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BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Nov 4, 2007

New Broncos coach Benoit is eager to guide basketball team to successful season

TOKOROZAWA, Saitama Pref. — A big smile flashes across David Benoit's face as he takes a break from running the Saitama Broncos' evening practice.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 31, 2007

Meditations on meditation and enhancing the mind

At Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, at dawn on a March morning several years ago, I came as close as I ever have to satori, the Zen term for spiritual enlightenment. Don't get me wrong, I'm not claiming any sort of deep insight, just that there, in that corner of Kanagawa Prefecture, I came to understand...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 27, 2007

Ryozo Tanaka

A question often asked of Professor Ryozo Tanaka is "What made you so keen on English culture and tradition?"
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 23, 2007

Human rights survey stinks

On Aug. 25, the Japanese government released findings from a Cabinet poll conducted every four years. Called the "Public Survey on the Defense of Human Rights" ( www8.cao.go.jp/survey/h19/h19-jinken ), it sparked media attention with some apparently good news.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 10, 2007

Not all of us know how to play fair

I remember, as a child, seeing in a museum the skeletons of birds, bats and apes, and someone pointing out to me that they all had the same bones in their arms. It was the first time I grasped that we all had a common evolutionary ancestor, though at the time I hardly thought about it in those terms...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Sep 12, 2007

Feelings we share?

To what extent do animals consciously experience emotions?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 29, 2007

Let's (try to) get serious about silliness

August is known as the "silly season" in the media in the United States and the United Kingdom, as newspaper editors faced with legislators all gone on holiday struggle in vain to fill their pages and resort to, well, silly stories.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Aug 28, 2007

The blame game

We live in interesting times. With the shortage and high cost of domestic labor, the Japanese government has brought over record numbers of cheap foreign workers. Even though whole industrial sectors now depend on foreign labor, few publicly accept the symbiosis as permanent. Instead, foreigners are...
COMMENTARY
Aug 24, 2007

Howard feeling the squeeze

LOS ANGELES — John Howard, often the most patient and sure-footed of Western-style political leaders, is reported to be losing patience with the current Iraq government and mulling over options for an Australian troop withdrawal.
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / WEEK 3
Aug 19, 2007

Beauty beheld in brutalism

No matter how wild or wacky their hobbies or obsessions, in the age of the Internet no one need feel isolated any more, and by casting all inhibitions aside almost anyone is assured of finding like-minded others out there in cyberspace — if not just around the corner from home.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 11, 2007

Critic awaits callers in Imperial Hotel suite

The Imperial Hotel in central Tokyo's Hibiya district is a surprising place. Yes, of course the rich and famous stay there. But how many realize that this famed institution also rents out private office suites. On the fifth floor, for example, is where TV commentator and author Kenichi Takemura hangs...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 8, 2007

How is it our time seems to speed up?

"I never think of the future; I find it comes soon enough."
Japan Times
CULTURE / OTAKOOL
Jul 19, 2007

'Heavy-metal suicide'

Marty Friedman looks very metal.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 11, 2007

Satellite of love

Empress Michiko has a habit of gazing at the moon on New Year's Day. How do I know? Well, here's the poem the Empress wrote for this year's New Year poetry reading:
BUSINESS / THE VIEW FROM EUROPE
Jul 2, 2007

'Cool Earth' efforts with Merkel could help Abe change climate in Japan

You don't have to read gossip columns to know that German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe have been seeing a lot of each other lately.
COMMENTARY
Jun 29, 2007

Chief executive who serves two masters

This is the first in a series of columns on the political and economic status of Hong Kong. On Sunday, the former British crown colony will mark its 10th anniversary as a special province of China.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 27, 2007

Is this a poisons coverup?

Mariners say the oceans reveal their secrets only grudgingly. Shelly Parulis would say the same of the U.S. Navy.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 17, 2007

The passion, excesses and fun of Edo — in color

JAPANESE POPULAR PRINTS by Rebecca Salter. London: A & C Black, 2006, 208 pp., 221 illustrations, £30 (paper) "Japanese Popular Prints" is an entertaining, surprising and unique journey through the popular culture of the most colorful period in Japanese history. Some may already be familiar with...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jun 13, 2007

Religion's cute, but creation chemistry is complex

The ancient Chinese believed the universe began inside a cosmic egg. In Japanese mythology, two gods, Izanagi and Izanami, stirred the oceans with a giant spear, forming the islands of Japan and, eventually, its people. There are countless more creation myths. Every culture has them. But I like to think...
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jun 12, 2007

Good will hunting; rent fees

Renewal fees revisited Peter Link in Kyoto writes on the subject of renewal fees for renting property. This is the Japanese system whereby a renter can expect to pay a charge of up to three months' rent every two years to the landowner.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 1, 2007

'300'

The long-simmering cold war between Hollywood and the critics has again flared hot with the release of "300," an effects-driven popcorn movie about the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C., when 300 Spartan soldiers went down fighting against a Persian horde.
Reader Mail
May 23, 2007

Column brings back happy days

Thank you for Amy Chavez's beautiful Japan Lite columns (Saturdays). Many years ago I was trying to learn Japanese and remember my confusion trying to untangle the katakana word "sakiyoreeta" in scientific text. After a week or so, I decoded it: "circulator." There were many other words to decode,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
May 11, 2007

Peace is found in a historic town

Not since my Adidas-donning days in my hometown Croydon (famous as the breeding ground of chavs) in southeast London, have I ridden trams around town, and even then it was only to pick up a Chinese take-away and buy the odd large hoop earring. So, when I visited Nagasaki with a couple of friends, touring...
Reader Mail
May 9, 2007

Pulvers column shows bias

Roger Pulvers' columns on trends in Japan over the past decades are good pieces of writing from a journalist who was actually there and knows what he's talking about.
CULTURE / Books
May 6, 2007

In Japan, dogs 'wan,' cats 'nya' and cows 'mo'

HIRA HIRA KIRARI: Michey's Word Play, Onomatopoeia 1, 2, 3, by Mitsuko Hasse, illustrated by Haruko Nakaune, translated by Darrel Frentz. Fuzambo International, 2006, 155 pp., 2,000 yen (paper) Those familiar with The Japan Times' bilingual page will know Michey, the star of Word Play, a cartoon column...
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Apr 17, 2007

Automated External Defibrillator

Dear Alice,
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Mar 29, 2007

Globalization made manifest at Midtown

Hooray. Another high-rise office tower. Another five-star hotel. Another premium shopping mall. Another Starbucks. And don't forget culture. With this new development, Tokyo will show the world the richness of Japan's civilization and society.
Reader Mail
Feb 18, 2007

Lack of Islamic expertise shows

In Dinesh D'Souza's Feb. 5 article, "Bin Laden, America's left and the hysterical reaction to the 'The Enemy at Home' (D'Souza's book)," D'Souza argues that "Bin Laden isn't upset that there are U.S. troops in Mecca" -- since there are no troops in Mecca. This is technically true, but Osama bin Laden...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 11, 2007

Ft. Myers getting ready for 'Dice-K' and Japanese media

Sportswriter David Dorsey of the Ft. Myers News-Press in Florida is getting ready to work the Boston Red Sox spring training camp in that town. He will be joined by a bevy of reporters and photographers from the various Japanese media there to cover the Daisuke Matsuzaka circus and lefty reliever Hideki...

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