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Reader Mail
Jan 5, 2012

What a 'war-lover' has wrought

Talk about living in a glass house. I have a couple of questions for Kenzaburo Sugai (Jan. 1 letter, "What drives a war-loving culture?"):
Reader Mail
Jan 5, 2012

No monopoly on monotheism

In his Dec. 25 Timeout article, "The holy trinity of religions," Michael Hoffman writes: "Hindus, 870-million strong, comprise the bulk of what's left of the polytheists. For Hindus, the world is simply too rich, too overflowing, too monstrous and too beautiful, to be explicable in terms of a single,...
Reader Mail
Jan 5, 2012

Get real and focus on substance

There have been two worrying letter responses to what many would term the "pro-nuclear" Dec. 25 letter by Andreas Kolb, "Ridiculous antinuclear claims." In Nancy Foust's Dec. 29 letter ("Gross nuclear misrepresentations"), we get an insinuation that Kolb may be linked to the nuclear industry, and in...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 5, 2012

Beginning of the world's end?

You may not believe so, but millions do. They're convinced that ancient Maya priests calculated Dec. 21, 2012, as the end of the world as we know it. These claims and warnings, prognostications and reassurances are on bookstore shelves, on websites, in museum exhibits and in tourist promotions. The global...
Japan Times
JAPAN / NUCLEAR AWAKENING
Jan 5, 2012

Disasters kick-started dormant volunteer spirit

The March disasters generated an outpouring of volunteerism unseen since — let alone matched by — what followed the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.
BASKETBALL
Jan 5, 2012

Levanga cruises past Jets

If anything, Wednesday afternoon's Chiba Jets-Levanga Hokkaido contest was a small step forward for Japanese basketball.
Reader Mail
Jan 5, 2012

New paradigm for nuclear energy

Regarding the Jan. 3 front-page article "Fukushima meltdowns set nuclear energy debate on its ear": Nuclear power isn't the problem. The problem is with the reactors we've been using to produce it. If the reactors at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant had been liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs),...
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 4, 2012

Rubio displays jaw-dropping talent

Now I know what all the fuss has been about. Now I know why NBA executives and Euro talent scouts were so enchanted all these years. Now I understand why Donnie Walsh offered to give up smoking to make Ricky Rubio a Knick.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 4, 2012

Going to war, U.S. missed its opportunity to combat WMD

Now that U.S. troops have left Iraq, Americans are taking stock of the staggering price of this nine-year war of choice, in blood (nearly 4,500 Americans dead, 33,000 wounded), in fractured relations worldwide and in monetary terms (nearly $1 trillion in direct spending; several times that when counting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jan 3, 2012

The rise and fall of property taxes

There are many incentives for buying a home. One of them is to simply get out of paying rent — but that isn't to say that once you own your residence there aren't costs that have to be paid on a regular basis.
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2012

What drives a war-loving culture?

History unfortunately is written and distorted by the victor. Hiroaki Sato, author of the Dec. 26 article "Strange how isolationist stance can ruin a politician's reputation," will find it difficult to convince his American readers that not all Japanese leaders wanted to attack Pearl Harbor and fight...
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2012

Arriving at a monotheistic God

I greatly enjoyed reading Michael Hoffman's masterly Dec. 25 article, "The holy trinity of religions." But there is just one initial flaw. Hoffman goes along with the traditional misconception that Abraham came from Ur in Mesopotamia, and that he arrived at the idea — "in embryonic form" — of a single...
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2012

Flip dismissal of a warming Earth

The dodo is gone. Three billion passenger pigeons obliterated. A North American bison population of 60 million reduced to thousands. Half-a-million square kilometers of Amazon rainforest lost. The great cetacean species decimated by whaling. In 1965, the North Sea fishing industry was landing 1 million...
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2012

Four-by-six room feels happy

I totally agree with the sentiments of Kaori Shoji's Nov. 10 article, "Six-mat chic: Small spaces suit us just fine." A house with many unused spaces feels cold and empty without family members. Although I am from Indonesia, I understand what Shoji is saying. I have lived in a 4-by-6-meter room with...
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2012

Whales, kangaroos and ignorance

Regarding Australian Rhonda Grant's Dec. 25 letter, "Resentment by a new generation": I would like to add a couple of points. First, the Japanese perceive whales differently — as just another fish — even as they abhor the killing of kangaroos in Australia despite sound environmental reasons for reducing...
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2012

Missing the old-time bookstore

I found Gianni Simone's Dec. 24 article, "Tokyo's bookworms find readers' paradise in used bookstores," very interesting. When I lived in Kofu (Yamanashi Prefecture), I did not have a local used bookstore with English books. It would have been a great comfort to me and would have felt like home.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jan 1, 2012

Mayumi Kagita: A fusion of cultures revealed in dance

On Nov. 19, the Pit hall of the New National Theatre, Tokyo, in Shibuya, was filled with hundreds of eager theater-goers. They had come to see a performance of "Onna Goroshi Abura no Jigoku" ("The Women-Killer and the Hell of Oil"), a play written by Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724) — Japan's greatest...
JAPAN
Jan 1, 2012

What 2011 means for Japan in 2012 and beyond

We asked three long-term foreign residents to give their thoughts about Japan's past year and the coming year.
Reader Mail
Jan 1, 2012

Socially conscious global model

I love Amy Chavez's Dec. 24 Japan Lite column, "" How wonderful it would be if the whole world were to behave like many Japanese as a social norm.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Dec 31, 2011

Year of the dragon — it'll be a hot one

The year of the dragon, (tatsu, ryu or ryo in Japanese) is upon us — and now just hours before the New Year, I can see the dragon peeking out of his lair, counting down the seconds until he is allowed to take over the world for a year. As midnight approaches, he waits . . . 10, 9, 8, 7, ready to pounce...
SOCCER
Dec 30, 2011

Celtic beats Rangers to move top

Celtic supplanted Rangers at the top of the Scottish Premier League on Wednesday, defeating its Glasgow rival 1-0 to complete a dramatic turnaround in fortunes in the battle for the title.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 30, 2011

Letter from a Ukraine jail

It has been said that there are no atheists in a foxhole. Here, after my show trial and 4½ months in a cell, I have discovered that there are no atheists in prison, either.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 30, 2011

Miyazaki improves roster with addition of Mims

It's the time of the season for teams to add reinforcements as they begin jockeying for playoff positions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Dec 30, 2011

Heian Period 'Godfather' brought to life on NHK

Marlon Brando's title character in the 1972 film "The Godfather" might not be the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of 12th century warlord Taira no Kiyomori, but the comparison has proven particularly effective for public broadcaster NHK, which will air a yearlong Sunday-evening drama about...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 30, 2011

Top 5 DVDs to alleviate holiday cabin fever

The three Japan Times film critics (Mark Schilling, Giovanni Fazio and me, Kaori Shoji) are taking a much-needed and entirely fictional break in a log cabin in a remote location, with no entertainment except for five DVDs. (Personally, I would rather have camped out at a 24-hour cocktail lounge in my...
Reader Mail
Dec 29, 2011

Pressure for higher interest rate

Raymond Regalado's Dec. 18 letter, "Misleading criticism of debt," doesn't mention several factors that are important to this topic. The ratio of Japanese government debt to gross domestic product is around 200 percent. This is among the highest of any developed country. It is sustainable only due to...

Longform

Construction equipment sits idle in a park near Shiba Toshogu shrine in Tokyo's Minato Ward. While Japan has a history of treating its trees with reverence, green coverage is said to be lacking in most of the major cities.
Do Japan's trees no longer occupy the sacred space they used to?