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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 12, 2013

My (attainable) New Year's resolutions: Giving up seiza

Having problems keeping your New Year's resolution? Not me. Because this year I chose resolutions that were easily fulfilled:
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jan 12, 2013

Ex-Carp pitchers Ono, Sotokoba elected into Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame

For the second straight season, the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame was left seeing red.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2013

'The Future'

Facebook is so awash in shared quotes and clever little sayings attached to graphics, ranging from heartwarmingly New Age to hipster snarky, that few make an impression beyond the time it takes to read them. Still, every now and then you'll hit one that sticks; for me, it was one of those faux 1950s...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2013

'The Expatriate'

There's an irresistable temptation to describe "The Expatriate" as a discount version of the Jason Bourne series. Pretty much the whole package indicates it's the same product in a different wrapper: You get the handsome CIA agent; the exotic European location; the order issued from Langley to rub out...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 11, 2013

Gordon-Levitt, Willis take film fans for a loop

Film director Rian Johnson and actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt are neighbors in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. They're also pretty close, since Gordon-Levitt says they hang out at each other's house and he also praises Johnson's cooking.
Reader Mail
Jan 10, 2013

Sexual privacy on/off the pitch

I do not accept that in the age of the Internet and social media privacy is an atavistic fantasy. Claims to the contrary are, politely speaking, stupid. Therefore, the loathsome things about New Zealand gay rights advocates calling on a suspected, anonymous homosexual member of the All Blacks rugby club...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 10, 2013

Situations that end up spoiling the artistic landscape

Imagine you went to a movie theatre that insisted on doing anything other than showing you an actual movie, or to a restaurant where the waiter did all he could to stop you having an actual meal. This is a situation I sometimes find myself in when visiting art museums, especially if it is a show of contemporary...
JAPAN
Jan 10, 2013

As radiation fears dwindle, so do checkups

When Dr. Masaharu Tsubokura began checking the internal radiation exposure levels of Minamisoma residents four months after the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant experienced three reactor core meltdowns, many were living in fear, not knowing what kind of dangers they were being exposed to by living...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 9, 2013

Cheap 3-D printers to transform our lives

FOCUS
SPORTS / NBA REPORT
Jan 9, 2013

Don't expect Jackson to emerge as Nets' savior

The Dodgers are not returning to Brooklyn, and neither is Phil Jackson.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 9, 2013

The worst U.S. Congress ever?

When we set out to write a book about the growing extremism in American politics about 18 months ago, we thought that the 112th Congress was the worst we had seen in our four decades in Washington. However, the fight over the debt limit, the fiscal cliff and the farm bill — and the shutdown of the...
BUSINESS / Tech
Jan 9, 2013

Can 'body-hacking' devices on scales, forks and armbands improve health?

Adherents call this "body hacking" or the "quantified self" movement, and at the Consumer Electronics Show, this year, it's getting quite a boost. A wireless armband tracks the calories you burn and the length of time you sleep. A Wi-Fi enabled scale can check your body fat and heart rate. In perhaps...
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Jan 9, 2013

Wireless file transfer, vibrating headphones and a high-tech cure for forgetfulness

Here we are in 2013. It's an exciting time of year, a welcome opportunity to reflect and give ourselves a fresh start. I personally resolved not to make resolutions, but perhaps some of you will now be trying your best to get organized, lose some weight or save some money. These new devices may help...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / COMMUNITY CHEST
Jan 8, 2013

From Taiji to Okinawa, readers dissect some issues of 2012

In the first of our new Community Chest letters columns, we bring together a selection of mails received in response to some of the final Community stories of 2012.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 8, 2013

Razing skyscrapers from the inside

BASKETBALL
Jan 7, 2013

Broncos edge 89ers, snap 12-game losing streak

The Saitama Broncos did enough things right to pick up a 72-68 victory over the visiting Sendai 89ers on Sunday, ending a 12-game slide.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OLD NIC'S NOTEBOOK
Jan 6, 2013

Happy new Year of the Snake

Before long now, coming hot on the tail of a Year of the Dragon, it will be a Year of the Snake in the Chinese zodiac; a year that's supposed to be lucky. Obviously, though, you shouldn't push your luck with any snakes you happen to meet up with at any time — especially conniving human ones in the...
Reader Mail
Jan 6, 2013

Go it alone on the environment

Regarding Paul Gaysford Jan. 3 letter, "Realizing the national condition": Amen! Future generations of Japanese will wonder why so little was done to prevent the nuclear plant catastrophe at Fukushima, among other things.
LIFE / Travel
Jan 6, 2013

Remembering that 'life's a beach' keeps winter at bay

Summer to me has always meant the beach, and now in the depths of winter it's to sun-kissed strands and sparkling blue seas that my thoughts are prone to wander.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jan 5, 2013

Photog finds sense of heart, unity in Bhutan

Junko Kimura, 38, was among the many people who were moved by the Bhutanese King and his new wife as they traveled through Tokyo and Fukushima to encourage those affected by the March 2011 disasters.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jan 5, 2013

Serpent hunting in the Year of the Snake

As 2013 is the Year of the Snake, for your serpentine pleasure, I've put together a list of snake-like creatures from Japanese legends and folklore. Loch Ness monster fans, Yeti fans and Bigfoot fans, you're going to have a heck of a year in 2013 with all the cryptids waiting to be discovered. Japan...
EDITORIALS
Jan 4, 2013

Russia's orphans as political pawns

Russia has closed the year with one of the more odious and misguided acts of public policy in a long time. On Dec. 28, President Vladimir Putin signed a law that bans Americans from adopting Russian children and imposes other sanctions in retaliation for a new U.S. human rights law.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming
Jan 4, 2013

NHK spotlights gunslinging daughter of the north in yearlong Sunday drama

How to rebuild when you've lost everything? In the immediate aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, as many thousands of people in northeastern Japan sought to answer that question for themselves, public broadcaster NHK began looking for a historical figure whose story might...
Reader Mail
Jan 3, 2013

Jockeying for a job-hunting slot

As the Dec. 25 editorial "Tough times for graduation students" stated, the job-hunting season for university students started Dec. 1, and it has me wondering. Students are glued to computers and smartphones to make appointments at job fairs. Then they line up to enter these events as if they were concerts....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 3, 2013

Old art building faces a new 'Junction' in life

In Yanaka, a 10-minute walk from Nippori Station in Tokyo, a new art center is being constructed in the shell of a 50-year-old house that had been the atelier and residence of students from Tokyo Art University since 2004. Like many buildings of its age, it suffered considerable damage during the Great...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 2, 2013

'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel'

Mr. Antonini, who lived in the house next to ours in Brooklyn, had a rejoinder for all life's ailments. "You think you got problems?" he'd say with a querulous edge to his voice. "Wait till you get to my age, and I'll show you some problems!" At this point Mr. Antonini's son Denny would make his standard...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jan 1, 2013

Checking out the real estate agents

Several months ago we looked at a house that had been bought at auction by a housing company, fixed up and then put on the market. We found it among the listings on the home page of a realtor we've dealt with in the past, and he agreed to show it to us.

Longform

A mushroom cloud from the atomic bombing on Hiroshima taken from a U.S. military aircraft on Aug. 6, 1945. Copying the photo without permission is prohibited.
80 years on, a Japanese American hibakusha recalls the day the bomb dropped