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COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Oct 24, 2002

The final gasps of the 'do nothing' 107th Congress

WASHINGTON -- It isn't much of a surprise that the 107th Congress is ending without much of a record of accomplishment. It had a spurt of success in its early months, passing President George W. Bush's mammoth tax cut and pushing through a respectable education program, but little has been accomplished...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Oct 24, 2002

Namco puts up a fight

In 1990, fighting games really came into their own, as Capcom's "Street Fighter II" lit up video arcades like they hadn't been in nearly a decade.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Oct 23, 2002

Getting keyed in on musical talent

I don't like the phrase "child prodigy." It sounds vaguely condescending, and it brings to mind images of pushy parents forcing reluctant children to follow in the footsteps of Beethoven, Mozart and Michael Jackson.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 22, 2002

Too smart for your own good

It was a merger made in heaven.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Oct 21, 2002

Contributing to the spread of democracy

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In a recent editorial, the Financial Times admonished the European Union and its member states, "(for) having consistently failed to grasp the broad historic significance of the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly 13 years ago." It is in fact an awesome event, the significance of...
COMMENTARY
Oct 21, 2002

Confessions from North Korea

SEOUL/PUSAN -- They say that a little bit of confession is good for the soul, but North Korea's sudden burst of religion is creating a moral dilemma for Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul. First, Pyongyang decides to come clean on the kidnapping of Japanese citizens, admitting to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi...
EDITORIALS
Oct 20, 2002

All the news, period

Ever since news first met the Internet, informed observers have been predicting the death of print newspapers. When it didn't happen after people began retrieving their daily news with the help of Internet search engines, the sages said it would happen after the major newspapers launched their own online...
CULTURE / Music / HOGAKU TODAY
Oct 20, 2002

Orchestrating exchanges for peace

"The Japanese society of the eighth century was extremely internationalized and integrated with the rest of Asia. Foreigners comprised much of the skilled labor force and, like England in the 16th and 17th centuries, there was an active exchange of artists, musicians and statesmen with the mainland....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002

A reality check for the relationship

U.S.-JAPAN RELATIONS IN A CHANGING WORLD, edited by Steven K. Vogel. Brookings Institution Press, Washington, D.C., 2002, 286 pp., $18.95 (cloth) The Japan-U.S. alliance is a remarkable achievement. The two countries are virtual mirror images of each other, and have, until recently, had relatively little...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002

When romancing medieval Japan, why stop at one?

ACROSS THE NIGHTINGALE FLOOR: Tales of the Otori (Book One), by Lian Hearn. Riverhead Books, 2002, 304 pp., $24.95 (cloth) For over a century, Asia has been a rich and enduring source of inspiration for fantasy and science fiction writers. Since James Hilton created the fantastic Himalayan utopia of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 20, 2002

A city with the world on its plates

It is highly unlikely that Commodore Perry or any other of his crew had epicurean tastes, but the arrival of the Black Ships in 1853 signaled the start of an influx to Japan of foreign -- specifically Western -- food. With the subsequent opening of treaty ports and the Meiji Era's heady days of "bunmei...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 20, 2002

Liberated from language

IDEOGRAMS IN CHINA, by Henri Michaux. Translated by Gustaf Sobin, with an afterword by Richard Sieburth. New York: New Directions, 2002, 58 pp. with selected ideograms, $9.95 (paper) Poet Ezra Pound, following the lead of scholar Ernest Fenollosa, once said that Chinese was the ideal medium for poetry,...
LIFE / Food & Drink / VINELAND
Oct 20, 2002

Leeuwin Estate delivers a perfect hat trick

Wine lovers in Japan may have noticed the recent appearance of several new labels from Australia's Leeuwin Estate. Collectors have long coveted Leeuwin's Art Series wines. But these collectible, top-tier Leeuwin wines require cellar-aging to realize their potential and they bear a stiff cost commensurate...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 19, 2002

Kenka Matsuri: death and hairy butts

Butts! Hairy butts! That's all I could think of among the chaos of men in loincloths rushing around Shirahama in Himeji last weekend. I was there for the Kenka Matsuri, or Fighting Festival, at Matsubara Hachiman Shrine. The official name is the Nada Fighting Festival, perhaps because that is what the...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Oct 18, 2002

Soap maker gets healthy dose of mayo market

Some consumers unwittingly used mayonnaise to style their hair when, in the 1920s, this exotic condiment was first introduced in Japan.
EDITORIALS
Oct 18, 2002

Most crucial lesson from Bali

The Indonesian island of Bali, known as the Island of the Gods, has long projected a peaceful image as an idyllic resort for international tourists. That image was shattered by Saturday's bomb explosion that devastated a popular nightclub frequented by Westerners, killing at least 180 people and wounding...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / THEN AND NOW
Oct 17, 2002

A proud town founded on ferries

The Ara River rises in the Chichibu Mountains of Saitama Prefecture, from where it flows southeast for some 140 km to reach the capital and discharge itself into Tokyo Bay. As its name (which means "rough") implies, it used to be a violent river, swelling after heavy rains and raging across the wide...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Oct 17, 2002

Honor (and fun) among thieves

American-made adventure games do not typically hit the Famitsu top 10 rankings that determine what's hot in gaming in Japan. "Donkey Kong Country," a British-made Super Famicom game, was Japan's all-time best-selling foreign-made adventure game.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM MOSCOW
Oct 13, 2002

Putin: More than a crocodile

MOSCOW -- What could be worse on one's 50th birthday than to spend it in a gloomy fortress, sitting in the center of a heavily polluted city as president of a problem-ridden country struggling for survival? Yet Russian President Vladimir Putin looked perfectly happy on the day of his anniversary, and...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WHEN EAST MARRIES WEST
Oct 13, 2002

School festivals of fun in the name of sport

Autumn in Japan means much more than cooler temperatures and colorful leaves. It means . . . sports!
COMMENTARY
Oct 12, 2002

Cost cuts could compromise health care

WASHINGTON -- Public-spirited rhetoric usually masks intense interest-group combat in Washington, D.C., like that over pharmaceutical patents. Health insurers, which barely survived the Clinton administration's assault, are targeting drug-research firms.
COMMENTARY
Oct 12, 2002

In pursuit of terrorists and oil

NEW DELHI -- U.S. President George W. Bush is taking a big gamble with his single-minded mission to get rid of a toothless but unsavory dictator, who, far from being a menace to U.S. security, is not a threat even to his neighbors. Bush, who accuses Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein of being "a homicidal...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 11, 2002

Irish media not too Keane on McCarthy

LONDON -- It is difficult to imagine a coach can be under pressure after his team made a positive impression at the World Cup finals, has lost only three of its last 27 games and just seven of 41 competitive matches during his 6 1/2 years in charge.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Oct 9, 2002

The Captains chart retro course

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. In the wrong hands, it can be an outlet for excessive sentimentality and out-and-out kitsch.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 8, 2002

U.N. aims higher with sweeping reforms

Shakespeare's aphorism is as applicable to organizations as to individuals: "the evil they do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones." Let it not be so with the United Nations. Rather, let us recall with pride the process of reform in the organization. Much, in fact, has already...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 7, 2002

EU needs a common purpose

LONDON -- Since the original European Common Market was founded in the mid-1950s, the Continent sought a common economic role, to be followed by growing political integration. Now, there is general agreement on the first count that a new institutional framework is needed to give the community more political...
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Oct 7, 2002

Brainstorming to bring positive change

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In an article on the IMF/World Bank meeting in Washington last month entitled "A Washington gathering of incompetents," Gerald Baker, while lambasting policyma- kers in the United States and the European Union, handed the first prize for incompetence to Japan. "Every time it...
COMMENTARY
Oct 7, 2002

Political reform the only option for China

HONG KONG -- China's late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping deserves much credit for trying to modernize the country and remove it from its Maoist ideological straitjacket. He emphasized pragmatism, not ideology. He put China on the path to a market economy. And, perhaps most important, he tried to lift...
COMMENTARY
Oct 6, 2002

Hussein finds 'useful idiots' in Washington

WASHINGTON -- Hitler found "Lord Haw Haw" -- William Joyce, who broadcast German propaganda to Britain during World War II -- in the dregs of British extremism. But Iraqi President Saddam Hussein finds American collaborators among senior congressional Democrats.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 6, 2002

When every channel is the same channel

Ever since the advent of that popular programming idea known as the "wide show" in the mid-1980s, so-called hard news and tabloid news have slowly merged into an alloy of informational reporting that defies easy categorization.

Longform

A small shrine perched atop rocks braves the waves hitting the shoreline during a storm in Shimoda, Shizuoka Prefecture. The area is under threat of a possible 31-meter-high tsunami if an earthquake strikes the nearby Nankai Trough.
If the 'Big One' hits, this city could face a 31-meter-high tsunami