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COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2013

Boston's terrible theater of terrorism

The attack on the Boston Marathon is a reminder of the adage that terror is theater — as is the response to terror. It matters who gives the better performance.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 24, 2013

Boston's terror and the children of the fault lines

Civilizational battles were once waged by warriors who donned garments of different lands. Today it is boys with baseball caps who carry death in their backpacks.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 22, 2013

Attack will prove urban resiliency

Cities exist to connect humanity and to enable us to work collaboratively. Those connections only strengthen when we are attacked as the Boston Marathon was.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Apr 21, 2013

Slow pace of NPB games an ongoing problem

In response to my column of March 17, a couple of readers have come in with suggestions on how to pick up the notoriously slow pace of Japanese baseball games. From the Bay Area, fan Mike Colegate sent the following e-mail.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 19, 2013

Unique vulnerability of the Boston Marathon

There is something unique about the vulnerability of marathoners and their supporters, emotional and physical, especially at the finish line and especially in Boston.
Japan Times
WORLD
Apr 18, 2013

Stronger U.S. gun law fails to pass in Senate

The Senate's rejection of a bipartisan bill to expand background checks for gun purchases reveals the difference in power between public opinion and a united minority.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Apr 17, 2013

Kobe's greatness won't let him quit

Well, at least we know Kobe Bryant isn't retiring.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 17, 2013

It's the end of everything as we know it (perhaps)

I hope you had it while you could because, last week, sex ended.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Apr 17, 2013

Japan must re-learn its militarist past

Japan's conservative rulers will need a more capacious sense of history if they are to succeed in building new bridges with the country's Asian neighbors.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 16, 2013

Taiji dolphin cull inhumane: study

From a cliff above the tiny cove, a stocky, bald man could be seen between tightly drawn lengths of green tarpaulin, a metal rod in one hand, and something long, black and smooth wriggling helplessly under the other.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 16, 2013

When the 'Iron Lady' bent to the will of Beijing

With regard to the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, Margaret Thatcher got some good advice from Singapore: Be neither defiant nor submissive.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 14, 2013

An era of Tokyo art worth another look

Like Britain, Japan is subject to the polarizing forces of the orthodox and radical, the two balancing the flabby middle.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Apr 14, 2013

Casting a little light on fireflies

If dragonflies are the insects of Japan's day, then the mysterious, magical fireflies are its bugs of the night.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Apr 13, 2013

How keeping it real took Matt Damon to the top

In 1987, when Bruce Springsteen wrote the song "Ain't Got You," he was the biggest rock star in the world. He had vast estates in New Jersey and Beverly Hills, and he had not long returned from a honeymoon at Gianni Versace's villa in Lake Como. "Ain't Got You" was Springsteen's attempt to make a self-aware...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 12, 2013

Beware economists who peddle cute models

A study that mimicked the behavior of 2 million potential homeowners makes plausible assumptions about how the U.S. subprime crisis got started.
Reader Mail
Apr 11, 2013

Aversion to blue-collar work

Regarding The Washington Post feature article that ran in The Japan Times April 8 under the headline "India students' aspirations, job market don't match": The writer has perhaps made a sincere attempt at bringing up a serious problem. But how novel is this problem? Many graduates are known to have gone...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Apr 10, 2013

North Korea's U.S. diplomatic channel fades

Han Song Ryol, the North Korean diplomat who serves as his country's principal liaison with the United States, has spent the better part of the past two decades exploring the prospects for a normalized bilateral relationship with Washington.
Japan Times
CULTURE / CULTURE SMASH
Apr 10, 2013

Pop tourism gains traction

Pre-flight shopping at Narita airport a couple of weeks ago, I passed a mannequin sporting a light-blue necktie and a turquoise wig with pig tails dangling down to its mini skirt. The vision spoke volumes: It was Hatsune Miku, of course, Japan's holographic, animated virtual pop star, beloved fashion...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Apr 9, 2013

Ramirez possibly top foreign-born player ever in NPB

Alex Ramirez thanked God before he reached first base. He continued along and touched the other bags as a light, constant rain fell on Jingu Stadium and the sparse crowd — 11,069 to be exact, though Ramirez would later say the place felt packed — that braved the promise of a Saturday downpour and...
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 9, 2013

Comparing tobacco fight to the Opium Wars

The struggle against tobacco is not being won. It is being relocated from industrialized countries to the developing world.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Apr 9, 2013

Culprit in heart disease goes beyond meat's fat

The fat and cholesterol found in a steak may not be the only components bad for the heart, according to researchers who have found another substance in red meat that can clog the arteries.
CULTURE / Stage
Apr 9, 2013

'Natch' gets ghostly on stage

"If I thought too much about my future plans, I would kind of get stuck," says Natsumi Abe. "So I just try to concentrate on the next day's work and do it as well as I can."
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / FOCUS
Apr 8, 2013

India students' aspirations, job market don't match

As India's economy grows, cities expand and new industries arise, officials and policy analysts are grappling with a key question: Will Indians have the skills to build the new India?
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 8, 2013

China gets Apple's 'iKowtow'

Leading computer maker Apple has responded to weeks of remorseless criticism in China's official media with 'iKowtow' — aka a groveling apology.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 8, 2013

When Supreme silence is golden in America

As the recent U.S. Supreme Court arguments over same-sex marriage attest, silence plays a role in constitutional law just as it does in ordinary life.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 7, 2013

A portrait of the poet as a child

This remarkable book is an autobiography of childhood, written by the poet Mutsuo Takahashi (born 1937) when he was 32, and issued in 1970, although its separate chapters had appeared as a series of essays in a magazine the year before.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 7, 2013

Processing the bitter to a durable, beautiful form

KICKING THE BLACK MAMBA: Life, Alcohol and Death, by Robert Anthony Welch. Darton, Longman and Todd, 2012, 240 pp., £12.99 (paperback)
JAPAN / Media / DARK SIDE OF THE RISING SUN
Apr 7, 2013

What's with the police purge on dance clubs?

If you're ever minded to dance the night away to trance music, or even old-fashioned rock, you may have a tough time finding a venue in Japan these days. In fact, you may end up waltzing away hours inside a police station, peeing into a cup after being rounded up in a raid. Yes, indeed, a War on Dance...

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.