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LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jul 29, 2001

Hit the sweet spot with eel on the grill

Hunting up and down side-street stalls during the annual Gion Festival, I was looking for one thing. Okonomiyaki pancakes, griddle-fried yakisoba noodles and even little charred yakitori chicken skewers are fine for your average summer festival, but wasting your time on such trivialities at this Kyoto...
COMMUNITY
Jul 29, 2001

The makings of a home, sick home

Air pollution isn't restricted to areas with factories and heavy traffic. Though it may nestle in a rural idyll, your home itself could be a potent source of potentially harmful chemicals.
LIFE / Food & Drink
Jul 29, 2001

Shochu appeal goes supersonic

FUKUOKA -- Kyushu folk are feeling quite tickled about something at the moment: a shochu boom in bars around Japan. The surging popularity of this once-lowbrow spirit, which originated in Kyushu, suggests that its old-fogy image may be disappearing for good and that lucrative times lie ahead for the...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jul 29, 2001

Tie the knot, raise a family, take the plunge

TBS's new daily, 30-minute hiru-dora (afternoon drama) series premieres Monday at 1:30 p.m. "Kids War 3," which TBS is promoting as a "home comedy," is the third 45-episode series about the ups and downs of the Imais, a Brady Bunch-like family trying to make do in contemporary Japan. Haruko (Akiko Ikuina)...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2001

Now it's time for New Labour to deliver

BRUSSELS -- The historic second landslide election victory for the Labour Party has given Tony Blair an opportunity that no Labour prime minister has had before -- a second term of office. For the first time in history, a Labour government can build on its work and set in place radical reforms to realize...
COMMENTARY
Jul 28, 2001

Policy priorities need balance

The nation goes to the polls Sunday for the Upper House election, which in essence is a battle between the coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party on the one hand and the opposition group of the Democrats, Liberals, Communists and Social Democrats on the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 28, 2001

Chirac defends credibility of leadership

PARIS -- Once again, the French people celebrated their national feast July 14, which marks the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille royal jail -- the beginning of the great 1789 Revolution.
COMMUNITY
Jul 28, 2001

Sufi focuses on forgiveness, healing

It is not often you meet a Sufi. Nor conclude the evening with him and his interpreter dossing on your floor. With last Friday a national holiday, and Kamakura booked to the brim, it was a case of back to my pad or sleep on the beach. And I could hardly leave Sheikh Ingo Taleb Rashid to such a fate;...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 28, 2001

David Dinen

ST HELENA -- The RMS St. Helena stayed tied up dockside in Cardiff, South Wales, for four days beyond her scheduled departure date. When eventually she sailed, she was hit by a Force 9 gale and unexpectedly high swells in the Bristol Channel. Most passengers, many of the crew and even the ship's doctor...
EDITORIALS
Jul 28, 2001

Ms. Megawati gets her chance

The end of Mr. Abdurraham Wahid's term was perfectly in keeping with the 21 months that he spent in office. It was confused, if not surreal. Indonesians, and their friends, are hoping that the new president, Ms. Megawati Sukarnoputri, can end the confusion. Under the best of circumstances, that is a...
COMMENTARY
Jul 27, 2001

Budget test for sacred cows

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's "structural reforms with no sacred cows" received a boost from the G7 economic summit in Genoa, Italy.
COMMUNITY
Jul 27, 2001

Tips on how to make your kanji garden grow

TO: Diane Grace Shimizu RE: Your Kanji Dream
LIFE / Lifestyle / JET STREAM
Jul 27, 2001

Hawaiian JETs sing a new island song

The song "Neba Neba Natto" may never make the Japanese music charts, but it is becoming a classic of a sort. The song, by Nikkei Aloha, has a laid-back Hawaiian tempo and humorous lyrics paying homage to natto (fermented soybeans).
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jul 27, 2001

Racoon dog

* Japanese name:Tanuki * Scientific name: Nyctereutes procyonoides viverrinus * Description: Tanuki look a bit like fat foxes, with short legs and black and gray fur. They grow up to 60 cm long and have distinctive stripes of black fur under their eyes, a bit like pandas. * Where to find them:Standing...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 27, 2001

Jihad-inspired bloodletting in Kashmir stifles all peace moves

NEW DELHI -- Recent massacres in Kashmir share one feature: they are massacres of innocents, of men, women and children who have no political affiliations or aspirations. Their only crime was that they chose to live in Kashmir or happen to be passing through the state.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2001

U.K. politics interferes with euro issue

LONDON -- It is a subject that most pragmatic politicians in Britain, including the prime minister and the front-runner for the leadership of the Conservative opposition, would prefer to ignore. Since the Tories were led toward electoral defeat in June by their obsession about Europe, the political establishment...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 26, 2001

Legalization: The drug war's best weapon

LONDON -- In Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland it is practically impossible to get arrested for buying or using "soft drugs." In the Netherlands, users may buy up to five grams of cannabis or hashish for private use at 1,500 licensed "coffee shops," and they are opening two drive-through outlets...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jul 26, 2001

So much to see despite the cedars

Earlier this year, I hired a car at Miyazaki Airport and drove along the coast to Kagoshima.
LIFE / Digital / SURFERSPUD
Jul 26, 2001

The next big thing

www.sciam.com/2001/0801issue/0801scicit4.html Back in 1995, the domestic electronics and telecom industries were about to unleash the Pride of Japan on the world: PHS. Ooops. We just went with full cellular handsets instead. A few months later, a big consortium was telling us we wouldn't be able to take...
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Jul 26, 2001

Environmentalist on the stump

Despite the sky-high popularity of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, suspicion remains that his Liberal Democratic Party has simply cloaked its wolfish heart in a soft perm. Many environmentalists fear that after Sunday's election the LDP will step up efforts to stimulate the economy by undertaking the...
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 26, 2001

The king is a beast, but the queen is a democrat

Imagine a place where all the females give birth at the same time, where grandmothers nurse their daughters' children and baby-sit for them, and where all children are raised in a protective nursery. Where females join together in defending the community against dangerous strangers and those of the same...
EDITORIALS
Jul 25, 2001

Missing the target on small arms

A United Nations conference last weekend approved a historic agreement to fight global trafficking in small arms. Despite years of preparation, agreement hinged on last-minute negotiations, largely to meet U.S. objections. Fortunately, delegates understood the magnitude of the problem and put progress...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 25, 2001

Why Japan won't back down on whaling

LONDON -- "They do not allow them free for a moment -- not even at cocktail parties," said Atherton Martin, former Environment and Fisheries Minister of Dominica, describing how the Japanese ride herd on the representatives of countries whose votes they have bought at International Whaling Commission...
COMMENTARY
Jul 25, 2001

A nasty taste of things to come

LONDON — Conventional wisdom has it that the future is impossible to predict, or at least to predict with any accuracy.
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Stranded on Planet Hollywood

Planet of the Apes Rating: * * Director: Tim Burton Running time: 120 minutes Language: EnglishNow showing Michael Clarke Duncan in Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes" -- (C)2001 Twentieth Century Fox Director Tim Burton is quite clear on this matter: His version of "Planet of the Apes" is no mere "remake"...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Something for everyone under the big blue sea

Dykkerne Rating: * * 1/2 Director: Ake Sandgren Running time: 91 minutes Language: DanishNow showing This is my second week in a row writing on a film from Scandinavia, so I'm suffering somewhat from Big Blonde People Overload. Especially since the latest involves apple-cheeked, sturdy-boned youngsters...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 25, 2001

Pick a question, any question

Good news: We members of the Japanese masu-komi were privileged to attend the premiere press conference for Tim Burton's "Planet of the Apes."
CULTURE / Music / HIGH NOTES
Jul 25, 2001

The Avalanches: 'Since I Left You'

According to the credits on their debut album, "Since I Left You," The Avalanches are six young men, only two of whom play instruments (guitar and piano/percussion). The rest are listed as "mixers," which makes sense when you consider that the record contains no less than 900 samples. Surprisingly, no...
ENVIRONMENT
Jul 25, 2001

On the origin of speciesism

That there's something menacing about the title "Planet of the Apes" says more about our ignorance than it does about the writer's ingenuity: Earth is already a planet of apes.
CULTURE / Art
Jul 25, 2001

The misanthropic genius of Ensor

Living in densely populated cities, we survive by ignoring the crowd, by refusing to acknowledge those forced into physical proximity with us. The artist, however, is excluded from this luxury. He is expected to be aware of everything around him, including the seething mass of humanity. The etchings...

Longform

Sumadori Bar on Shibuya Ward's main Center Gai street targets young customers who prefer low-alcohol drinks or abstain altogether.
Rethinking that second drink: Japan’s Gen Z gets ‘sober curious’