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Reader Mail
Oct 13, 2011

Why tobacco taxes must rise

Joseph Jaworski, in his Oct. 2 letter "Downside of higher tobacco tax", states that, "In a free society, is being unhealthy a legitimate life choice? For a country with socialized health care, critics would say 'no.' Yet, where is the limit? Virtually anything can be consumed in an unhealthy way. Why...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 2, 2011

Satoshi Kamata: Rebel spirit writ large

Monday, Sept. 19, was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. But on that sweltering national holiday, it wasn't the heat that that drew tens of thousands of people to Meiji Park in central Tokyo, but their concerns for all the nation's citizens, and others, who may face a threat from nuclear power.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 1, 2011

Subtle aid for women facing abuse in disaster-hit areas

At a glance, it appears to be nothing more than a hand massage. In a corner of a shelter for survivors of the March disasters in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, members of the NPO Miyagi-Jonet are trying to provide some respite for stressed-out female survivors.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 19, 2011

When men were men and smoked like chimneys

The question "tabako wo osui ni narimasuka?" (「タバコをお吸いになりますか」"Do you happen to be a smoker?") is something you don't hear all that often. So many public venues in the Tokyo area have banned smoking altogether, or simply operate on the assumption that no one in their right...
Reader Mail
Sep 18, 2011

LDP can't knock prime minister

Regarding the Sept. 15 front-page article "LDP slams Noda over ministers' miscues": While I agree that remarks by former trade minister Yoshio Hachiro were out of place at best, I don't believe that Liberal Democratic Party President Sadakazu Tanigaki or his opposition party are in a position to slam...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Sep 4, 2011

Alfons Deeken: Priest-philosopher makes death his life's work

On Friday, July 22, as the stifling heat and humidity of summer relented for just a fleeting few days, hundreds of people filled a hall at Enkakuji Temple in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture, to listen to a lecture by philosophy scholar Alfons Deeken.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 29, 2011

Budget repair and liberal defiance

The residues of liberalism's Wisconsin Woodstock — 1960s radicalism redux: operatic lamentations, theatrical demonstrations and electoral futilities — are words of plaintive defiance painted on sidewalks around the state capitol.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 28, 2011

The best of his years . . .

This summer, my translator and I stood in Izumi Matsumoto's home-cum-office in Tokyo, where he had just been searching in vain for any original drawings from "Spring Wonder," which was, 27 years ago, the first manga serial he pitched to leading comics magazine Weekly Shonen Jump.
COMMENTARY
Aug 25, 2011

Why Chris Christie isn't running for president

Near the statehouse office of New Jersey's 55th governor sits a sort of shrine to the 34th. Fortunately, Chris Christie is unlike Woodrow Wilson.
COMMENTARY
Aug 17, 2011

Ten ways to reduce America's budget deficit

It's true: Deficit reduction isn't an economic panacea. It won't instantly boost the economy or the stock market. It won't automatically end financial turmoil. But none of this means that we should ignore deficits. Allowing the government's debt to spiral upward tempts a full-blown future financial crisis....
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 16, 2011

Man eating sharks — and mercury, group warns

What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word "shark"? For many, it's a gaping maw of razor-sharp teeth or a dorsal fin cutting ominously through the water behind an oblivious swimmer. John Williams' iconic Jaws score is probably running through your mind as you read this. Sharks are Hollywood's...
JAPAN
Jul 9, 2011

Citizens' radiation fears beyond crisis zone mount

Reiko Nakamura, a 37-year-old mother of three children, said she has been checking radiation levels outside her house in Meguro Ward, Tokyo, every day since she bought a dosimeter in May.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 5, 2011

Welfare rise: sign of economic, aging times

The Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to maintain the minimum standard of wholesome and cultured living. Thus to help those struggling to make ends meet, the government provides financial aid according to poverty level while encouraging them to get back on their feet.
EDITORIALS
Jun 18, 2011

Stepping up the war on AIDS

Thirty years have now passed since HIV/AIDS began making headlines, and the deadly pandemic continues to reap a grim toll. What began as a mysterious illness afflicting the U.S. gay community in the summer of 1981 eventually snowballed into a pandemic that has infected more than 60 million people and...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 12, 2011

Those opposing Kan offer no clear reason he must go

The 2012 U.S. presidential election campaign officially started two weeks ago, when former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney announced he would be a candidate for the Republican Party nomination. Romney chose as the setting for his momentous, though unsurprising, announcement a beautiful old family farm...
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2011

Aid group calls for more vaccines

The head of a Geneva-based aid group on funding vaccinations in developing countries urged Japan on Friday to make larger financial contributions to saving children's lives in disease-stricken parts of the world.
EDITORIALS
May 21, 2011

Reforming social welfare system

The health and welfare ministry on May 12 announced a social welfare reform proposal aimed at making the nation's social welfare system sustainable in the face of Japan's graying population and low economic growth.
JAPAN
Apr 22, 2011

Giving voice to trauma-hit victims

When the gigantic tsunami hit the Tohoku region on March 11, Kazuya Kikuchi was just getting out of his truck at Sendai port. As he saw the killer waves swallow up a bunch of brand new Toyotas at the harbor waiting to be shipped, he was frozen by the surreal sound of metal against metal - a sound he...

Longform

Tetsuzo Shiraishi, speaking at The Center of the Tokyo Raids and War Damage, uses a thermos to explain how he experienced the U.S. firebombing of March 1945, when he was just 7 years old.
From ashes to high-rises: A survivor’s account of Tokyo’s postwar past