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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.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Oct 12, 2002

Personal fences and Hello Kitty killer

In the spirit of "benri de ii" (convenient and good) I would like to propose some ideas for making Japan a more convenient country.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 12, 2002

Success of globalization rests on good business reputations

These are not good times for business ethics in the industrialized nations. In spite of a carefully honed reputation for professionalism and honesty, businesses in the United States, Japan and Europe have seen scandals and problems. In the U.S. it has been the overstatement of profits by and exorbitant...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Oct 12, 2002

Joel Stewart

When he is painting, Joel Stewart says that he watches "what is happening right in front of my eyes. I'm making an image, and I reach a fork in the road. Shall I pull back to my original conception, or follow the new direction, which may lead to disaster?" If it is disaster, he is philosophical about...
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.
BASEBALL / MLB
Oct 11, 2002

Fighters like American manager, but will he really be given chance?

It finally looks as if Japanese baseball is ready for a change.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / MATTER OF COURSE
Oct 11, 2002

Chant away to calculation competence

You will never guess what I've been doing the past two weeks. I, an Ivy League graduate, at the ripe age of 44, have been learning my times tables. That's right, multiplication. Now, before you write me off as a failure of American higher education, let me stress that I've been doing this in Japanese....
COMMUNITY
Oct 11, 2002

Fill a pressing need for foreign men

The hunt is on for foreign men to contribute their experiences to a unique, innovative, humorous, and much-needed guide for gaijin guys in Japan.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Oct 11, 2002

Kanji power unlocks the secret room of Japanese literature

Surely many of you, including overseas readers of The Japan Times online, live within 100 km of a Japanese-language bookstore or a university with a collection of Japanese books. Japanese literature is available, but confronting the sheer volume of offerings can be overwhelming.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Oct 11, 2002

What's a working mom to do with her kids in Tokyo?

Childcare An entrepreneur in central Tokyo, is up in arms. One of her Japanese assistants is about to have a baby and wants to continue working afterwards. But so far her assistant has been unable to find public child-care facilities for children under the age of 2.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Oct 11, 2002

Motorists driven round the bend by license laws

In May 2002 the Tokyo District Court rejected a suit by freelance journalist Yu Terasawa in which he claimed 1.2 million yen in compensation for driving license renewal fees.
EDITORIALS
Oct 11, 2002

Japanese science shines again

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which is responsible for awarding the Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry, probably said it best when it described this year's physics laureates as having "used [the] very smallest components of the universe to increase our understanding of the very largest, the...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Oct 11, 2002

"Time Stops For No Mouse," "Hairy Bill"

"Time Stops For No Mouse," Michael Hoeye, Puffin Books; 2002; 262 pp. It's a mouse's world.
MORE SPORTS
Oct 10, 2002

Suzuka special for Sato

Expectations are blooming each day for the rookie at the Japan Grand Prix. But don't remind Takuma Sato of Jordan Honda that his Japanese fans expect more than his sub-par performance so far during the 2002 season.
COMMENTARY
Oct 10, 2002

Small Mideast release valve

BAHRAIN -- Here in this little island kingdom just off the coast of Saudi Arabia, all the complexities and contradictions of the Middle East and the Arab world seem to come together.
EDITORIALS
Oct 10, 2002

Put a stop to rising crime

Spurred by a spate of vicious crimes and a sharp rise in crimes by foreigners, the number of criminal offenses in Japan last year reached a record postwar high of 2,735,612 cases. The arrest rate, which is a barometer of public safety, fell to 19.8 percent, the first time since 1945 that it had dropped...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Oct 10, 2002

Women are the key to conserving Mother Earth

Danielle Nierenberg may work in the shadow of the White House, but she is clearly more enlightened than the man who lives there. At the end of April, the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute released a policy brief written by Nierenberg, a staff researcher. The title of her paper is a succinct statement...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Oct 10, 2002

Giving you something to stretch your head round

Modern American anthropology owes a lot to one man: Franz Boas, widely regarded as the father of the discipline.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Oct 10, 2002

All bets off on upcoming U.S. midterm elections

WASHINGTON -- We are just a few weeks from election day 2002. Usually, in a midterm election, especially one just after the redistricting of Congress, it becomes apparent how the races are shaping up. Trends set in as candidates begin to pull away in competitive races. But not this year; just the reverse...
LIFE / Digital / NAME OF THE GAME
Oct 10, 2002

Disney lives in 'Kingdom Hearts'

"Kingdom Hearts" may be old news in Japan, where more than 800,000 people already own it, but it's new to the United States.
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.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Oct 9, 2002

Pottery worth giving it all up for

Say the word "Momoyama" to any Japanese pottery connoisseurs, and their eyes will inevitably light up. Most ceramic enthusiasts would give up any Saturday-night vice to own just one Momoyama Shino, Bizen or Karatsu guinomi (sake cup) or chawan (tea bowl).
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Oct 9, 2002

Nu-girls on the block

Last June, Newsweek spotted a species of American teenagers that it called Gamma Girls: high school females who are ambitious about their futures and smart about the dangers of sex and drugs. Rolling Stone more recently ran an article profiling college-age women who exert "control" over their bodies...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / NEW ART SEEN
Oct 9, 2002

A celebratory cake to get your teeth into

The good news: Sensational Swiss video artist Pipilotti Rist, 40, is doing but a single gallery show this year, and it is happening here in Tokyo, right now, at the Shiseido Gallery on the Ginza strip.
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Oct 9, 2002

Steve Earle: "Jerusalem"

The fuss over "John Walker's Blues," Steve Earle's look-see into the mind of the American Taliban, barely survived the actual release of the song a few weeks ago. John Walker Lindh, who is portrayed by Earle as a naive but well-meaning young idealist, has since tearfully owned up to his mistakes and...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Oct 9, 2002

The ugly truth about Pre-Raphaelite beauty

Had Sigmund Freud psychoanalyzed whole eras, not mere individuals, the late 19th century would have been a prime candidate for his therapist's couch. Take the example of empire-building Britain. Victorians may have been prudish to the extent of covering shapely table legs, but they were sexually voracious....
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 9, 2002

CL, PL awards going down to wire

The Central and Pacific League pennant races were decided weeks ago, but the Japanese baseball season continues until the 12 teams have completed all 140 games on their schedules. The last game is tentatively scheduled for Oct. 18, and the next week-and-a-half of baseball, despite no flag chases, will...
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...
EDITORIALS
Oct 8, 2002

The U.S. returns to Pyongyang

The visit by Mr. James Kelly, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs, to Pyongyang yielded no breakthrough in relations between North Korea and the United States. Nonetheless, the two sides are talking and appear committed to a serious dialogue. The U.S., like Japan, should give...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Oct 8, 2002

Nature's poster-bear on the brink

No animal, with the possible exceptions of the dolphin and the whale, has won more hearts and minds for the cause of wildlife conservation than the giant panda.

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