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Japan Times
WORLD
May 6, 2013

The shifting strategy of battlefield preservation

In 1988, Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas pleaded with his colleagues to pass legislation that would prevent a new shopping mall on land integral to the Second Battle of Manassas. He imagined a future in which ever more commercial development encroached on land in Virginia preserved by the National Park...
COMMENTARY / World
May 6, 2013

Bush's long-shot campaign to be like Truman

The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, just dedicated in Dallas, is cleverly designed to subsume Bush's record within the burdens of the presidency.
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
May 5, 2013

Yakuza links put nation at added nuclear risk

On April 15, two alleged terrorists in Boston killed three people, injured more than 170 others and terrified a nation — for about $100 it cost them to modify pressure cookers into bombs. We should be glad they didn't come to Japan, where they may have been able to explode a ready-made nuclear dirty...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
May 5, 2013

Revealing the many masks of Mishima

This is a whale of a book — both unusually massive and extremely informative and stimulating. The title means "mask" in Latin and is probably an allusion to Yukio Mishima's first full-length novel, "Confessions of a Mask," published in Japan in 1949 and translated into English by Meredith Weatherby...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 5, 2013

Yagyu: Nara's hidden village of the shoguns' sword masters

Legend has it that while roaming the wooded hills around his village one day, Yagyu Munetoshi encountered a tengu — a mythical creature, part human and part bird, adept at swordplay.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
May 4, 2013

Hedge fund guru John Paulson fleeced by gold

Gold and its beguiling promise of assured riches have lured clever men into making bad decisions for millennia. The latest to have fallen under its alchemical spell is apparently John Paulson, hedge fund billionaire and the man who made his name — and a $5 billion profit — betting against that other...
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 3, 2013

'Harry Potter' star to feature in 'Tokyo Vice' yakuza thriller

Producers announce that Daniel Radcliffe will take the lead role in the film adaption of crime reporter Jake Adelstein's memoirs about Japan's underworld.
COMMENTARY / World
May 3, 2013

Selective rights, illegal wars

One cannot help thinking these days that the legal, political and even moral blind spots that exist in the United States must always somehow involve Muslims.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 2, 2013

Huffington Post looks to weave new Web in Japan

The Japanese version of the Huffington Post will offer a website that spurs more interaction between the media and the public and empower Generation Y, the children of the baby boomers, said Shigeki Matsuura, editor-in-chief of Huffington Post Japan, which is scheduled to launch next Tuesday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
May 2, 2013

Pianist Onishi to come out of retirement

Pianist Junko Onishi will come out of retirement to perform one more time, at the finale of this year's Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2013

New global environment of human hybridization

While Catholic doctrines evolve slowly, the Latin vocabulary has been expanding steadily in recent years, reflecting the surge of neologisms like telephonium.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2013

Why Putin's peace pact in Chechnya will collapse

The involvement of two ethnic Chechens in the Boston Marathon bombing shows that the wars that ravaged the Russian republic more than a decade ago aren't over.
COMMENTARY / World
May 1, 2013

The paradox of the Boston bombing

Essentially the Boston bombers' stories are not so different from those of America's home-grown 'lone wolves' — typically white and equally disenchanted.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
May 1, 2013

Woodson beating odds with Knicks

Mike Woodson likes to tell the story of how he first got into NBA coaching, which was something of a symbol for his basketball life.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2013

Stalin's reputation not so monstrous 60 years on

The reputation of Josef Stalin, a moral monster by any standard, has nevertheless enjoyed a bit of a revival in Russia, 60 years after his death.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Apr 30, 2013

Stand up to Abe for the sake of Japan, Asia's future

Life is comparable to a spiritual drama that in retrospect can be recalled as a series of happy, sad and bitter memories
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 30, 2013

Anniversaries, talk shows showcase division in Russia

Opposition critics, left and right, of Russian President Vladimir Putin seem to be loud but toothless opportunists. In many cases, they are nostalgic for Josef Stalin.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 29, 2013

Perceptions of brothers don't fit neatly into pre-existing box

Chechen? American? Immigrant? Citizen? Muslim? Boston Marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev may be all of the above, but how Americans attempt to come to grips with the attacks allegedly perpetrated by the brothers has much to do with how Americans identify them.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 29, 2013

Evolutionary biologist says cave-man diet is flawed

Living like cave men — or at least eating like them — is being hailed by some as an ideal lifestyle.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2013

China's stealth wars of acquisition

China is waging stealth wars — without firing a shot — to change the status quo of the South and East China seas, its border with India, and international rivers.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 28, 2013

African elephants pluck at Japan's heartstrings

Next time you attend a shamisen performance, neither you nor most anyone else there will likely notice the elephant in the room. And those who do probably won't have given it much thought.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 28, 2013

A double dose of guidance offers more than usual information

SHINTO SHRINES: A Guide to the Sacred Sites of Japan's Ancient Religion, by Joseph Cali with John Dougill. University of Hawaii Press, 2012, 328 pp., $24.99 (paperback)
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 27, 2013

Poland's young Jews pick up threads of history

It was only after her grandmother's death that Maniucha Bikont discovered the full extent of her secret. Lea Horovitz had decided to escape incarceration in Warsaw's Jewish ghetto in 1940 after overhearing two shopkeepers comment "she doesn't look like a zduva" (a "yid") on spotting the Star of David...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Apr 26, 2013

Katsuo, Japan's ubiquitous tuna

In the world of sushi and sashimi, maguro (tuna, especially bluefin tuna) currently reigns supreme. It's so popular that large specimens of the fish fetch ridiculous, headline-grabbing prices at the Tsukiji wholesale market in Tokyo, and the species is in danger of extinction due to overfishing.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Apr 25, 2013

As U.S. economy picks up, richest get richer

Wealth inequality widened dramatically during the first two years of the economic recovery, as the upper 7 percent of American households saw their average net worth increase 28 percent while the wealth of the other 93 percent declined, according to a report released Tuesday.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2013

Why people stay scared after tragedies

After a tragedy such as the one last week in Boston, people develop a heightened sense of risk. Often that response is far greater than reality warrants.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 25, 2013

On the mechanics of anime illustration

The 1970s was an important decade for the development of Japanese pop-cultural icons. Kindergarten children back then would likely have been introduced to the characters Doraemon (1969), Anpanman (1973) and Hello Kitty (1974).
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 25, 2013

Rape and gender discrimination related in India

It is hard to equate India's rapid technological development with practices such as female feticide, the earliest manifestation of violence against women.

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.