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EDITORIALS
Aug 25, 2008

Diet session in September

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has announced that an extraordinary Diet session will convene in mid-September. Mr. Fukuda wanted to call the Diet session in late August, but Komeito, a junior partner in the ruling coalition, insisted on late September. Mr. Fukuda's compromise shows that his leadership is...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2008

Bush legacy leaves U.S., Asia room to build

BANGKOK — In his last presidential visit to Asia, U.S. President George W. Bush laid out what he considered was his legacy for the region. But what he left out in his last major Asia policy speech, delivered earlier this month in Bangkok, was as revealing as what he underlined as his success.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 24, 2008

Families blossom under feminine mystique

OLYMPIA, Wash. — This year marks the 45th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique." Today, many social conservatives still blame Friedan and feminism for inducing women to abandon the home for the workplace, thus destabilizing families and placing their children at...
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Aug 24, 2008

Future looking grim for Olympic soccer

Argentina successfully defended its Athens Games gold in the Bird's Nest on Saturday, but events off the pitch have made sure little else about Olympic soccer will be the same again.
SPORTS / ODDS AND EVENS
Aug 24, 2008

Japan leaves Beijing with nothing but regrets

BEIJING — What went wrong for "Hoshino Japan" at the 2008 Summer Olympics?
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

An exaggeration in any context

Debito Arudou's Aug. 5 article, "Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin,' " definitely raised some eyebrows. As a black American, I'd like to comment on one aspect -- Arudou's view that "nigger" and "gaijin' seem one and the same. I have to disagree. Although the origins of "nigger" date back centuries and...
OLYMPICS / 2008 BEIJING OLYMPICS: BASEBALL
Aug 24, 2008

S. Korea edges Cuba in title game

BEIJING — The South Korea baseball team waited eight years to return to the Olympics. It will need to wait at least eight more years to defend its title.
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Shabby treatment of a good citizen

Since the introduction of biometric checks for arriving foreign residents and visitors, I have registered to use the automatic gate at Narita Airport. For a frequent traveler, this has proved to save time and reduce the hassle of passing through immigration. Last week, though, my husband of 28 years...
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Name for what Filipinos speak

Regarding the Aug. 20 article "Kawasaki's Filipinos form support base," I would like to clarify that the appropriate term for the language spoken by Filipinos is Filipino, per se, and not Tagalog. Tagalog pertains only to the original language of the people from the Tagalog region on the island of Luzon....
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Nothing funny about death

I don't understand why The Japan Times runs disturbing photos of severed goat heads, people lying dead on dirt roads or, last week, an embalmed body propped up against a wall. What is the point or purpose? Are they "newsworthy"? I think not. On top of that, editors often add captions that they apparently...
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Uphill struggle to eat well

One of my friends has been eating ramen noodles in a cup since he was a child because both his parents worked. Now his mother is retired and she cooks at home, but he still won't eat her homemade meals. I asked him why he keeps eating noodle cups, and he said it's because he loves them. His sense of...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 24, 2008

A tensely wrought tale of true believers

PROMENADE OF THE GODS by Koji Suzuki, translated by Takami Nieda. New York: Vertical Inc., 2008, 320 pp., $24.95 (cloth) Late one night, cram school operator Shirow Murakami is awakened by a cryptic phone call from an old school chum, Kunio Matsuoka, requesting that he move Matsuoka's car. Murakami is...
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 24, 2008

It's time for perfectly cute 50-year-old Japanese women

Madonna turned 50 on Aug. 16. The milestone was marked by a predictable barrage of commentary about "50 being the new 40" and how women no longer dread the half-century mark. Everybody is trying to eat better and exercise more, and cosmetic surgery isn't the big taboo it once was. But since the subject...
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Aliens bear burden of belonging

Michael Dewood's Aug. 14, letter "Limits of 'multiculturalism,' " reflects attitudes that are likely to conspire against the success of an alien who comes to Japan intending to stay. Expecting "equal treatment" by imposing ideological "multiculturalist" standards on Japan, and by regarding social acceptance...
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 24, 2008

Biomimicry: Natural by design

I magine being able to maintain a perfect temperature and humidity in your home year round, without spending a single yen in electricity or gas bills. That's exactly what Professor Emile Ishida of Tohoku University in northern Japan is striving to achieve — and he got the idea from termites.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 24, 2008

'Nation of copycats' maligns Japan's fine science and technology

One of the most commonly discussed issues of national character in Japan revolves around the question of personal creativity. Put simply, it is this: Are the Japanese lacking in the DNA of originality?
EDITORIALS
Aug 24, 2008

Epidemic of anxiety

Japanese are more worried than ever, according to a Cabinet Office survey released recently. More than 70 percent of Japanese — the highest percentage ever — say they are worried about their everyday lives and the future. Nearly two-thirds of people said their standard of living went unchanged in...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 24, 2008

Some lessons from Japan's burst bubble

HOLY GRAIL OF MACROECONOMICS: Lessons from Japan's Great Recession, by Richard C. Koo. John Wiley & Sons (Asia) Pte. Ltd., 2008, 296 pp., $34.95 (cloth) Hit by a devastating housing slump, billions of dollars of subprime losses and rising oil prices, the U.S. economy appears headed for recession, taking...
Reader Mail
Aug 24, 2008

Rewards of the military presence

Yoshio Shimoji depicts a freeloading U.S. military in Japan that occupies large swaths of land to maintain its forces, and he claims that Japanese taxpayers are burdened with paying more than $2 billion annually to take care of the bases and various demands of the U.S. military.

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