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BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 5, 2011

Parmer headlines Top 20 players in 2010-11

With four new teams joining the bj-league over the past two seasons, it has become a greater challenger to select Hoop Scoop's Top 20 players. But it's a worthwhile — and necessary — challenge. One that will become greater next June, following the first season with 20 teams, including four more...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2011

Students credit survival to disaster-preparedness drills

March 11 started out as another ordinary Friday at Kamaishi East Junior High School, which stands by the mouth of the Unosumai River that runs through the city into Otsuchi Bay. Classes were over for the day and students were about to start their after-school club activities when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake...
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jun 3, 2011

Abdul-Rauf opines on Aono's dismissal

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf has been in this business long enough to know that coaches face an unenviable task every time they step onto the court. In other words, they can't please everyone.
Reader Mail
Jun 2, 2011

Group etiquette must come first

Regarding the May 27 article "Hashimoto stalks anthem foes": Some people criticize Osaka Gov. Toru Hashimoto as dictatorial for pushing a proposed ordinance that would force public school teachers to stand when the "Kimigayo" national anthem is sung at school. However, the proposal should be fairly evaluated...
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jun 1, 2011

Sony's horrible year is not over yet

This was supposed to be Sony's year. PlayStation 3 sales were on the uptick and, back in January, the Tokyo-based electronics giant introduced its upcoming game handheld, currently codenamed Next Generation Portable or NGP. Then disaster struck, not once but several times. For Sony, 2011 is really starting...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 28, 2011

CARE official helps Tohoku after a career of hot spots

Futaba Kaiharazuka, an assistant program director with the aid organization CARE International Japan, remembers clearly the first time she visited a refugee camp in Pakistan.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 27, 2011

ALT returnee: Fukushima stable

Bidding family and close friends farewell is never easy, but American Travis Hauan said his parents and girlfriend were "pretty cool" about it — even though he was heading thousands of kilometers away to Fukushima Prefecture amid the ongoing nuclear crisis.
Japan Times
JAPAN
May 25, 2011

Foreign refugees pitch in to help

Myo Myint Swe, a 42-year-old refugee from Myanmar, said that since the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, he wanted to help those in the Tohoku region affected by the devastation.
COMMENTARY / World
May 24, 2011

Disorganized dreams of Egyptian democrats

The Internet is an extraordinarily powerful tool. It has changed how we do business, how we do politics, and even how we change our leaders — at least some of the time. But the ease with which we now communicate, the efficiencies we take for granted, can give us a false sense of how easy it is to follow...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHO'S WHO
May 24, 2011

Polyglot comfortable between cultures

Alessandro Gerevini, an Italian writer and translator who has lived and worked in Japan for 16 years, believes that Japanese and Italian cultures have a lot in common.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
May 23, 2011

Sledge: PL franchises expect to top CL rivals

Since the interleague format was introduced in Japan in 2005, the Pacific League has gotten the better of the Central League.
Features
May 22, 2011

Collector's 'labor of love' is a wonder to behold

From the outside it's just another concrete building rising up nine or 10 stories on a downtown Tokyo street. Inside, it's no more impressive — until Shinichiro Tatsumi opens the well-secured door to his own, private Bob Dylan heaven.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 22, 2011

One of a kind: Bob Dylan at 70

Bob Dylan, the single most important artist in the history of popular music, will be 70 years old on Tuesday, May 24.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 22, 2011

Up close and personal: Why Dylan is so big in Japan

It was the fall of 1963, when — in what seemed like a flash of lightning — I became a fan of Bob Dylan the moment I heard "Blowin' in the Wind" on the radio. I was in my first year of high school.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
May 20, 2011

Osaka-Ryukyu battle highlights semifinals

Final Four weekend brings three teams to Tokyo that were expected to be here and one that joined the mix by a less conventional route.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 20, 2011

Depp adds more gold to his treasure chest

Johnny Depp is wrestling with a monster. No, it's not one of the numerous sea monsters from "Pirates of the Caribbean" — it's the franchise itself.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
May 20, 2011

Ryukyu's Palmer hoping to add to title collection

For a guy whose collegiate career concluded at little-known Southern Utah, David Palmer is living a dream.
COMMENTARY
May 18, 2011

'Neverendum' returns to Scotland's agenda

"I'd grown up with the assumption that Scotland was a poor, wee, deprived place that had never had a fair kick of the ball and could certainly never stand on its own two feet," said Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), whose goal is an independent Scotland.
JAPAN
May 18, 2011

Plan to cool reactors revised but not timeline

Tokyo Electric Power Co., facing more problems at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant than it originally thought, announced Tuesday a revised road map for bringing the crisis under control.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
May 18, 2011

Happinets show Pierce the door after first season with expansion team

The Akita Northern Happinets fired coach Bob Pierce on Monday night, clearing the path for a possible titanic shift in the bj-league's coaching landscape.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
May 16, 2011

Rebuilding Japan gives many a new pride and purpose

Once, I dated a guy who preferred being in Japan to being abroad, who held that we were citizens of a glorious and beautiful nation and the desire for foreign experiences was one of the deplorable legacies of the Meiji Restoration (1868), which was when Japan officially opened her doors to the rest of...
COMMENTARY
May 13, 2011

Whirlwind shakes out Singapore minister

It may be quintessentially American to believe that elections are good things and their absence inherently bad — in theory. In reality, everyone knows that elections sometimes seem more trouble than they are worth and can produce unwanted results. This is what happened in the tiny city-state of Singapore...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
May 13, 2011

'Black Swan'

Ballet has earned such a reputation for impeccable beauty that director Darren Aronofsky seems to positively revel in dragging it through the gutter a bit. His film "Black Swan" contains all the pretty stuff — the tutus, the immaculate posture, the grace and elegance in movement — that attracts young...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 8, 2011

Hisashi Inoue's great legacy is just the ticket to inspire our best efforts

A beautiful cherry-blossom tree stands right beside the sento (public bath) I religiously go to, and its top branch hangs over an opening in the roof. In early April, petals were falling from the branch down into the water, which comes out of the ground the color of strong coffee.
Japan Times
LIFE
May 8, 2011

A volunteer's journal of hope for Tohoku

When the magnitude 9 megaquake hit northeastern Japan in the early afternoon of Friday, March 11, I was at work in The Japan Times office some 250 km to the south in Tokyo.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
May 3, 2011

It's innovate or die in today's mad mag world

In few countries are the most vital political, economic and cultural activities as geographically concentrated as in Japan. All the main institutions can be found in Tokyo — one can only shudder to think what will happen not only to this city, but to the whole country if and when a massive earthquake...
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
May 2, 2011

Woes on mound continue to trouble Yomiuri

Starting pitching had been pegged as one of the Yomiuri Giants' problem spots prior to the beginning of the Japanese baseball season.

Longform

A sinkhole in Yashio, which emerged in January, was triggered by a ruptured, aging sewer pipe. Authorities worry that similar sections of infrastructure across the country are also at risk of corrosion.
That sinking feeling: Japan’s aging sewers are an infrastructure time bomb