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CULTURE / Music
Jun 27, 2008

Jakob Dylan "Seeing Things"

It's tough to write about Jakob Dylan without referencing his father, Bob, and pundits are going to have an even tougher time now with the release of Jakob's acoustic solo album. While his previous albums with his band The Wallflowers always featured stellar writing, that was often buried under the three-chord...
EDITORIALS
Jun 25, 2008

More doctors needed

A private advisory body for health minister Yoichi Masuzoe has urged the government to increase its quota for medical students. The recommendation comes amid reports that pregnant women, children and rural residents are having difficulties getting medical treatment. The government should implement this...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Jun 24, 2008

Women's shoe designer Moe Enomoto

Moe Enomoto, 28, is a women's shoe designer whose Sellenatela brand is carried by exclusive stores in Tokyo's Ginza and Daikanyama districts, and in San Francisco's hip Venus Superstar Boutique. Fascinated by beauty and driven by a desire to empower women of all lifestyles, Moe hopes that her shoes give...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Jun 24, 2008

What should Japan be doing to ease climate change?

Japan Times
LIFE
Jun 22, 2008

Grounded rulers of the sky

His sharp, calm gaze follows yet another aircraft swooping down from the cloudless sky, its tires screeching in clouds of blue smoke as it returns to Earth on Haneda's concrete runway. One more flight successfully completed, he thinks — and now the next.
CULTURE / Books
Jun 22, 2008

The many different ways Japan spells 'nationalism'

A HISTORY OF NATIONALISM IN MODERN JAPAN: Placing the People, by Kevin M. Doak. Leiden: Brill, 2006, 292 pp., $93 (cloth) There is no shortage of writing about nationalism in modern Japanese history. Nonetheless, the object of investigation has not always been clear, and until recently the term "nationalism"...
COMMENTARY
Jun 21, 2008

Security versus freedom

How to maintain a fair balance between national and individual security and traditional freedoms and human rights is an important political issue in Britain. We have been forced to accept increasing intrusion into our private lives by government agencies. Some fear we are living in a world similar to...
BUSINESS / U.S. BUSINESS SCHOOL SYMPOSIUM
Jun 21, 2008

Global changes pose new questions

The global repercussions from the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States are clear evidence of the growing interconnectedness of the world's economies, which requires a broader scope and purview on the part of corporate managers, a U.S. expert told a recent business symposium in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 20, 2008

Sake and sculptures in an Aoyama backstreet

Tokyo's backstreets can be dank or swank, but on the whole, they're safe. The biggest risk lies in the lure of diversion. Wander off the beaten path on your way to buy eggs or mail a letter, and you'll get sucked in by bizarre Lilliputian entrepreneurships, copper-clad fronts of prewar wooden shacks,...
SOCCER
Jun 18, 2008

Man Utd's Park to skip Olympics

SEOUL (AP) Manchester United's Park Ji Sung will not be selected for the South Korea football team for the Beijing Olympic Games.
EDITORIALS
Jun 16, 2008

'Ni hao' to a new face

Justice Ministry records reveal that Chinese have become the largest group of foreigners residing in Japan, edging out Koreans who had been in the top spot since records were taken in 1959. Chinese residents in Japan now number 600,000, double their 1997 number. With Brazilians and Filipinos, the next...
EDITORIALS
Jun 14, 2008

Prepare for the worst

An expert panel of the government's Central Disaster Prevention Council recently projected that a major earthquake in the Kinki and Chubu region occurring at noon in winter would cause economic damage of ¥74 trillion and ¥33 trillion, respectively. Such an earthquake would shred heavily used traffic...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jun 11, 2008

Style is substance . . . sometimes

Pretty pebble: As far as actual technology goes, all flash-memory MP3 players are pretty much the same. If you're thinking about the iPod Touch as an exception, think again, since the Touch is an actual computer, complete with a central processor, RAM and an operating system. But side by side, most solid-state...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Jun 10, 2008

Chrome Hearts, Giraffe and Eley Kishimoto

Charmed, I'm sure Silver-accessories brand Chrome Hearts launched its Aoyama shop nine years ago, but has recently reopened its doors after a renewal that's given it a fresh charm — one that's much more than just something dangly for your bracelet.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 10, 2008

American finds his voice in the world of 'enka'

The world of "enka" ballads has been set on its ear with the historic debut of Jero, a 26-year-old black American from Pittsburgh whose sole passion since he was a child was to make the big time in the traditional crooning genre.
Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Jun 5, 2008

Japan's stylish display against Oman leaves critics little ammunition

If there was a question mark hanging over national team manager Takeshi Okada before Monday's World Cup qualifying match against Oman, his side's comprehensive 3-0 win went a long way toward providing the answers.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 4, 2008

U.S. helps search for Japanese dead on Attu

Searchers digging for days recently found the remains of two Japanese soldiers buried in mass graves on the Aleutian island of Attu, victims of one of the harshest battles of World War II.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jun 4, 2008

To cage or not to cage?

I was born in 1940, in Neath, South Wales. My father went off to war and my mother took me to live in the relative safety of rural Suffolk in eastern England, where the Luftwaffe's bombers seldom attacked. There, she worked as a nanny for rich people's offspring. It was pretty tough for my Mum, but she...
EDITORIALS
Jun 4, 2008

Controlling the bureaucracy

The Diet is likely to enact a basic bill aimed at reforming institutional matters related to civil servants working for the central government during the current Diet session. The bill is the result of compromise among the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito and the opposition Democratic Party...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Jun 4, 2008

Tokyo upstart offers freeters mobile flexibility

Ryoji Kaneko is always looking for work. It's been six years since the 25-year-old aspiring actor moved to Tokyo from his home in Hyogo Prefecture, and he's still waiting for his big break. He can't get a regular side job because the auditions and the occasional gig require him to have a flexible schedule....
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jun 3, 2008

Good news from grass roots

Reader Rodney in Vancouver recently e-mailed: "I've often found your articles informative and useful, but they tend to take a tone of complaint. Please tell us about some face-to-face, grassroots efforts that have helped make Japanese more considerate and respectful of those who are different."
JAPAN
Jun 2, 2008

African journalists had trying time at aid conference

The Tokyo International Conference on African Development held in Yokohama last week attracted not only delegations from 52 African nations but also some 300 registered journalists from overseas.
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 1, 2008

Is aging Japan really ready for all the non-Japanese carers it needs?

One of the cliches most bandied about in the Japanese business world is yareba dekiru. An English equivalent might be the title of Jamaican reggae star Jimmy Cliff's great 1972 hit, "You Can Get It If You Really Want."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
May 31, 2008

Eroticism as a means of development

Several months ago, at an exhibition titled "Matsuri," I purchased a print by American photographer Vincent Morris.

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