Search - author

 
 
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 21, 2014

Most heavy drinkers are not alcoholics, U.S. study finds

Contrary to popular opinion, only 10 percent of U.S. adults who drink too much are alcoholics, according to a federal study released on Thursday, a finding that could have implications for reducing consumption of beer, wine and liquor.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 19, 2014

Short Term 12: 'an intense intimacy with the camera'

Director Destin Daniel Cretton's first job out of college was working at a halfway home for troubled teens and, rather like author Ken Kesey's stint working at a mental institution, he clearly gained some insight and a fistful of vivid characters from the experience. The resulting film, "Short Term 12,"...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Nov 19, 2014

Jamaican sisters come bearing victuals and vibes

Baye McNeil profiles two Jamaican women who have built thriving careers for themselves in the Land of the Rising Sun, half a planet away from the Land of Wood and Water.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2014

Russia's 'mini-Cold War' strategy

What is the geopolitical payoff for Russia in turning Ukraine's Donbas region into an enduring fixture of its southwestern hinterland?
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 18, 2014

Putin-bashing at G-20 meeting was juvenile

What were Western leaders trying to achieve by humiliating Russia President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit?
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 18, 2014

Japan needs action, not a general election

It's time for Abe to show some teeth and enact his restructuring program.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Nov 18, 2014

Warm up over a shared hot pot

What comes to mind when you think of convivial home-cooked family meals? In Japan, the answer is usually nabe, or hot-pot cooking.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 17, 2014

Xi shows U.S. his no-nonsense approach to bilateral relations

Last week, President Xi Jinping showed the world a newly assertive China that's less worried about impressing others than in pursuing its own goals.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 17, 2014

Double up on your kanji to avoid homonym mixups

Although the Japanese and Chinese languages differ considerably in their syntax and pronunciation, one characteristic they share, along with use of kanji, is lots of homonyms. Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary, for example, lists 70 characters with the pronunciation shih (or shi, when transcribed in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 13, 2014

Atom Egoyan raises demons in 'Devil's Knot'

When three children were murdered in West Memphis, Arkansas, in 1993, the case quickly developed into a massive media spectacle.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 11, 2014

China flouts efforts to protect world's wildlife

It would be nice to believe China's rhetoric that it cooperates with other countries in protecting wildlife. Yet, for two decades at least, Chinese consumer demand has been directly linked to the precipitous decline of wildlife populations around the globe.
WORLD / Science & Health
Nov 11, 2014

Robot 'dolphins' give clues to Antarctic melt in data revolution

Dolphin-size robots are giving clues to a thaw of Antarctica's ice in a sign of how technology is revolutionizing data collection in remote polar regions, scientists said on Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 7, 2014

West must better understand Iraq to defend it

U.S. and allied airstrikes against Islamic State might unseat the group's fighters in critical areas of Iraq, but as things stand, troops from a rebuilt Iraqi Army will be needed to hold and govern liberated territory.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 4, 2014

Chinese Communist Party's great leap backward

Chinese President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign was supposed to signify a shift toward a more transparent system based on the rule of law, but the officials who have been purged so far have been Xi's political adversaries. Xi appears to be pulling China backward politically.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2014

Virgin Galactic crash won't deter space tourists

Grisly though it sounds, one strong customer market for comparatively high-risk Virgin Galactic space tourism flights of the future may be affluent people with a terminal medical diagnosis.
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 4, 2014

Bovine voter registration in rebel-held Ukraine

A cow, literally, could have voted in the elections for rebel-held regions of eastern Ukraine on Sunday. Nobody really cared who would win.
COMMENTARY
Nov 3, 2014

Does being gay make Tim Cook a better boss?

Strange as it may seem in 2014, Apple's Tim Cook is the first chief executive of a Fortune 500 company to come out in public about being gay. Members of this exclusive club are still unsure whether that's wise.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Nov 3, 2014

Redaction of a 'comfort woman' story

One of the Japanese stories sometimes mentioned in the 'comfort women' controversy was written by the late Taijiro Tamura in the spring of 1947. It depicted Korean 'comfort women,' but the U.S. Occupation 'suppressed' it.
Japan Times
JAPAN / AT A GLANCE
Nov 2, 2014

Tokyo Station's iconic brick building, witness to war, stands test of time

Approaching its 100th anniversary in December, the red brick building of JR Tokyo Station in the Marunouchi business district is a symbol of the capital that continues to defy the high-rises around it with its classical architecture and stately appearance.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Nov 1, 2014

Hello Kitty: still fabulous at 40

Who is only five apples high and has no mouth — yet is one of the country's biggest cultural ambassadors?
COMMENTARY / World / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 1, 2014

Commemorating wartime Soviet spy Sorge

Seventy years ago on Nov. 7, the Japanese authorities executed Richard Sorge, a Soviet spy who became a member of the Nazi Party and was operating as a journalist in wartime Tokyo.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 1, 2014

Fuminori writes noir, but not as we know it

Fuminori Nakamura has won many of the major literary prizes in Japan and is quickly making the same kind of impact in the English-speaking world. His third novel to be translated into English, "Last Winter, We Parted," is out now. It's a tense, layered story centered around a young writer commissioned...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Nov 1, 2014

The Sarashina Diary

The author known as Takasue's Daughter, or Lady Sarashina, kept a diary to mark her bold 11th-century journey from the east of Japan to the capital. So enthralled did she become with writing that she continued for 40 more years, producing an account that holds up fantastically for 21st-century readers....
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 1, 2014

Commercial rockets go boom like NASA's

There's no risk-free way to launch 5,000 pounds of food, science experiments and equipment to the International Space Station. As Orbital Sciences found out last week, some ways are far more dangerous than others.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 30, 2014

Will Hong Kong go beyond self-flagellation?

Hong Kong and mother China should be working together on ameliorating the social and economic pressures threatening to pull Hong Kong down far more dramatically and dangerously than today's governance dispute.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 29, 2014

A hobbit won't help with your emergency oxygen

Placing a priority on entertainment in preflight safety videos may not be the best way to teach first-time fliers emergency procedures.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NATURE'S PANTRY
Oct 28, 2014

A dalliance with the granular world of salt production

I licked up a smidge and then a bit more. It was explosive, yet gentle and not hit-you-over-the-head salty. Lovely.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2014

Sykes-Picot drew lines that blood is washing away

The highly centralized authoritarian rule of Syria and Iraq has broken down, probably irrevocably. That doesn't mean both states will disappear; they are likely to stumble on for some years.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2014

Catholic bishops hail the fringe

If you'd told a Jesuit priest reporter a few years ago that a synod of Catholic bishops on the family would make the front page of almost every newspaper and be a topic of heated conversation among Catholics worldwide, he would have called you crazy.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji