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SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 30, 2000

American arrogance rears its head

Over the years, the United States has gained a reputation for arrogance and self-centeredness. A couple of opinions expressed in The New York Times last week did nothing to dispel this perception.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 30, 2000

Exhibition ticket giveaway

Ten pairs of tickets to the "National Treasures of Japan" exhibition, being held at the Tokyo National Museum in Ueno Park through May 7, will be given away to 10 Japan Times readers.
COMMUNITY
Mar 26, 2000

Lebanese Marie-Rose has a lot to say on love

Last Tuesday Marie-Rose Ishiguro was at odds with her handbag. Dressed in a bright red suit, with gold jewelry and matching buttons, she looked every inch the power executive. But her battered brown leather bag -- more a holdall really, handles secured with string and spilling papers, books and clothes...
JAPAN
Mar 25, 2000

Supreme Court rules Dentsu responsible for man's suicide

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld lower court rulings in which advertising giant Dentsu Inc. was held responsible for neglecting to act to prevent the 1991 suicide of a 24-year-old employee who showed signs of depression from overwork.
COMMUNITY
Mar 24, 2000

On speaking to a tulip in the garden

Late in the autumn I dug up a spot of earth in my small garden and planted a tulip bulb. Several days later, frost fell and before long snow covered the garden. When spring arrived the next year and the snow had all but disappeared, the tulip broke through the earth, sending out its sturdy stem and green...
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 15, 2000

Putting post-Seattle pieces back together

Billed as the most important meeting of the new millennium, the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD X) in Bangkok in mid-February deserved its designation as "mother of all conferences." While it might not have had the cachet of a Davos World Economic Forum, it did not lack for luster and...
JAPAN
Mar 12, 2000

Domestic uranium plan hits snag

A 1992 plan to produce up to a fourth of the fuel required by Japan's power plants at a uranium enrichment plant in Aomori Prefecture is in jeopardy, with problems arising over technology and cost, power industry sources said Saturday.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 10, 2000

Still much to savor in PPM

Take three vintage bottles of wine. Ignore every rule about proper storage. Open them about 40 times a year and serve them to whomever you meet. Within moments of tasting them, everyone is certain to experience the same thing: a deep, warm glow guaranteed to last a lifetime.
MULTIMEDIA / SPORTS SCOPE
Mar 9, 2000

FIFA's unified calendar needs flexibility

The problem for people who come up with good ideas is that these pearls of wisdom are often put into practice by people with no idea.
JAPAN
Mar 8, 2000

Patient death probed as malpractice

A 17-year-old girl who died Thursday at Kyoto University Hospital may have been killed by ethanol accidentally injected into her respirator, police said Tuesday, adding that they have launched a criminal investigation into the case.
CULTURE / Music
Mar 7, 2000

Beers, cheers and sneers -- Guitar Wolf will eat you alive

Beer. Beer. Beer. And some more beer. The world of Guitar Wolf is an ocean of beer, and if there are any islands of sobriety they are small and infrequent and the chances of coming across one are slim indeed.
CULTURE / Art
Mar 4, 2000

Reaching for light beyond darkness

KYOTO -- Many foreigners new to Japan feel the pulls and strains of adapting to the feeling of demanding but hidden rules in this country, trying to understand things that seem generally accepted but never quite articulated.
ENVIRONMENT
Feb 28, 2000

Passion for traditional medicines, exotic pets, promotes illicit trade

Some among us seem to have an insatiable desire for novelty, be it living or dead. From rare primates and endangered tortoises for pets, to tiger bones consumed in pursuit of sexual vitality, Japan is the world's leading consumer of exotic species.
CULTURE / Art
Feb 26, 2000

Fair and flea market pot-hunting

"How can I learn more about Japanese pottery?" is a question I'm often asked. The answer is simple: Get out and see as much as you can.
MORE SPORTS
Feb 25, 2000

End of rugby road for Suntory warrior Ennis

For the past 20 years, Glenn Ennis has loved throwing his weight around the rugby pitch.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Feb 24, 2000

Luxembourg's grape history: wine country since day one

Mother Nature used her wintry palette to redefine Luxembourg in mere minutes, lacing its naked boughs and barren lawns with soft, tufted snow. This, too, is wine country.
COMMUNITY / How-tos
Feb 23, 2000

Local variations

With the new animal welfare law about to be enforced, several readers have asked how they should report examples of cruelty they have seen. One woman was repulsed by a game she saw recently. Players tried to catch live lobsters crowded into an aquarium with a cranelike tool operated by remote control....
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2000

Allergy-prone get jump on hay fever

Staff writer For the past 10 years, spring has been tough on Mari Koi, with her seasonal allergy leaving her with itchy, watery eyes and a runny nose from February through March. But this year, the 30-year-old Tokyo woman has been well so far -- possibly due to early preparation. "I have been taking...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 22, 2000

When paranoia is in power, prepare to be surprised

WHY VIETNAM INVADED CAMBODIA: Political Culture and the Causes of War, by Stephen J. Morris. Stanford University Press, 1999, 315 pp., $49.50/30 British pounds (cloth), $18.95/11.95 British pounds (paper). In July 1973, the Khmer Rouge launched an offensive against Cambodia's capital city, Phnom Penh....
CULTURE / Art
Feb 20, 2000

All of life in Daumier's cartoons

A picture is worth a thousand words, and no one knows that better than Honore Daumier. His life story reads like a strand in a novel by Victor Hugo. The poor son of a failed poet and glazier, young Daumier chanced his luck as an artist in Paris in the 1830s. He studied the new technique of lithography,...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Feb 13, 2000

Hey Rockhead, it's time to say it like you mean it

Being from the New York area (northern New Jersey, actually) and a bona-fide Mets fan, I think I'll enter the John Rocker controversy here. This situation is basically on hold after the Atlanta Braves ace relief pitcher testified this past week at a hearing where he appealed a three-month suspension...
COMMUNITY
Feb 11, 2000

Words and eras to build character

Kanji is also prone to fashion. During the Meiji Era, the mods were chu (loyalty), kun (lord), ai (love) and koku (nation). Politics were condensed into four characters: fukokukyohei (rich nation, strong army). Kind of taps right into the psyche of the period, doesn't it. And the Taisho Era which marked...
MORE SPORTS
Feb 11, 2000

Akebono, in his own words

Akebono is one of the biggest sports stars in Japan, both literally and figuratively. The 30-year-old followed in the footsteps of his oyakata (stablemaster) Azumazeki (ex-sekiwake Takamiyama) and former ozeki Konishiki in making the transition from the backwaters of Hawaii to the rarified heights of...
CULTURE / Music
Feb 11, 2000

G. Love and Gomez have got them blues and got 'em new

Every 15 years or so we seem to get another blues revival. Revivals imply something dead being brought back to life, which means the blues isn't considered a living, breathing musical form, but something frozen in time, and each successive generation that revives it is further removed from the cultural...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 8, 2000

The cat in the hat goes to war like that

DR. SEUSS GOES TO WAR: The World War II Editorial Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel, by Richard Minear, introduction by Art Spiegelman. The New Press, 1999, 272 pp. To most Americans who grew up with Dr. Seuss' oddly, endearingly drawn critters and facile rhymes ("And then he ran out. / And, then, fast...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 6, 2000

Exotic wildlife on a short leash in Asia

PUSAN, South Korea — Every night at 8 p.m., Roma Khachaturyan, a Russian-Armenian from Moscow who now lives in Korea, feeds a Siberian tiger named Cesar.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2000

Japan changes -- its own way

"Is Japan changing?" This is the question asked by virtually every recent visitor to Japan. The question reveals both the long-standing desire by many non-Japanese to see Japan change in fundamental ways and the heightened expectations fostered by years of hope-inducing Japanese rhetoric that the country...
JAPAN
Feb 2, 2000

Loan firms aim to mend image by joining banks

Staff writer Major consumer finance companies, despite their soaring profits and superb risk assessment skills, still lack one thing: a positive image. Hiroki Jinnai, president of top consumer moneylender Promise Co., is well aware of that weakness. And it is exactly why he wants the firm's planned...
LIFE / Travel
Feb 2, 2000

The last paradise

Special to The Japan Times In the early years of the last century, the wife of a French colonial doctor in Laos wrote in her journal, "Oh! What a delightful paradise. The fierce barrier of the stream protects this country from the progress and ambition of which it has no need. Will Luang Prabang be,...
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2000

Japan, U.S. leaders to huddle on foreign investment

Staff writer Japan and the United States will hold a conference of senior government officials and business leaders in Tokyo on March 1 to discuss ways to further accelerate direct foreign investment in Japan, government sources said Wednesday. According to the Ministry of International Trade and Industry...

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear