Search - author

 
 
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2016

Choice of history in China will guide sea dispute

The 'victim' historical narrative propagated by Beijing may be politically convenient at the moment, but it ultimately threatens to undermine China's rise.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jul 17, 2016

Feeling despair from a distance as black lives taken

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it — always." — Mahatma Gandhi
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 17, 2016

Scotland is determined to retain its EU status

Scotland is European, and it needs EU membership to flourish.
Japan Times
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jul 16, 2016

Ultraman: Ultracool at 50

Ultraman has been defending humanity against monsters and aliens for half a century. We examine the superhero's enduring legacy.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jul 16, 2016

Anime discovers a rural outpost

For the past few years, the beginning of July has found me on a flight from Tokyo to Los Angeles to attend Anime Expo (AX), the largest annual North American convention devoted to Japanese popular culture, and its related industry-only event, Project Anime (PA). Both continue to break attendance records....
CULTURE / Books
Jul 16, 2016

'Strange Glow': A grounded, intelligent look at radiation

"Strange Glow" hits all the notes you'd expect from a book described as "the story of people's encounters with radiation" — from physicist Ernest Rutherford's overturning of the"plum pudding" model of the atom to the "radium girls" who were poisoned by the glow-in-the-dark radium paint they applied...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jul 16, 2016

'Zen's sudden awakening to the truth beyond reason, beyond language'

Rabbi Zusia tramped through his native Poland — this admittedly is an odd way of introducing a story about Zen — collecting money to ransom Jews unjustly imprisoned, victims of the rampant anti-Semitism then prevailing. At a wayside inn he saw birds in a cage. Zusia, simple soul that he was, promptly...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 16, 2016

Penguin park opens in Shinjuku

JR Shinjuku Station held a ceremony to unveil a new park and bronze penguin statue representing the mascot for East Japan Railway Co.'s (JR East) Suica IC card at its recently opened south exit, on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 15, 2016

Selection of next U.N. chief reaches critical stage

The Security Council should select the most qualified candidate for the next U.N. chief, as the U.N. can no longer afford to have less than the best at its helm.
WORLD / Society
Jul 15, 2016

U.S. lawmakers introduce bill to criminalize 'revenge porn'

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced long-stalled legislation on Thursday that would make it a federal crime to share sexually explicit material of a person online without the subject's consent.
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Jul 12, 2016

For China, Trump perhaps better the devil they don't know

In 2010, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton provoked outrage in Beijing when she pushed the South China Sea to the top of the regional and U.S. security agendas.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2016

How Clinton limps forward after the FBI report

FBI Director James Comey may have recommended against charging Hillary Clinton; but, politically speaking, he hung her out to dry.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2016

U.S. cops protect violent, racist system

Black or white, the U.S. police are paid to oppress, not protect, and citizens of all races have good cause to be afraid of them.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2016

Police are killing, and dying, in a vicious circle

What's at stake in the U.S. is the preservation of police legitimacy.
CULTURE / Music
Jul 11, 2016

'Sukiyaki' lyricist Rokusuke Ei dies at 83

Rokusuke Ei, who wrote the lyrics to the global hit "Sukiyaki" ("Ue o Muite Aruko"), passed away from pneumonia at his home on Thursday. He was 83.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 11, 2016

The roots of mistrust in Middle East societies

Reviving Islamic law would only deepen a trust deficit that is a key source of the Middle East's current economic underdevelopment and political failures.
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Jul 10, 2016

Japan's discriminatory koseki registry system looks ever more outdated

Once part of a panopticon-like system in which everyone would feel that they were being monitored but could also participate in the monitoring process, the kosei is now showing its age.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 9, 2016

Cracks are appearing in Japan's 'healthy' image

Few people snack on baby carrots. Most prefer the sweet, fat, high-calorie fare colloquially known as junk food.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 7, 2016

Controlling Islamist terror

Unless concerted efforts are made to fight the ideology of jihad and drain the terrorism-breeding swamps, liberal, pluralistic states could come under siege.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 6, 2016

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s humble nobility

Elie Wiesel set himself just one task: to become the cenotaph of his countless mates in the death camps.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 6, 2016

The sobering evidence of social science

Social science cannot tell us what to do, but it can tell us the results of what we are doing.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jul 6, 2016

'Brooklyn': Romance is not dead, it's just dull

Given its title, you'd be forgiven for thinking that "Brooklyn" was a movie about lumbersexual hipsters, all named Zach, opening a single-origin, gluten-free artisanal mac-and-cheese shop in Fort Point, and the zany complications that arise when they realize two bathrooms are inadequate to serve the...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jul 5, 2016

Durant's decision based on best chance to win titles

Jerry West may have done it again.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2016

U.K. referendum: Just when should the majority rule?

The Brexit referendum has raised a question for many people on the losing side: How democratic do we want to be?
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 5, 2016

Clinton beating Sanders by hook and by crook

Caucus after caucus, primary after primary, the Clinton team robbed Bernie Sanders of votes that were rightfully his.
WORLD / Society
Jul 4, 2016

Some 20% of Western Australian Aboriginal kids have no birth record

Nearly 1 in 5 Aboriginal children born in Western Australia has no birth documents with most unregistered children born to teenage mothers and facing further social disadvantage later in life, research showed on Sunday.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 3, 2016

Why oil is still headed as low as $10 a barrel

The world is awash in crude, and the once-feared OPEC is pretty much finished as an effective price enforcer.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jul 2, 2016

Black Illumination: Zen and the poetry of death

On a winter morning in 1360, Zen master Kozan Ichikyo gathered together his pupils. Kozan, 77, told them that, upon his death, they should bury his body, perform no ceremony and hold no services in his memory. Sitting in the traditional Zen posture, he then wrote the following:
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / JAPAN TIMES GONE BY
Jul 2, 2016

Karuizawa murder; Tokyo subways vital; Beatles live at the Budokan; 'Satanic Verses' translator slain

100 YEARS AGO
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2016

'Citizens of the world'? Nice thought, but wrong

Nationalism and place still matter, and the West's elites forget this at their peril.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami