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Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

Antiforeign attitude unchanged

Regarding the June 21 article "Fukuda gets report on boosting immigrants": Most wealthy advanced countries have a long, open history of allowing immigration because they accept it as their international duty. Although the trend has more recently been to try to curtail this, the percentage of immigration...
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

The real risks from mad cows

The June 21 feature "South Korean Netizens mad over mad cow" wastes a great deal of space detailing the more ridiculous fears of South Koreans while ignoring the very real threat that does exist, not only to Koreans but to Japanese alike.
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

What attack on Christianity?

What attack on Christianity?
Reader Mail
Jun 26, 2008

Military ships 'safer' than tankers

Kiroku Hanai's June 23 article, "Flattop can forget about a haven from controversy," is another example of selective journalism attempting to discredit the U.S. military or unreasonably worry citizens here.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jun 25, 2008

All hail capitalism, mendacious destroyer of life on Earth

If you're hoping that the representatives of the world's richest nations meeting in Hokkaido for the G8 Summit next month will take action on climate change, you're in for a disappointment.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jun 24, 2008

Silver-spoon politicians who rule

A growing number of politicians in Japan have "inherited" their parliamentary seats from their fathers. Unless this "hereditary" system is reversed, Japanese politics in all likelihood will continue on a path of decline.
COMMENTARY
Jun 23, 2008

Flattop can forget about a haven from controversy

A dispute over whether to accept a plan to let the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier George Washington use Yokosuka as its home port seemed to have been settled when the municipal assembly rejected a proposal to hold a referendum on the subject.
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Witness to 9/11 flight debris

Regarding John Spiri's June 17 Zeit Gist article, "(Japanese) Lawmaker takes 9/11 doubts global": The plane (Flight 767) did not "vaporize" as some say. The plane broke into thousands of small and large pieces and were clearly visible to all of us there that day. They were collected piece by piece in...
EDITORIALS
Jun 22, 2008

Uphold disabled people's rights

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities took effect May 3 — 30 days after it received its 20th ratification (April 3). So far, 27 countries have ratified the convention, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities and promotes their social participation.
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

India, China do not act alone

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's June 18 article, Is the India and China hype true?": India and China do not act alone in challenging the two-century-old Western domination of the world. Indeed, they have history on their side, but they also have strong, dynamic partners. They belong to the BRIC (Brazil,...
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"...
Reader Mail
Jun 22, 2008

Deplorable claim about Bhutto

Regarding the June 2 Washington Post article "Bhutto gave key nuclear data to Pyongyang" (which is based on conversations that London-based Indian journalist Shyam Bhatia claims to have had with former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2003): It is illogical to believe that an international...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 22, 2008

Has Japan's dogged idealism of '68 become truly poodled?

On June 7, The New York Times' op-ed columnist Bob Herbert wrote an intriguing piece about the United States in 1968, recalling the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy exactly 40 years ago, and also referring to Sen. Barack Obama clinching the 2008 Democratic Party nomination for the presidency....
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jun 22, 2008

How can the press be free if it's used as a public-relations tool?

The Supreme Court's decision on June 12 to reverse a lower-court ruling that had found in favor of a women's group received a fair share of concerned media coverage. The suit involved a program NHK had produced about a 2001 citizens' tribunal, which prosecuted Japan's wartime leaders on behalf of sex...
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2008

The confines of Darwin's writing

Regarding Rowan Hooper's June 11 article, "Of Darwin and Mishima . . . ," which reviews Charles Darwin's scientific ideas and their impact: Hooper says Darwin rebelled against his father when, at 22, he set off on the HSM Beagle for a voyage around the world but that "the greater rebellion -- mounted,...
Reader Mail
Jun 19, 2008

No reason to censure Fukuda

Regarding the June 12 article "Upper House hits Fukuda with censure": I believe that Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is a great leader and a healer of recent wounds for both the foreign community and all Japanese women in this country. And Fukuda has never mentioned that the Japanese government believes...
SUMO / SUMO SCRIBBLINGS
Jun 17, 2008

Sumo's future isn't in the U.S.

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times carried a very brief article on the sport of sumo.
COMMENTARY / World / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Jun 16, 2008

Reluctant runner viewed as possible Fukuda fill-in

It is expected that a race for Japan's national leadership will start after Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda hosts the summit meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Toyako, Hokkaido, in July.
Reader Mail
Jun 15, 2008

Get wise and lose the ties

Regarding the June 7 article "Cool biz Fukuda goes past tieless": The history of the necktie is a long and convoluted one. Some commentators suggest that its precursors hail from the Han Dynasty in China and Imperial Rome, where its function was to protect against the cold. During the Thirty Years War...
Reader Mail
Jun 15, 2008

When not to get on an elevator

Regarding Michael Hoffman's June 8 summary ("Dumb men better than dirty 'old' men") of a June 3 Spa! article: From a 57-something guy, I totally agree. If a bunch of guys, especially in suits, get in an elevator, I don't get on. What is it, do guys live in their suits and wash like once a year? Their...
Reader Mail
Jun 15, 2008

Adaptation of Japanese, Chinese

I agree with Frank Ching's view in his June 5 article, "Quake warms Japan-China ties," that the people of Japan and China have to change and adapt to new circumstances.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 11, 2008

Testing times for Malaysia

SINGAPORE — The man who once gave lectures to the West and its leaders is back again regaling his captive Malaysian audience with his trademark rhetoric.
Reader Mail
Jun 8, 2008

Most Koreans not 'forcibly brought'

The final line of the June 4 article from Kyodo News, "Chinese now No. 1 foreign group," erroneously characterized the 426,227 Koreans who are classified as special permanent residents as "those who were forcibly brought to Japan from the Korean Peninsula when it was under Japanese colonial rule, and...
Reader Mail
Jun 8, 2008

Invest in counseling, not weapons

Regarding the May 30 article "Japanese found hanged on KAL jet": It's a sad statement of a country's culture that so many Japanese people's ultimate form of expression is suicide. It must be hard for many non-Japanese to understand why this anomaly has persisted for so long.
Reader Mail
Jun 8, 2008

Relevant values for everyone

Regarding the article "Bad public manners irk Bushido proponent": I am happy to see that somebody is taking up the cause for what should be obvious to people who enjoy the benefits of living in a civilized society yet do not contribute so much as common courtesy.
Reader Mail
Jun 8, 2008

Young people wrongly singled out

I commend the efforts of Sokichi Sugimura (June 3 article, "Bad public manners irk Bushido proponent") to promote better manners and harmony on the streets and trains. However, I find his associating young people with irresponsibility for hogging priority seats, blocking doorways and applying makeup...
COMMENTARY
Jun 6, 2008

Japan sidelined on Taiwan

Arriving at Taipei international airport en route to a Taiwanese university conference on Russia, you are hit by the headline of a local magazine on display. In translation it reads: "The New Diplomacy Will Rescue Taiwan."
EDITORIALS
Jun 6, 2008

Giving children their due

In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court on Wednesday declared unconstitutional a Nationality Law clause that denies Japanese nationality to a child born out of wedlock to a foreign woman and Japanese man even if the man recognizes his paternity following the birth.

Longform

Bear attacks have dominated Japanese news headlines in recent months, with 13 people so far having been killed by the animals.
Japan’s bears have been on their killing spree for more than 100 years