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COMMENTARY
Jul 24, 2008

Barack Obama's overseas tour

Barack Obama wants three things out of his tour of the Mideast and Europe. He wants people everywhere to think that he has the answers for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He wants U.S. Jews to believe that he is Israel's unquestioning supporter. And he wants Americans to notice that Europeans would vote...
Reader Mail
Jul 24, 2008

Visitor got off easy in Hokkaido

Regarding D.B.'s July 17 letter, "Three days in the Hakodate jail": Japanese law is quite clear -- a visitor must carry his passport with him at all times. I cannot believe that this gentleman chose to deliberately break the law by traveling to Hokkaido at a time of heightened security without his passport....
Reader Mail
Jul 24, 2008

Sports no match for good books

I applaud The Japan Times for publishing Grant Piper's July 21 letter, "Social competition or pathology?" I agree with his views that competitive sports are immoral and inappropriate, but I disagree that noncompetitive, friendly and recreational sports are qualitatively any different from organized sports....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jul 24, 2008

Bettye LaVette brings her triumphant soul battle to Fuji

Few artists could have struggled through a career as thoroughly frustrating as that of American soul singer Bettye LaVette and still continue to display the strength and good humor that she does.
Reader Mail
Jul 24, 2008

More questions than answers

Regarding the July 20 article "Teenager held in dad's stabbing": How bizarre we can get? A 15-year-old girl "admitted stabbing her father in the chest several times with a knife." She "didn't like to be told to study" by her parents. The police got a call "from the teen's family" saying "the daughter...
EDITORIALS
Jul 24, 2008

Happy birthday, Mr. Mandela

Mr. Nelson Mandela turned 90 last week. The former political prisoner turned world leader is a hero and an icon — one of the few people who truly deserves those labels in an age of hyperbole and superficiality. Mr. Mandela has "retired from retirement," settling down to a quiet life with his wife and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 24, 2008

Fab Four flick offers a taste of revolution

It's easy to be skeptical about the idea of a movie-musical based on the music of The Beatles. After all, we've been there before with 1978's "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," the Robert Stigwood-produced travesty that took the most twee aspects of The Beatles' oeuvre, cast The Bee Gees and...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 23, 2008

Osama bin Laden: the Islamic bard of terror

PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY — In Riyadh last March, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decorated U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney with the Kingdom's Order of Merit. This gesture elicited hundreds of Internet postings from Arabs condemning the award as treachery and lamenting the pitiful state of leadership in...
Reference / Special Presentations / WITNESS TO WAR
Jul 23, 2008

Veteran sheds hatred, finds Japan now like second home

21st in a series
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2008

Rights of rational beings who are not human

MELBOURNE — On June 25, in a historic vote, the Spanish parliament's Commission for the Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries declared its support for The Great Ape Project, a proposal to grant rights to life, liberty and protection from torture to our closest nonhuman relatives: chimpanzees, bonobos,...
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Jul 22, 2008

Big clubs' shortcomings taking shine off J. League championship race

On the face of it, a league table where just 10 points separated the top 13 teams at the halfway point of the season would suggest an exciting contest, but this year's J. League has been more infuriating than it has been enthralling.
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2008

Nature of rights violations

Regarding the July 15 Zeit Gist article, "Human rights -- strictly personal, strictly Japanese?": Doshisa Law School professor Colin P.A. Jones suggests that the Justice Ministry would like us to think, at least where Japan is concerned, that "human rights violations are a problem caused by citizens...
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2008

Worse offenses than brown hair

It has recently come to my attention that a form of discrimination goes unchecked in Japan, and may even be enforced by the schools: discrimination against people with brown hair. A Japanese friend who works at a cooking college in Tokyo has been required to dye her hair black countless times by her...
EDITORIALS
Jul 20, 2008

Science fact or fiction?

Later this year, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is scheduled to go into operation outside Geneva, Switzerland. Scientists hope the LHC will enable them to better understand what happened when the universe was born. Some critics fear that the machine could trigger a catastrophe that ends life on Earth...
Reader Mail
Jul 20, 2008

Crime statistics seem skewed

USFJ Commander Lt. Gen. Edward Rice states in the July 16 article that the rate of off-base crimes committed by members of the U.S. military in Japan is much lower than that for Japanese in general: "We are able to keep the off-base serious crime rate for the U.S. service members to approximately half...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 20, 2008

Lemon-picking prof prompts reflection on strange twists of fate

Lately I have been thinking about some wonderful teachers I was blessed with at university. Three, in particular, shaped my life. Had I not encountered them, I doubt that I myself would have become an author of fiction, a translator and a teacher.
EDITORIALS
Jul 19, 2008

Niigata earthquake anniversary

The first anniversary of the earthquake off Niigata Prefecture came Wednesday, reviving sad memories for residents in Kashiawazaki, Niigata Prefecture, and other places. The quake resulted in the deaths of 15 people, and more than 2,300 were injured. Some 40,000 homes sustained damage, including 1,330...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jul 19, 2008

Stubborn Lions fend off Marines' late broadside

CHIBA — The Seibu Lions weren't exactly roaring on Friday night but they did enough to get the job done.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

The rising middle classes want their wheels

BEIJING — W hat becomes immediately apparent on entering the 10th annual Beijing car show is the emotional intensity with which China has thrown itself into its greatest consumerist passion to date: the first throes of an affair with the car. The entire nation, it turns out, is in love with them, is...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jul 19, 2008

My Life as a Gaijin, Kimono Reincarnate

My Life as a Gaijin and Kimono Reincarnate are two different blogs written by Melanie Gray Augustin. The former centers around the experiences of an Australian native living and teaching English in a foreign land, while the latter offers a taste of her artistic interests and entrepreneurial efforts...
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Jul 18, 2008

Tomita revels in veteran status ahead of second Olympics

Editor's note: As the countdown to the Summer Olympics draws closer, The Japan Times will provide more coverage of Japan's top medal hopefuls, as well as expanded coverage of international Olympians in the print and online editions.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2008

'Starship Troopers 3: Marauder'

The "Starship Troopers" franchise keeps scrabbling on, less due to public acclaim than the immutable logic that any science-fiction movie worth doing once is worth doing three times. There's something about trilogies — from Asimov or Tolkien perhaps — that just makes nerds feel complete. Fortunately...
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jul 18, 2008

Suntory Hall hosts concert for children

Tokyo Symphony Orchestra will perform a concert for children on July 26 at Suntory Hall in Minato Ward, Tokyo, that focuses on contemporary Japanese composers.
COMMENTARY
Jul 17, 2008

Let's hope it's over soon

The world is now in the grip of a first-class financial crisis. Some will be hit harder than others, but no one is going to escape. Final confirmation of this has arrived with the news that the two giant mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pillars of American life that underwrite, or insure,...
EDITORIALS
Jul 17, 2008

Fishermen fed up

The one-day stoppage of fishing operations on Tuesday proves that current high oil prices are acutely affecting economic activities. Most of Japan's 200,000 fishing boats took part in the fishermen's strike throughout the country, the first and largest of its kind.

Longform

After pandemic-era border regulations eased, Indian migrants began returning to Japan. Their population now stands at more than 50,000 across the country.
How remote work is rewriting the migrant experience in Japan