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Reader Mail
Sep 25, 2011

Evacuation revelations shocking

Revelations of tentative plans to evacuate millions of metropolitan Tokyo residents after the March 11 disaster, in the Sept. 19 article "Tokyo faced evacuation scenario: Kan," were absolutely shocking. If it came to that, how could it be done, and where could we go?
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 25, 2011

Welfare system not faring well

Ten years ago, in her book "Nickel and Dimed," Barbara Ehrenreich chronicled her own experience as a subsistence-level American wage-earner during a period of relative economic vigor. She found a whole class of workers who lived — and would always live — from paycheck to paycheck. In the afterword...
COMMENTARY
Sep 19, 2011

Stronger defense for region

Although the original version of this article was written for a Japanese daily, I initially had American readers in my mind as the main target of my argument.
Reader Mail
Sep 18, 2011

More mellow pitch on wines

Regarding the Sept. 9 Weekend Scene article, "Going crazy for vintage wines": Amid the global economic problems for the average person and the sad effects of the March 11 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accidents, I am sorry to see an article about very high-priced wines that are out of the reach of...
Reader Mail
Sep 11, 2011

Tokyo doesn't get enough respect

According to the Global Livability Survey's ranking of 140 cities worldwide — the subject of the Sept. 1 AFP-JIJI article "Melbourne replaces Vancouver as the world's 'most-livable city'" — Tokyo came in 18th while Osaka was 12th! This annual survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit tends to rank...
Reader Mail
Sep 8, 2011

Skimming over a barbaric hunt

The Sept. 2 Kyodo article "Typhoon delays Taiji dolphin hunt" misses the main point. It should have said: "While coastal whaling involving catcher boats usually starts May 1, drive hunting — a traditional whaling method born in Taiji in which cetaceans are herded into a shallow bay where they are brutally...
Reader Mail
Sep 4, 2011

Nice piece on the indies scene

Thanks for Ian Martin's Aug. 25 column, "Avoid the sins of playing live in the grimy clubs of Japan." This is a decent article, although some points don't apply so much to professional indie bands doing gigs at proper venues. Some things that work for bands in other countries don't necessarily work for...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Sep 4, 2011

Actress's inheritance saga plays out like melodrama

Sometimes the components of a news story fit together so perfectly that you can't help but wonder how much of it was engineered by the press. Actress Hisako Manda, a former beauty queen who found success in recent years as a cover girl for magazines catering to women in their 50s, is currently at the...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 4, 2011

These may be interesting times, yet we yearn to return to normality

"May you live in interesting times," goes the familiar curse — or as the Chinese say in a similar vein, "It's better to be a dog in times of peace than a human in times of chaos."
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 1, 2011

Libya's next fight: the West

At a press conference in Tripoli on Aug. 26, a statement read aloud by top Libyan rebel commander Abdel Hakim Belhadj was reassuring. Just a few months ago, disorganized and leaderless rebel fighters seemed to have little chance at ousting Libyan dictator Moammar Ghadhafi and his unruly sons.
BUSINESS / YEN FOR LIVING
Aug 31, 2011

Discount strategies: Every dog, and man, has his day

The service industry is finally targeting guys.
Reader Mail
Aug 28, 2011

Where did Agent Orange stop?

Regarding Jon Mitchell's Aug. 24 article "Okinawa vet blames cancer on defoliant": The Japan Times journalists working on this very controversial story should be considered eligible for a Pulitzer Prize. I don't know of any newspaper in the United States that is reporting on this story. There are probably...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Aug 28, 2011

Is youth's 'creeping passivity' happening by design?

Last February, I wrote an Our Planet Earth column titled "Don't give up on Japan's kids," noting there that despite all the hand-wringing that goes on about this nation's young people, my own experience with university students gives me cause for considerable optimism.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 28, 2011

The best of his years . . .

This summer, my translator and I stood in Izumi Matsumoto's home-cum-office in Tokyo, where he had just been searching in vain for any original drawings from "Spring Wonder," which was, 27 years ago, the first manga serial he pitched to leading comics magazine Weekly Shonen Jump.
Reader Mail
Aug 25, 2011

Imagine a more positive future

Regarding Roger Pulvers' Aug. 21 Counterpoint article, "Should wartime and peace allow such different attitudes to murder?": It is sad that many acts are glorified when they are so similar to certain others that are not glorified. Our portrayal of historical incidents is much like advertisements in that...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Aug 23, 2011

Legal help for those on a limited budget

Reader GR is seeking legal assistance:
Reader Mail / GENERATIONAL CHANGE
Aug 21, 2011

What more autopsies might tell

The Aug. 14 Media Mix article, "Media coverage often 'the last push' to suicide," contains the following paragraph:
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 21, 2011

Korean television dramas are not the real problem

On July 23, actor Sosuke Takaoka tweeted that he was sick of all the Korean dramas on Fuji TV, a network he "used to be indebted to," and demanded more "traditional" Japanese programming. "If anything related to South Korea is on," he continued, "I just turn it off." The backlash was swift, and the actor...
JAPAN / CHUBU CONNECTION
Aug 20, 2011

War-era canvases of animals resurface

Wartime-era paintings depicting animals have been stored in obscurity for decades at Nagoya City Art Museum and until recently their existence was unknown to the general population.
Reader Mail
Aug 14, 2011

Power-saving mindset has limits

Regarding the Aug. 10 article "Nuclear power debate heating up": I strongly disagree with the notion that just because we seem to be doing fine amid the current electricity deficit, Japan will be just fine without nuclear power plants in the future.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 14, 2011

Media coverage often 'the last push' to suicide

In May, 24-year-old TV personality Miyu Uehara was pronounced dead shortly after a friend found her hanging from a door in her Tokyo apartment. Uehara's death was called an "apparent suicide" by the media, and while the terminology was cautious the reporting itself took for granted the belief that Uehara...
JAPAN
Aug 10, 2011

Noda delays announcement of bid to replace Kan amid market turmoil

With financial markets in a state of tumult, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda decided Tuesday to postpone the anticipated announcement of his candidacy to succeed Prime Minister Naoto Kan as president of the Democratic Party of Japan.
Reader Mail
Aug 4, 2011

Dumb statistic on foreign exodus

The July 31 Kyodo article "10% of foreign residents have left disaster-hit prefectures" is a rather poor example of journalism, as it fails to provide the full context. Yes, perhaps 10 percent of foreigners left the prefecture, but in the bigger picture, how many Japanese also left the prefecture?
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Aug 2, 2011

World needs lessons in dealing with difference; Japan needs an education in attracting students

Following are three more readers' mails in response to both Gerry McLellan's May 24 Hotline to Nagatacho column "Japanese adults need an education in dealing with difference" and other letters published on the subject on June 28.
Reader Mail
Jul 31, 2011

Update of released radiation due

Regarding the July 28 article "Threat to food chain grows as contamination spreads": In this article, and in a number of others, I have seen the following statement: "On June 6, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said the plant released about 770,000 terabecquerels of radioactive material into...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 31, 2011

Rail rivalry outcome hinges on speed vs. safety

Following the July 23 collision of two high-speed trains in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province — blamed on faulty signaling equipment — that killed at least 39 passengers and injured over 200, Japan's media, to their credit, suppressed any obvious overtones of shadenfreude. But in the weeks before the...
Reader Mail
Jul 28, 2011

Disappointing answers on beef

I was shocked to see that the July 23 question-and-answer article, "Are worries over meat warranted?," made it past editorial screening. For starters, I refer to the last paragraph of the first answer: "The 82.65 microsieverts compares with the 100 microsieverts of radiation a person would be exposed...
Reader Mail
Jul 28, 2011

How much radiation got out?

I agree with the July 24 letter from the Marumori-machi, Miyagi, man, "Open letter to nuclear experts," who evacuated his wife and children from their home near the stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant. I would like to recommend a very interesting article on how Tokyo Electric Power Co. has betrayed...

Longform

Dangami House is a 180-year-old former samurai residence of the Kato clan, who ruled over Ozu, Ehime Prefecture, until the Meiji Restoration.
A house, a legacy and the quiet work of restoration in rural Japan