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COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2014

'Black money' fairy tale drives Indian adults

Millions of adult Indians enthusiastically propagate a fairy tale that says once a strong government brings billions of dollars of 'black money' home, India will cease being poor and take its rightful place among the superpowers of the world.
COMMENTARY / World / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jun 30, 2014

A breed apart: liberal hawks who buoyed Bush

Those tough American liberal hawks who climbed aboard George W. Bush's war wagon into Iraq a decade ago were a breed apart.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / TELLING LIVES
Jun 29, 2014

Cartoonist Ernst captured 'fish-out-of-water' gaijin as they floundered

Having often been told by the Japanese that he would 'never understand' their culture because he was not one of them, American cartoonist Tim Ernst decided to embrace this notion and deploy it creatively.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2014

Is a New York Times picture worth 1,000 polls?

New research suggests that positive images in The New York Times portend better poll numbers to come. If true, there's hope for President Barack Obama in light of the photo spread for a big story last week.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 28, 2014

Mori classic was the epitome of Meiji style

There has been no period in the history of modern Japanese society so dramatic and so remarkably tumultuous and fluid as the Meiji Era (1868-1912), and no single work of fiction more revelatory in its depiction of that period than Ogai Mori's "The Wild Goose." Now we have, in Meredith McKinney's just...
WORLD
Jun 27, 2014

Fishermen 'waste $1 billion' a year

U.S. commercial fishermen are throwing away about $1 billion worth of edible fish each year, according to a conservation group that is advocating for incentives to stop the waste.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / BLACK EYE
Jun 25, 2014

The naked American at Narita airport

Leaving Narita, stripped of your African accoutrement and any other identifiers that speak to your nationality and sensibilities, you advance through an array of unfamiliar sights and sounds, just as brown and naked as the day you were born.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 25, 2014

Is Japan a haven for expats with psychological problems? Readers discuss

Readers clash on the merits of William Bradbury's recent Foreign Agenda article, 'Japan: a haven for the psychologically troubled.'
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2014

Outsider's 'Jacob' is a sensory feast

It's hard to choose the most powerful visual moment in the New National Theater's production of "19-Year-Old Jacob." My vote would be for the opening scene when, after the audience has been in total darkness for more than a minute, a single sharp triangle of white light suddenly shines down to reveal...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 25, 2014

'Scary stories' series reaches limit

In "Hyakumonogatari," a 1911 novella by the great author and translator Ogai Mori, the protagonist explains that its title refers to a traditional way of telling ghost stories, saying: "In hyakumonogatari (meaning '100 tales'), people gather together and arrange 100 candles. Each person tells a ghost...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jun 24, 2014

Spurs set example for rest of league with consistency

The great American sportswriter Grantland Rice wrote a poem, "Alumnus Football," that ended like this:
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 24, 2014

World needs to take a dose of realism about Iraq

As imbalances of power, wealth and productivity become magnified in our age, ethnic and religious loyalties as well as notions of honor and dignity have become more seductive than iPhones and elections. Just ask the despots who've lost the monopoly of force in Syria and Iraq.
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jun 23, 2014

ASIJ abuse scandal stirs dark memories among readers

Some letters in response to Jon Mitchell's The Foreign Element articles about sexual abuse by late American School in Japan teacher Jack Moyer.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Jun 23, 2014

'Black box' antidepressant warnings reviewed after rise in youth suicide attempts

A widely publicized warning by U.S. regulators a decade ago about risks for teens taking antidepressants led to plummeting prescriptions and increased suicide attempts, Harvard University researchers said.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 21, 2014

How a master circled the system

Favorites of today's museum-going public, the lushly colorful, sensuous and grotesque paintings of beautiful women by Tsuchida Bakusen (1887-1936) have long been written into the canon of nihonga (Japanese-style painting). It is easy to forget, however, just how transgressive Bakusen's images were at...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 20, 2014

'Patriotic wives' few in number — but loud

One by one, women take the microphone near the crowded Hachiko crossing in Tokyo's Shibuya shopping district on a hot and humid weekday, denouncing the pacifist Constitution, blasting China's "recklessness" and mocking the South Korean flag.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 19, 2014

'Third Person'

We meet Liam Neeson and Olivia Wilde — the two stars of "Third Person" — inside an upscale hotel in Paris.She knocks on the door to his room, and he seems pleased to see her...Or is he? They tease each other, blowing hot and cold, crackling with electricity, until she eventually joins him in bed....
COMMUNITY / Issues / LAW OF THE LAND
Jun 18, 2014

Still dreaming of a Japan with juries — and without U.S. bases

At 84, Chihiro Isa hopes to see two things in his lifetime: the jury system reinstated in Japan and U.S. forces gone from Okinawa.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 18, 2014

'Koji Suzuki'

"Where the Wild Things Are," "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and "Where's Waldo?" — these world-renowned children's books feature some of the most vivid and unforgettable illustrations that retain places in the hearts of readers all the way into adulthood.
EDITORIALS
Jun 17, 2014

Reforming Riken

The government-affiliated Riken research institute should heed the recommendations from an expert panel to undertake concrete reforms aimed at preventing the recurrence of a scandal that recently cast doubts on the credibility of scientific research in Japan.
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.

Longform

Figure skater Akiko Suzuki was once told her ideal weight should be 47 kilograms, a number she now admits she “naively believed.” This led to her have a relationship with food that resulted in her suffering from anorexia.
The silent battle Japanese athletes fight with weight