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EDITORIALS
Oct 23, 2005

A bad rap for a subtle season

Have you noticed the light changing? It's the best thing about autumn. In midsummer, and even well into September, the sun bleaches everything in sight. The sky will be milky-white, rarely blue, even on a cloudless day. There's a hard, brassy shimmer to the air.
JAPAN
Oct 23, 2005

Broad-based effort to help 'NEETs' find jobs

A group drawn from industry, local government and academia has launched a project to help youths not in employment, education or training -- known as "NEETs" -- find jobs.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 22, 2005

Naive 'gaijin' meets Paparazzi Parakeet

Japanese people have a reputation for loving to take photos. In Japan, it's not uncommon for complete strangers to ask you to join in their photo just so they can be in a picture with a "gaijin."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 20, 2005

Tagging in Mito galleries

"Street culture" and graffiti came into Japan around the 1990s, primarily as a fashion trend that accompanied the spread of hip-hop music and skateboarding. Traditionally, of course, it has grittier associations with American slums and ghettoes, where it became, at its most politically conscious, an...
EDITORIALS
Oct 19, 2005

What is Mr. Koizumi thinking?

His landslide victory in the Sept. 11 snap elections and the Diet passage on Oct. 14 of the postal services privatization bills apparently have emboldened Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. He made his fifth visit to the Yasukuni Shrine since he came to power in 2001 on Monday, which marked the start...
JAPAN
Oct 18, 2005

Ministry drafting plan for new flu strains

The health ministry is compiling a guideline to prevent the spread of new types of influenza and deal with potential outbreaks amid concerns a global flu pandemic may soon emerge.
COMMENTARY
Oct 18, 2005

Miers pick reflects Bush's flaky nature

WASHINGTON -- For most men who hold the office of America's president, government is serious business. For George W. Bush it apparently is a hobby. That's the only explanation for his "trust me" nomination of Harriet Miers to the U.S. Supreme Court.
EDITORIALS
Oct 16, 2005

The latest battle of Trafalgar

I t doesn't sound like the kind of thing you'd take your children to see: a 3.5-meter-high, gleaming marble statue of a naked woman who is not only eight-plus months pregnant but also physically deformed, with no arms and stunted legs. Yet just such a statue was installed in London's refurbished Trafalgar...
Japan Times
Features / WEEK 3
Oct 16, 2005

UNEAR THING FACT IN CLASSIC FICTION

'Robinson Crusoe" has fascinated explorer Daisuke Takahashi ever since his elementary school days, when he first read the classic adventure tale about a British sailor who lived on a desert island for 28 years. Imagining that he, too, was marooned on an isolated island, the young Takahashi would roast...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 13, 2005

Pop mystification

Sigmar Polke has a lot in common with the medieval alchemists with whom he identifies. Like them, he is interested in transmutation, sometimes employing pigments and techniques that make his paintings change over time. Like those pseudo-scientists of the past, he uses a combination of mystification and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 13, 2005

When revolution came to the big screen

1969 was a watershed year for American cinema, with two films in particular heralding significant changes to the movie-making industry. One was "Midnight Cowboy," the story of a hustler and a junkie on the streets of New York City, starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman; this became the first X-rated...
JAPAN
Oct 12, 2005

Older folks getting fitter; kids flabbier: survey

Middle-aged and senior citizens have become more agile while the physical capabilities of younger people are deteriorating, according to results of an annual fitness test.
COMMENTARY
Oct 10, 2005

No 'Koizumi power' in Europe

PARIS -- As the London Economist wrote, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "Revolution" was a "very Japanese" one indeed. What European politician today could dream of calling a general election designed to punish Parliament for having rejected his legislation and being rewarded with an electoral victory?...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 9, 2005

America's war criminals pass the buck to underlings

'I was only following orders." With these words, that have entered our language as a cliche reeking of bitter irony, SS-Obersturmbannfurer Karl Adolf Eichmann (1906-62) defended his part in the murder of innocent prisoners in Nazi death camps. The court in Jerusalem, where Eichmann was put on trial in...
JAPAN
Oct 8, 2005

Philippine NGO head seeks help for poor

Mutually Reinforcing Institutions, said the lending arm of the group, CARD Bank, extends small unsecured loans to 152,000 poor women who have families in rural areas of the Philippines. The loans, which are repaid in small installments, helps borrowers launch businesses in handicrafts, food retailing...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 7, 2005

Beautiful truths woven in lyricism

If poetry is an art then songwriting is a craft. Verbal phrases and musical phrases each have their own modes of logic and the trick is to match them up in a way that sounds natural. All songwriters try to do that to a certain extent, but Joanna Newsom seems more conscious of the actual work involved...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 6, 2005

Give them what they want

When Paul Baron moved to Tokyo three years ago, he was excited to explore the city's vast art world as he had been an avid follower of art events while studying graphic design in London. There was only one problem: Where to find out what was going on. It should have been easy; it should have all been...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Oct 5, 2005

Sad drumbeats in the wilderness

I made several visits to the Aichi Expo this year and met a lot of interesting people. But one person above all left an indelible impression. Soft-spoken, modest, and wearing traditional northern buckskin, his name was Michael Cazon -- a Dene drummer, teacher and healer from Fort Simpson in the Northwest...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Oct 4, 2005

What are you doing to protect the environment?

Katharina Mueller Au pair, 19 I unplug things, hand wash dishes and I hang washing outside. People should rely less on all of the conveniences like dishwashers, turn the lights off and try opening the windows instead of the air conditioner.
BUSINESS
Oct 4, 2005

Latest Bali blasts to have limited impact, travel agencies say

Japanese travelers appear to be taking Saturday's deadly bombings in Bali calmly, with relatively few tour cancellations reported by travel agents so far.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Oct 3, 2005

Japan's GDP and GNP: How far will the domestic and the national spread?

Numerical targets are much in vogue these days. The post-election Koizumi government also seems to have caught the bug in light of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy's latest plans for managing the economy over the medium to longer term.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 2, 2005

A stinging voice of conscience who told it like it is

He would have turned 80 this month. And in our time of ill-lived religious fanatics and retrograde policy planners, we feel his loss all the more.
EDITORIALS
Sep 28, 2005

Now for some bold reforms

With the resounding victory of the Liberal Democratic Party in the general election, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi can now boldly kick-start the stagnant process of structural reform. Utilizing the strong leadership consolidated in the triumph, Mr. Koizumi must set about breaking up the LDP cliques...
JAPAN
Sep 28, 2005

LDP wants five rights added to new Constitution

A Liberal Democratic Party panel drafting a new Constitution wants to include five new rights, including on the environment and on information, in the final version to be unveiled in November, LDP lawmakers said.

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’