposing.
EDITORIALS
Mar 18, 2012

No graduation for too many

As graduation ceremonies get under way at schools across Japan this month, 1,029 students will not be graduating — not this year, not ever. That is the number of students who committed suicide last year, according to statistics released by the National Police Agency earlier this month. Though, overall,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2012

Push to replace Tokyo's aging expressways with tunnel routes revived

A once-shelved project to bury Tokyo's expressway network, which is now aging, deep underground is finding new life, in part because of last year's devastating Tohoku quake and tsunami.

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear