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COMMENTARY / World
Dec 8, 2008

The needy, human face of a warming planet

PRAGUE — A clever new gadget was described in a newspaper a few weeks ago. It pulls water out of the atmosphere and delivers you a glass of clean, chilled H2O. It's wonderful what technology can offer for the wealthy.
EDITORIALS
Dec 7, 2008

World AIDS Day

Dec. 1 marked the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day. While there may be more to celebrate now than two decades ago, 25 million people have died of AIDS since then. UNAIDS/WHO estimates 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, while Africa alone has 11 million AIDS orphans. During 2007,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Dec 7, 2008

Tadao Ando: Icon and iconoclast

One of the first houses built by Japan's most famous architect, Tadao Ando, is centered around an open atrium. That sounds nice until you realize that the atrium forms the only "corridor" between each of the rooms. Fancy a hot cup of tea before bed on a rainy winter's night? You'll need an umbrella and...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Dec 6, 2008

One man's theory, another's laugh

Conspiracy theories, occultism, UFOs and pseudoscience. Society abounds with the conjectures of people thinking far, far outside the box.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Dec 5, 2008

'WALL-E'

They say the best creators of science fiction are those able to extrapolate just a bit into the future. Think of William Gibson's descriptions of a wired, digitally interconnected world dominated by multinational corporations in 1984's "Neuromancer," or Terry Gilliam's imagining of a perpetual war on...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Dec 5, 2008

Emiliana Torrini makes some big jumps

On the title track of her new album, "Me and Armini," Emiliana Torrini takes the concept of drinking "spirits" to a whole new level.
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Dec 2, 2008

Soka Gakkai keeps religious, political machine humming

What do movie star Orlando Bloom, who plays young pirate Will Turner in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, R&B diva Tina Turner and Shunsuke Nakamura, an ace midfielder for Scottish soccer team Celtic, have in common?
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 30, 2008

Every Japanese is party to their state's 'barbaric' legal murders

The death penalty brutalizes everyone connected with it: Judges and juries who pass it down, politicians who turn an evil or a blind eye to it, jailers, executioners, and more than anyone, the person whose life is extinguished by it.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Nov 29, 2008

Ogawa preaches patience in Oita

Though the Oita HeatDevils have started the season with a disappointing 2-10 record, first-year head coach Tadaharu Ogawa is patiently working to turn things around.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 28, 2008

'1408'/'Diary of the Dead'

"1408" is the latest story by Stephen King to make it to the big screen, and it's quite similar to one of the first King movies, "The Shining." There's a cynical writer — John Cusack this time, instead of Jack Nicholson — who goes to stay at a spooky hotel, but it's OK, because he doesn't believe...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 21, 2008

'Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai'

Based on a novel by Tetsutaro Kato, the 1958 TV drama "Watashi wa Kai ni Naritai" ("I Want to Be a Seashell") became a paradigm-shifting hit when it was broadcast on KRT Television, the predecessor to the TBS network.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Nov 21, 2008

LFJ's Martin to launch Chopin 'musical diary' in Tokyo

French producer Rene Martin is launching a new musical project titled Le Journal Musical de Chopin (The Musical Diary of Chopin) this month in Japan.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Nov 16, 2008

The expatriate whiner: fond of the homeland but lost abroad

E xpatriates can be the source of many positive things. They are contributors to the welfare of their host nation. They are often agents of trenchant criticism, perceiving things in their new nation that natives either do not, or refuse to, see. They educate and enrich.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 14, 2008

'Born into Brothels'

A few weeks back, I reviewed "American Teen," an intimate documentary of one school year in the lives of some Indiana teens. It was an amazingly candid portrait of the lives of these kids, with hazing, breakups and breakdowns portrayed completely unguarded.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 13, 2008

Modern maki-e

I don't express otaku culture," says Tomotaka Yasui at the Megumi Ogita gallery in Ginza, where he is having a solo exhibition of three new works. "Now in foreign countries, all people hear about is otaku culture. I want to introduce other aspects of Japanese culture to other countries — Japanese style,...
BUSINESS
Nov 13, 2008

Not all firms hurting in hard times

While the yen's surge and the recession may be battering the sales and profits of the country's blue-chip firms, others are making headway through the storm, posting record half-year profits even as the global financial turmoil hammers financial firms and export-driven manufacturers such as Sony Corp....
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Nov 12, 2008

Science's own alternative history

I'm a sucker for stories that imagine alternate histories. Philip K. Dick wrote a classic, 1962's "The Man in the High Castle," that supposed Japan and Germany won World War II, and annexed the United States between them. Another came to mind last week; "The Difference Engine" (1990) by William Gibson...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / WORDS TO LIVE BY
Nov 11, 2008

Comedian Esper Ito

Comedian Esper Ito is famous for putting millions of TV viewers — and even Japan's funniest entertainers — in stitches. Wrapped in a gold cape and sporting red tights, he cuts a tragicomic figure, a court jester who's never afraid of risking bodily harm as long as he can make others' lives more...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 11, 2008

To go naked in autumn, you've gotta have yu

As soon as the weather starts to get chilly in this country, it seems that peoples' minds turn to two things: yu (湯, hot water) and nabe (鍋, hot pot). Anyone staying in Japan longer than a year will have noticed it — as a nation, Japanese are hopelessly samugari (寒がり, prone to being cold)....
EDITORIALS
Nov 9, 2008

Need for reality checks

The line between real and virtual worlds has become more confused than ever. Two weeks ago, a woman was arrested after "killing" her virtual husband who had divorced her in an online game called "Maple Story." She was arrested not on charges of murder, but on charges of illegally accessing a computer...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Nov 7, 2008

'Sakura no Sono'

In 1990, Shun Nakahara — a religion-studies major at the University of Tokyo who later became a porno director — released his first straight feature, "Sakura no Sono" ("The Cherry Orchard"). Based on an Akimi Yoshida manga, the film described the day a drama club at an exclusive girls' school stages...
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 6, 2008

Pregnant Afghan women face deadly odds

KABUL — In Badakhshan, Afghanistan, for every 100,000 births, 6,500 young mothers die. This is a record unrivaled anywhere in the world. In other parts of Afghanistan, too, the rates of maternal mortality continue to be among the highest in the world.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Nov 6, 2008

The key to Joseon times

Known as pungsu in Korean, feng shui was transmitted from China into Korean culture during the Unified Silla Dynasty (668-935). The system of aesthetics taught that proper placement of the home in relation to natural elements would facilitate a flow of positive energy through space and ensure well-being...
Japan Times
JAPAN / MIXED MATCHES
Nov 1, 2008

Second time a charm for reunited couple

Michael Claxton, 61, and his wife, Rieko, 43, are living proof of the saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."

Longform

An illustration features the Japanese signs for "ganbare" (good luck) and the Deaflympics, which will be held between Nov. 15 and 26.
A century of Deaf sport finds its moment in Tokyo