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Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Dec 19, 2002

'Machiya' morphs into IT incubator

KYOTO -- What do traditional Kyoto and broadband Internet access have in common? Not much, which is the problem. The solution is the Kyoto Nishijin Machiya Studio.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Dec 18, 2002

Hot stove ponders fate of Rose, Matsui, Nakamura

This is the final "Baseball Bullet-In" for 2002, so let's take a look at, and make some comments about, topics on the hot stove of baseball news on both sides of the Pacific.
EDITORIALS
Dec 18, 2002

A collapse of fiscal balance

Japan faces a clear and present danger in public finance, epitomized by a crushing debt load equal to 140 percent of its gross national product. In this light, changes to the tax code for fiscal 2003, proposed by the ruling coalition last week, fall far short of expectations. It is essentially a patchwork...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Dec 18, 2002

Ivy: "Guestroom"

Before Adam Schlesinger penned the catchy title song to Tom Hanks' directorial debut, "That Thing You Do," and formed the excellent power-pop band Fountains of Wayne with Chris Collingwood, he was the impetus behind Ivy, the New Jersey trio that pioneered the French pops revival on the U.S. East Coast....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Dec 18, 2002

"el Christmas: The World in Winter"

Before British label el records went belly up, they were considered one of the hippest dispensers of candy-coated twee-pop and lounge music from the '70s and '80s. A holiday compilation album pulled from el's catalog of aural confectionary makes perfect sense as so much of the holiday season nowadays...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 18, 2002

'Red Demon' to claim British souls

Acclaimed in Japan for the last quarter of a century as a drama director, writer and actor, Hideki Noda is set to become a major player on the world stage from Jan. 31, when his "Red Demon" opens for a near-monthlong run at the famed Young Vic in London's West End.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 18, 2002

Asia, in a nutshell

In Douglas Adams' future dystopia novel "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," a giant computer finally determines the answer to the meaning of life: 42. The joke was that nobody knew the question.
EDITORIALS
Dec 17, 2002

Check the spread of missiles

The seizure and release of a North Korean ship carrying Scud missiles bound for Yemen highlights two serious international issues: Pyongyang's readiness to export destabilizing weapons and the proliferation of ballistic missiles. The ship and its cargo were released because there was no apparent violation...
MORE SPORTS
Dec 17, 2002

Ooft outlines plans for development of improving Reds

Former Japan manager Hans Ooft completed his first regular season with the Urawa Reds at the end of last month.
COMMUNITY
Dec 17, 2002

TELL counseling program 2003

Tokyo English Life Line (TELL) is offering a 60-hour counseling training program for volunteer telephone counselors. TELL is a 365 days-a-year free counseling line for English speakers and has been serving the international community in Japan since 1973.
COMMUNITY
Dec 17, 2002

What are Japan's teens on about?

Why do Japan's teens sound so incomprehensible these days?
EDITORIALS
Dec 16, 2002

It's still the economy, stupid

U.S. President George W. Bush has shaken up his economic team. The moves had been long expected. Despite the U.S. administration's claim that the economic downturn was the product of events beyond its control -- an assertion that is largely true -- the president's top officials were not doing him much...
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Dec 16, 2002

Sicily's sobering message for grandparents

SYRACUSE, Sicily -- Sicily is an ideal place to ponder the fate of civilizations and to reflect on the future. This island off the boot of Italy, with a population of 5 million, has been a crossroads of civilizations for almost three millennia. The Greeks, Romans, Saracens, Normans, Catalans, French,...
COMMENTARY
Dec 16, 2002

Britain braces for dilemma

LONDON -- At the speed of an express train, a formidable new dilemma is hurtling toward the British government: how to respond to the prospect of a written constitution that the leaders of the European Union are determined to have. Drafts are already being circulated and will be finalized in the next...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2002

Anti-Americanism sharpens U.S. attitudes

HONOLULU -- As anti-American emotions have erupted in the Islamic world and Asia, the response from Americans has increasingly taken on a hard edge. Some of the rejoinders have been predictable, but others are a surprise.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 16, 2002

Withholding food aid only kills innocents

CAMBRIDGE, England -- Tokyo Gov. Shintaro Ishihara does not like Japanese charities sending dog biscuits and old rice to North Korea to feed its hungry people.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 16, 2002

The thorny topic of 'office flowers'

Nowadays the term "OL (office lady)" is seen as semiderogatory (about time, too), and some companies have trashed it completely and started using simply jyosei shain (women employees). This is to differentiate them from sogoshoku (general worker), which is not gender-specific but is used to describe...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Dec 16, 2002

Will dramatic arts take a backseat?

Two months ago, my 8-year-old came home from the Japanese elementary school he attends and told me about the play his grade would do at the upcoming gakugeikai (drama festival).
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2002

Capturing today's relevant aspirations

On Oct. 8 I wrote about the second report by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, published Sept. 23, on reforming the U.N. An important innovation in this report (Chapter Two entitled "Doing What Matters") is that it actually tackles the substantive agenda of the organization's work program....
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2002

Mission to Mars

Speaking of the moon and beyond, both were in the news again last week as the 30th anniversary of the last Apollo mission converged with the latest speculations about life -- or otherwise -- on Mars.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 15, 2002

Fight poverty by closing education gaps

NEW YORK -- Among the issues highlighted by the 2002 "State of World Population: People, Poverty and Possibilities," released by the United Nations Population Fund on Dec. 3, is the impact of poverty on education and, consequently, health -- particularly that of women of reproductive age. According to...
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Covering their tracks on the way to war

To obfuscate the waging of war on several fronts simultaneously may seem an unlikely and incredible ambition. However, as more and more information surrounding Japan's attacks on Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in the Pacific on Dec. 7, 1941, comes to light, it becomes ever more clear that its military rulers...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Dec 15, 2002

Chushingura Chushingura

Snow has been the backdrop to some of Tokyo's most colorful and epoch-making events.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 15, 2002

On the trail of a killer in ancient Kyoto

RASHOMON GATE, by I.J. Parker. St. Martin's Minotaur: New York, 2002, 336 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Scholars who pen historical mystery fiction must tread a fine line between being faithful to the materials they research and creating stories and characters that will appeal to contemporary readers. It's by...
EDITORIALS
Dec 15, 2002

A very precise slice of pi

Sure, admitted mathematicians everywhere last week, what Tokyo University professor Yasumasa Kanada had just done would not be of much use in the real world, but they were awestruck, just the same. On Dec. 6, Mr. Kanada and his team at Todai's Information Technology Center announced that they had capped...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Dec 15, 2002

Traveling in search of truth

IN SEARCH OF THE MAHABHARATA: Notes of Travels in India with Peter Brook, 1982-1985, by Jean-Claude Carriere. Translated from the French by Aruna Vasudev, with a forward by Jyoti Sabharwal. New Delhi: Macmillan India, 2001, 120 pp., with line drawings by Carriere, 198 rupees (cloth) Between 1982 and...

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person