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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 30, 2011

'No Impact Man'

An important factor in "No Impact Man" the book is that the author reveals himself as having Zen Buddhist beliefs. What's missing from "No Impact Man" the documentary is this bit of personal information. Charting a year in the lives of the book's author, Colin Beavan, and his family — who decided to...
BUSINESS
Sep 30, 2011

New Softbank lineup stresses need for speed

The new product lineup unveiled Thursday by Softbank Corp. reflected the intensifying competition among carriers to provide the fastest ready phones and network services.
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Sep 30, 2011

NBA players could have positive impact on game in Japan

The NBA's ongoing woes could trigger the entire cancellation of the 2011-12 season. And if that happens, nobody would be surprised.
Reader Mail
Sep 29, 2011

Ban this intolerable stock phrase

I hate the phrase "restore the public's trust." It is too much over-cooked gobbledygook and I'd rather eat nails than hear it one more time. Lamenting the threat to, or decline in, the public's trust in politics is one of those stock phrases that are rehashed whenever politicians write articles for the...
Reader Mail
Sep 29, 2011

Uses of Keynesian economics

Regarding Washington Post writer Nicholas Wapshott's Sept. 24 article, "Keynes was not a 'big Keynesian' ": The appeal of Keynesian economics remains strong to various countries under various states of development. If one were to look at Britain and United States alone in the 1970s, one would be seriously...
Reader Mail
Sep 29, 2011

Net addiction is not academic

Regarding Michael Hoffman's Sept. 18 Big in Japan column, "Is permanent connectedness really something we all need?": Too much connection is as bad as too little. When I need to seriously work, I just turn off the Internet.
Reader Mail
Sep 29, 2011

Don't belittle individual efforts

I am a foreign resident who usually doesn't watch the Sunday morning talk shows, so I was not aware that Nobuteru Ishihara, secretary general of the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, and other political party leaders appeared on an NHK broadcast Sept. 11 to discuss the national government's response...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2011

Sage of Omaha could help Obama

President Barack Obama sure has been talking about Warren Buffett's taxes a lot lately. At his speech before a joint session of Congress this month, the president said that the billionaire shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than his secretary, a point Buffett has often made. The secretary's tax rate, and...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Sep 29, 2011

Aki goes pear shaped for Harumafuji as Hakuho notches No. 20

On Day 1, popular ozeki Harumafuji downed komusubi Toyonoshima in a match that had the audience at the Kokugikan clapping wildly and looking forward to a tournament in which the smallest man in the second rank would make a run for yokozuna grand champion status, following his championship win back in...
Reader Mail
Sep 29, 2011

Satisfying anti-corruption fast

In his Sept. 21 article, "Game show challenge in India," writer Kevin Rafferty calls the anti-corruption fast of Anna Hazare a tamasha, a rural word for a classical drama. It is used generally in a negative sense. We Indian citizens watched this high drama unfold, and in my opinion, it did not go down...
JAPAN
Sep 29, 2011

Radioactive soil can fill 23 Tokyo Domes

Radioactive soil and vegetation that must be removed in Fukushima and four adjacent prefectures could reach up to 28.79 million cu. meters, equal to filling the Tokyo Dome 23 times, according to a recent Environment Ministry estimate.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 29, 2011

The real financial rogues

The story of the latest "rogue trader" who allegedly cost his Swiss employer $2.3 billion in fraudulent trading is a marvelous one, especially since the alleged rogue, Kweku Adoboli, was praying on his Facebook page for a miracle more than a week before UBS realized that a large pot of its money had...
BUSINESS / ANALYSIS
Sep 29, 2011

Plenty of problems in tax hike plan

The government and the Democratic Party of Japan have finalized their temporary tax hike plan and will ask the public to cough up ¥11.2 trillion to help reconstruct the disaster-hit Tohoku region, but experts Wednesday were quick to point out flaws in the hastily prepared blueprint.
BUSINESS
Sep 29, 2011

After three-year delay, ANA's first Dreamliner in country, good to go

All Nippon Airways Co.'s first Boeing 787 landed Wednesday in Japan, ending more than three years of delays for the initial operator of the aircraft.
JAPAN / ANALYSIS
Sep 28, 2011

Aides' convictions bode ill for Ozawa

The convictions Monday of Democratic Party of Japan ex-leader Ichiro Ozawa's former aides for making false entries in his political funds records will inevitably impact the kingpin's own trial that starts next month and weaken his clout in the ruling party, legal and political observers said Tuesday....
EDITORIALS
Sep 27, 2011

Protection law fails whistleblowers

The Tokyo High Court on Aug. 31 reversed a lower court ruling and ordered Olympus Corp. to pay ¥2.2 million in damages to a 50-year-old employee who argued that the firm transferred him to different sections three times in retaliation for blowing the whistle on his boss. The firm appealed the ruling...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Sep 27, 2011

Ichifuji owners Midori and Takashi Nakao

Midori and Takashi Nakao, 55 and 61, are the owners of Ichifuji, a shop selling Japanese crockery in Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market. Established in 1951, the store is located in one of the oldest buildings in the jōgai shijō or outer market. More than 5,000 types of Japanese tableware are available to...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / MIXED MATCHES
Sep 27, 2011

Jamaica coffee, music recipe for success

Yukiko Ariga, 39, a Tokyo native, visited Jamaica, where her friend was living, twice on holiday because she loved reggae music. Eventually, she decided that she wanted to do something different in her life, so she went to live and work in the Caribbean nation in 1998.
BUSINESS
Sep 27, 2011

Delays over, Boeing has high hopes for slick 787

Boeing Co. was to hand over the first 787 Dreamliner on Monday to end more than three years of delays for a plane the company says will become a benchmark for decades in terms of technology and passenger amenities.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Sep 26, 2011

Time favors Tepco rebound

As the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power station continues, there has been a mounting call in Japan to eliminate or reduce its reliance on nuclear power and to reform the regional monopoly enjoyed by the utilities, notably Tepco.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Sep 26, 2011

Two 'systematic' acts of brutality and coverup

When Mark Hatfield, who had served as a U.S. Senator from Oregon for three decades, died in early August, obituaries noted that he was one of the first U.S. soldiers to visit Hiroshima not long after the atomic bombing of the city, and that experience led him to work for nuclear arms control later, after...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 26, 2011

Is Obama worried about work yet?

Beleaguered President Barack Obama has come out fighting with two recent speeches focused on America's high unemployment rate. First, he gave an address to both houses of Congress, which is now being nicknamed the "jobs-jobs-jobs" speech, because Obama mentioned the word 37 times in 32 minutes. Then,...
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Sep 26, 2011

Some four-kanji idioms are even officially child's play

Now that summer fireworks have ended and beach toys have been stored away, it's time for jukensei (受験生 entrance examination-takers) throughout the land to burn the midnight oil in earnest. High school seniors and third-year junior high students moving on to higher education — as well as elementary...
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Hollywood: place of liberation

Roger Pulvers has written two recent Counterpoint columns on Hollywood's "racial barrier" (Aug. 28, "Fame may be fleeting, but warm memories of Miyoshi Umeki live on," and Sept. 18, "Mako: the Japanese-American actor who fought racist stereotypes").
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Three issues in Chilean protests

Cesar Chelala's Sept. 16 article, "In Chile, dissent has a woman's face," has aspects of Chile's student protests all wrong, and Camila Vallejo's role as well. Students have combined three different movements into one, but their objectives remain separate.
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Hopes for a better Okinawa

In the most recent general election, I and many others voted for the Democratic Party of Japan chiefly because DPJ lawmakers appeared to be considering the relocation of U.S. Marine Air Base Futenma, Okinawa, to another prefecture in Japan or, possibly, to a foreign country. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama...
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Grateful acceptance of spiders

Regarding Marco Gessler's Sept. 18 letter, "Kill the jokes about spiders" (which was a response to Amy Chavez's Sept. 10 Japan Lite column, "The power of spiders in rural Japan"): First of all, I sincerely sympathize with Gessler and his family in Mexico over the the death of his daughter from a spider....
Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Mixed American views of Japan

It is no surprise that the United States, according to John Bolton (Sept. 21 Kyodo article "U.S. has 'abandoned' U.N. reform: Bolton"), has put off its recommendation that Japan occupy a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. From the very beginning, it was a nonstarter, as any such proposal would...

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