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Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Oct 30, 2002

Salt Water Taffy

"We don't really have any band that we're influenced by, but I guess we all like to listen to any bands that you can tell were inspired by The Beatles ..." OK, stop that quote right there! Iris, singer and guitarist with new Tokyo band Salt Water Taffy, has name-dropped The Beatles and, um, that's boring....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 30, 2002

Afloat but not adrift on the sea of dreams

As the fall exhibition season moves into high gear, there are a number of good shows going up at Tokyo's leading contemporary art galleries, and what is notable is that a fair number of them are based on well-defined themes.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / J-POPSICLE
Oct 30, 2002

Yaida takes off on flight of 'flancy'

Why monkey with a winning formula? That seems to be the logic behind singer/songwriter Hitomi Yaida's third album, "i/flancy," which reached No. 1 on the Oricon album chart for the week ending Oct. 28.
Japan Times
Uncategorized
Oct 29, 2002

Refurbished Taisho Era hall set to debut anew

Central Public Hall, an 84-year-old Neo-Renaissance civic gathering place, will reopen Friday after a three-year, 11 billion yen restoration.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ARCHIPELA-GO
Oct 29, 2002

More than just another Little Kyoto

Travel around Japan enough and you soon notice how so many places like to imagine themselves as somewhere else. Aomori Prefecture is proud of its "Mount Fuji," Mount Iwake; Kawagoe likes being called "Little Edo"; and there are so many "Ginzas" in the land that if you put them all together you'd have...
COMMENTARY
Oct 28, 2002

Reformists persist in Iran

Late last month I made my first visit in 22 years to Iran, where I had covered the Islamic revolution under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini as a Japanese newspaper correspondent. Some conspicuous changes in the country attracted my attention.
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Oct 28, 2002

Words of wisdom on U.S. interventionism

NEW YORK -- Searching the Internet for information on immigration in the United States, I came across President Grover Cleveland's message to Congress on Dec. 18, 1893. In it he detailed his opposition to the annexation of Hawaii. At the start of that year, a self-styled Committee of Safety, led by foreign...
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 28, 2002

Critically ill Japan can't depend on assistance from G7 doctors

Japan's economic woes and North Korean issues, including the abductions of Japanese nationals and Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program, will be the two main topics in the extraordinary Diet session that opened on Oct. 18.
COMMENTARY
Oct 28, 2002

Just don't call him Senior Minister Jiang

LOS ANGELES -- Extreme conservatives would have you simply bomb 'em; extreme liberals would simply have you love 'em. Real life, though, often comes down to a difficult choice between questionable alternatives. And when the issue relates to how to relate to more than a 1.3 billion people, perhaps the...
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 28, 2002

Poverty and poor health go hand in hand

NEW YORK -- Poverty cannot be defined solely in terms of lack of income. A person, a family, even a nation is not deemed poor only because of low economic resources. Little or no access to health services, lack of access to safe water, illiteracy or low educational level and a distorted perception of...
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 27, 2002

Takahara nets pair for Jubilo

Jubilo striker Naohiro Takahara scored two goals as Iwata downed the Yokohama F. Marinos 3-1 at National Stadium to maintain the J. League Division One second stage lead on Saturday.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 27, 2002

War talk doesn't faze Tatar oil people

KAZAN, Russia -- The Tatar Autonomous Republic is an area where minarets rise above the whitewashed kremlin walls, where Muslim villagers have pitched in to construct more than 1,000 mosques over the decade since the Soviet Union fell apart.
EDITORIALS
Oct 27, 2002

At last, a move to cut down on popups

Sometimes you have to wonder what advertising gurus use for brains. For decades now, we've watched them fail to grasp the simple truth that television commercials repeated ad nauseam can actually drive viewers to boycott products rather than buy them. In recent years, though, it has been the idea of...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Oct 27, 2002

Osaka housewife refuses to be cowed in the face of city hall

The towering stone structure that is Osaka city hall sits like a fortress on Osaka's Nakanoshima island. It might intimidate some who walk into its dimly lit marbled lobby, but not Yoneko Matsuura.
COMMUNITY
Oct 27, 2002

Ultimate distrust

Few things seem more certain than death.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 27, 2002

At last, a family cartoon playing it for real

Since virtually everyone has grown up in one, "family" is one of the few dramatic themes that can safely be called universal, even if no two families can ever be the same. Nevertheless, the popular arts, television in particular, are filled with families who are meant to represent all families.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 27, 2002

Romantics, reporter go far away, so close

In Japan, there's a commonly held romantic notion that people who really want to pursue certain kinds of ambitions have to go abroad to do so. Only by immersing oneself in an environment that offers no distractions from the goal can one truly master a discipline.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 27, 2002

The long goodbye

Without a traditional funeral, common thinking goes, the departed souls of Japanese would aimlessly wander the earth for all eternity. The ritual occupies the very core of the Buddhism practiced in Japan today, and the fees charged for it -- as high as the price of a luxury car -- are a main source of...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 27, 2002

Coldfeet raise pop to a higher plane

"Sure, we want to be famous," Coldfeet's chanteuse, Lori Fine, says a little defensively in the faux tavern environs of Shibuya's TGIFridays, stabbing at a half-eaten pizza quesadilla. Fine is a former model and has the effortless poise and posture of one -- minus the myopic egotism.
COMMENTARY
Oct 27, 2002

Russia's new nuclear threat

VLADIVOSTOK, Russia -- Hundreds of nuclear submarines float quietly at their berths throughout the Russian Federation. The end of the Cold War has not ended the threat posed by these sleek gray killing machines. Today, however, concern focuses on the environmental risks created by the decommissioning...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / NIHONSHU
Oct 27, 2002

Before I go, these are a few of my favorite things

After precisely eight years, this is to be the final installment of the Nihonshu column. It has been extremely enjoyable write it over the years. The amount I have learned along the way has been nothing less than phenomenal -- and it only got more interesting as time went on.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Oct 27, 2002

The lesser of many possible evils

THE UNITED STATES IN THE ASIA-PACIFIC SINCE 1945, by Roger Buckley. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2002. 258 pp., $65 (cloth) This is a wide-ranging, ambitious and informative work on an immense subject. Given the vast terrain and limited space, Roger Buckley has had to resist the temptations...
Japan Times
Uncategorized
Oct 26, 2002

Japan shares its antipollution expertise

The city of Kitakyushu has moved ahead of other municipalities in transferring Japan's industrial knowledge and technology -- including measures to combat pollution -- to developing countries.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 26, 2002

Shimizu hoping to lead Giants to title

Alex Cabrera and Hideki Matsui missed out on significant regular-season feats heading into the Japan Series -- ditto for Yomiuri Giants outfielder Takayuki Shimizu.
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2002

How to address nuclear safety

Oct. 26 is designated as Nuclear Energy Day to mark the startup of Japan's first experimental nuclear-power reactor 39 years ago. Since then the nation's nuclear energy development program has made spectacular advances. This year's anniversary, however, is marred by a series of shocking revelations that...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 26, 2002

Social entrepreneur targets cross-cultural themes

Ken Nakamori has a dream: a vision of deepening the understanding between people of different countries and creating a new bridge of communication through digital media communities.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 26, 2002

Getting clubbed to keep up with the Satos

I have often thought I should "level up" my "life communication space" by joining one of the various clubs in my community, such as the pottery club or stained glass-making club. Although I would like to interact with my island community more, I hesitate because of the commitment. In Japan, people pursue...
EDITORIALS
Oct 25, 2002

Texas hospitality for Mr. Jiang

Chinese President Jiang Zemin is visiting the United States. The high point of the trip is a stop at President George W. Bush's Crawford, Texas, ranch, where the two men will indulge in summit rituals. The presidents will probably spend more time eating barbecue and posing for photographs than they will...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Oct 25, 2002

Teen sensation Rooney has England buzzing

LONDON -- He's being called Ronaldo and after just nine Premiership appearances his shirt is the best seller in the Everton souvenir shop.
Japan Times
Uncategorized
Oct 25, 2002

China's environmental problems pose opportunities

Smoke curls into the sky from power plants, home heaters, factories and cars, poisoning the air. Rain runs in sheets off slopes stripped of trees, eroding valuable topsoil, sedimenting rivers, causing raging floods downstream, and later, droughts as land loses its capacity to hold water.

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