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Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Jun 17, 2014

Traditional jelly noodles are cooling as well as healthy

Summertime is the season for cooling jellies, and one of the most popular kinds in Japan is kanten. Overseas, this is known as agar-agar, but here kanten and agar are confusingly considered to be two distinctly different substances.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2014

The damage done by 'moderates'

Every day the insipid overlords of America's inane corporate news media put out the same message: Extremism is extremely bad. But might the so-called moderates be worse?
Japan Times
JAPAN / NATIONAL SPOTLIGHT
Jun 15, 2014

'Womenomics' push raises suspicions for lack of reality

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may be a political hawk who believes Japan can once again become a macho state that can hold its own against regional threats, but as he looks for money and muscle he is turning to an unlikely source: women.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 15, 2014

Oh, the places we'll go in 2020 — unless, of course, we won't

In 2020 the Tokyo Olympics will be here! And all our troubles will be gone. Unless, of course, they won't. Because, sometimes, they don't.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Jun 14, 2014

Ghostly footprints of the 'modern girl' along Kamakura's coastline

There's a scene in Junichiro Tanizaki's serialized novel "Naomi" (originally titled "A Fool's Love") from 1924 where the besotted protagonist, Joji, watches his wife, Naomi — part Lolita, part Madame Bovary, all trouble — through the pine trees. Having just emerged from a seaside villa, she is sashaying...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 14, 2014

The thrill of the job won't pay the rent

"If your work isn't what you love, then something isn't right." — Talking Heads
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2014

Kagan and the ruin of ideas

Neocon commentator Robert Kagan's belief — detailed in his new book 'The World America Made' — that the world will benefit from a benevolent American suzerainty, despite the side effects of the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghan wars, beggars the imagination.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 13, 2014

Hillary Clinton breathes, we hold our breath

Hillary Clinton's book, 'Hard Choices,' is another tease in the dance of the seven veils. Her book is neither fish nor fowl, neither an autobiography like Barack Obama's 'Audacity of Hope' nor a thrown-together candidate presentation like Mitt Romney's 'No Apology: The Case for American Greatness.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Jun 13, 2014

Forget Cool Japan — cute is this summer's hot global export

Summer is always high season for fans of Japanese pop culture. School's out, weather's amenable and festivals, conventions and expos shift into top gear in Japan and across the globe.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 11, 2014

Assad at top of ICC war crimes suspect list

Syrian President Bashar Assad tops a list of 20 sample war crimes indictments of government officials and rebels drafted by experts for prosecution someday, a former international war crimes prosecutor said Tuesday.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jun 10, 2014

Love in demand despite never making the playoffs

So what's the big fuss about a player who in six seasons as his team's best player never has played for a team with a .500 record, never has made the playoffs, has averaged missing 20 games per season with injuries and in his five full seasons (a 66-game lockout shortened season in the other) his team...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 10, 2014

Buying organic could hurt environment and you

There is evidence that organic farms can produce as much, or more, pollution than conventional farms and that organic products might actually contain more toxins than other foods.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Jun 7, 2014

Battle Royale: Remastered

Set in May 1997, in a fascist version of Japan known as the Republic of Greater East Asia, "Battle Royale" follows the fate of 42 junior high-school kids who have been forced the take part in The Program — a sadistic game created by the government that randomly picks a ninth-grade class, arms them...
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics / FOCUS
Jun 5, 2014

Memory collides with politics in Putin's 'Normandy landing'

D-Day observances have always been part memorial, part politics.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 5, 2014

'Filth'

Director: Jon S. Baird
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 4, 2014

China wields history as weapon, except on June 4

For China, history is a weapon to use against other countries, but it keeps a curtain of silence drawn around the events that transpired in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 3, 2014

Ladykillers: Hurricanes with feminine names 'most deadly'

Would more residents of New Orleans have evacuated ahead of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 if it had been named Kurt?
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Markets
Jun 3, 2014

Firms woo female investors with goodies

When Chiho Higo started teaching stock trading at a Tokyo night school in 2008, there were often no female attendees. Now there are 50. One mother said she bought shares in a toymaker instead of toys for her child.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jun 3, 2014

Russian charged after U.S. disrupts major hacking, extortion ring

A U.S.-led international operation disrupted a crime ring that infected hundreds of thousands of PCs around the globe with malicious software used for stealing banking credentials and extorting computer owners, the Justice Department said Monday.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 31, 2014

AKB48's business model is likely to survive media attacks

The universe shifted on the afternoon of Sunday, May 25, when a young, unemployed man attacked two members of the all-female idol collective AKB48 and a male security staffer with a folding saw during a fan event in the city of Takizawa, Iwate Prefecture. Or, at least, that's how the media reacted. Some...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 31, 2014

Modern cat tale echoes former feline fiction

That the Japanese are great cat-lovers should come as no surprise: a taste for the elegant, the mysterious and the quirky leads in a feline direction, after all. There are paintings of cats from the classical period of the imperial court and prints from the more popular ukiyo-e of the Edo Period (1603-1867)....
COMMENTARY / World
May 30, 2014

Drone memo author should be in jail

Finally we will get a peek at the twisted legal opinion that the White House uses to justify using drones to blow up anyone, anywhere, including American citizens on American soil, for any reason the president deems fit.
BASKETBALL / NBA / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
May 27, 2014

Playoffs filled with great action, interesting story lines

Cue DJ-style NBA public address announcer: In for-r-r Sa-a-a-a-m Smith this-s-s week, M-A-A-A-A-S!
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
May 26, 2014

Letters: Kikokushijo encounter trouble upon re-entry

Japanese returnees and others discuss the trials and tribulations facing those educated abroad if and when they attempt to settle back in Japan.
COMMENTARY / World
May 26, 2014

A memorial to horror and honor

More fitting than any commentary about Memorial Day, just celebrated in the U.S., is the description of Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox to Ulysses S. Grant, which ended the Civil War.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.