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BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Feb 27, 2009

Five Arrows aiming to continue good run

The Rizing Fukuoka face the daunting task of playing host to the Takamatsu Five Arrows this weekend. It's a job nearly as challenging as, well, hosting the Oscars.
COMMENTARY
Feb 22, 2009

Sea bump echoes Cold War risks

LONDON — A ship I once served in had a small brass plate on the bridge with a quotation from Thucydides, the Greek statesman, historian and seaman of the fourth century B.C.: "A collision at sea can ruin your whole day." It is still true.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 18, 2009

Hawkins as elusive off court as he was on it

PHOENIX — For weeks and weeks I called every person I thought who might be able to put me in touch with Arizona's first sports superstar.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Feb 8, 2009

City ecology explains Japan's low birthrate

Last week, a 33-year-old woman in California made headlines around the world when she gave birth to eight babies. She had been on fertility treatment and, it emerged, already had six children.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2009

Boosting CO 2 info from space

A newly launched Japanese satellite is the first ever designed to monitor greenhouse gases worldwide and should help scientists better judge where global warming emissions are coming from and how much is being absorbed by the oceans and forests.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jan 11, 2009

Time a Darwinian 'true myth' evolved to rival religion

This year, 2009, is a double anniversary of particular relevance for this column.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 31, 2008

Japan's science in '08

In Chinese astrology, rats are said to hunger for power and to be unpredictable, and in 2008 — a Year of the Rat — both those characteristics were clearly in evidence. What with the financial crisis that is changing the established order of things, and the food and fuel crises that have sent shock...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 28, 2008

Longtime baseball writer will miss these people, places, things in '09

As we see the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, I have compiled a list of five people, places and things I will miss when the new Japanese baseball season rolls around in the spring. Here they are:
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan / WEEK 3
Dec 21, 2008

30 Days in the Wilderness

What miracles will the incoming 44th President of the United States perform?
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Dec 16, 2008

A judgment on Aso in the negative . . . kanji-wise

Prime Minister Taro Aso is notorious for making insensitive off-the-cuff remarks to the media, and on more than one occasion recently, he has also raised eyebrows for mispronouncing kanji in his scripted speeches. Last month, speaking at prestigious Gakushuin University about the earthquake in May in...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Dec 10, 2008

'Self' and the macaque mind

One of my favorite locations in Japan is an uninhabited island just off the coast of the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture to the south of Tokyo. Uninhabited by humans, it is, however, inhabited by another primate: a troop of Japanese macaques.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 2, 2008

Back to the baths: Otaru revisited

The story is familiar to regular readers of Zeit Gist. Debito Arudou, a naturalized Japanese citizen, originally from America, was living in Sapporo, Hokkaido, and had heard of the Yunohana public bath's policy of denying entry to foreigners. In 1999, media in tow, he decided to put that onsen's policy...
Reader Mail
Nov 27, 2008

The advantage of smaller portions

I enjoy reading Amy Chavez's columns! But instead of mocking the small servings and small spaces in Japan — as she does in her Nov. 22 column, "Barely squeezing by in Japan" — she should encourage people to find good restaurants and partake of smaller portions of good food. The small spaces in Japan...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 12, 2008

Science's own alternative history

I'm a sucker for stories that imagine alternate histories. Philip K. Dick wrote a classic, 1962's "The Man in the High Castle," that supposed Japan and Germany won World War II, and annexed the United States between them. Another came to mind last week; "The Difference Engine" (1990) by William Gibson...
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Nov 1, 2008

Oita Trinita's style lacks flair but produces results

When the season began back in March, only a fool would have predicted that Oita Trinita would go into November preparing for a cup final just two points off the top of the J. League table.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Oct 28, 2008

Take the first step to writing home in kanji

A friend in North Carolina recently showed me a yellowing nengajō (年賀状, New Year's card) I had sent her soon after first arriving in Japan back in the early 1980s. The return address, penciled in my best effort at the time — a childlike, uneven scrawl of kanji — reminded me of the intense...
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / INSIDE LOOK
Oct 25, 2008

K.J. Matsui looks to lead in final year at Columbia

NEW YORK — Tokyo native K.J. Matsui is the first Japanese to play Division I basketball in the United States. Now a senior, he is one of the top players for Columbia University in New York City. He is also one of the nation's best three 3-point shooters.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 24, 2008

Nissay Theatre celebrates 45 years

Nissay Theatre in Yurakucho, Tokyo, will present Leos Janacek's opera "The Makropulos Case" on Nov. 20, 22 and 24 to mark the venue's 45th anniversary.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Oct 23, 2008

'X' marks the spot for TV's odd couple

Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Oct 17, 2008

In the realm of fall's senses

With autumn nipping at the air, deciduous trees are primed to put on a color display known in Japanese as koyo. Though usually written with Japanese characters for "crimson" and "leaves," koyo can also be written with the characters for "yellow" and "leaves" when describing varieties of trees such as...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 8, 2008

Tuna's just too cheap

A prime slice of fatty, creamy otoro — belly-meat of Bluefin tuna — isn't cheap. These days in Tokyo, you can expect to pay at least ¥10,000 ($100) for a goodly portion of the stuff.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Oct 7, 2008

'Gaijin' mind-set is killing rural Japan

Allow me to conclude my trilogy of columns regarding the word "gaijin" this month by talking about the damage the concept does to Japanese society. That's right — damage to Japanese society.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Sep 23, 2008

Readers get last word on 'gaijin' tag

The Community Page received another large batch of e-mails in response to Debito Arudou's followup Sept. 2 (Sept. 3 in some areas) Just Be Cause column on the use of the word "gaijin." Following is a selection of the responses.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 10, 2008

Dolphin 'crimes' exposed

I love it when animals do things that we don't expect, especially when they do things we might have species- centeredly thought were unique to humans, or when they do something that appears to be "out of character."
Japan Times
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Sep 3, 2008

Kitajima, softball team showed mettle in Beijing

Editor's note: This is the second of a two-part series. Part one appeared in Sunday's newspaper.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Aug 31, 2008

Living a clean, green life

Sporting a smart, modern exterior, the home of Keiko and Yoshiyuki Shimizu and their children Ayano, 13, and Haruki, 11, in a residential area of Kawasaki, south of Tokyo in Kanagawa Prefecture, is full of fun features inside. The three- story house has a grassy garden on its flat roof, where you can...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Aug 30, 2008

Getting back on the horse

This year's sublime fiasco with the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States had made me wince at the plight of U.S. mortgage holders, even though I am not one of them and I have but a buck ninety-eight invested in American banks.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2008

Moscow called West's bluff

Forty years ago this week, the night sky above Prague began to rumble with the sound of transport aircraft. On distant frontiers, tanks lurched forward. The invasion of Czechoslovakia had begun.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 13, 2008

Foundering 'flagships'

It's often said what a privilege it is to attend a birth, and so it was in July that I felt lucky to witness the moments after the birth — by hatching — of a Green Turtle.

Longform

In 2020, 38% of all households were single-person. That figure is projected to rise to 44.3% by 2050.
The rise of AI companionship in a lonely Japan