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Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Change begins with children

I have followed Debito Arudou's articles for five years, whenever they show up, and find them interesting, but he seems rather like the Lone Ranger. He has had a political cause ever since he arrived and became a Japanese citizen, fighting the Japanese legal system and trying to improve its human rights...
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Denunciation of nuclear weapons

Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945 was one of the most significant and terrible events in the history of humankind. But it is amazing that so few Americans know much about the horror of the atomic bomb. No American president has ever visited Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Americans justify the use...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Aug 10, 2008

Nanjing now: philosophy, history and Jacuzzis

Nanjing is a bustling city of 7 million, about six times its population before the Japanese rampage of 1937, and looks like many of the other modern, gleaming urbanscapes that have mushroomed up across China.
Reader Mail
Aug 10, 2008

Foreigner metaphor off the mark

In his Aug. 5 article "Once a 'gaijin,' always a 'gaijin,' " Debito Arudou says the word gaijin (foreigner) "strips the world of diversity," yet he himself is stripping the diversity of experiences of foreigners in Japan by asserting that we are treated like "n--gers" here.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 10, 2008

Celebrity rules as the Olympics strays far from its ideal

The big story this year in competitive swimming is the LZR Racer swimsuit, which was developed by the British sportswear manufacturer Speedo. At least six world records have been set by swimmers wearing the suit. Studies have shown that its drag-diminishing properties lower racing times by 1.9 to 2.2...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 10, 2008

Best notes for the bamboo flute

THE SHAKUHACHI MANUAL FOR LEARNING, Revised Edition, by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel. Printed Matter Press, 2008, 202 pp. with many illustrations, musical notations, and an attached CD of practice exercises. ¥3,990 (paper) The shakuhachi is a vertical bamboo flute with five finger holes and a notched...
Japan Times
Features
Aug 10, 2008

War and reconciliation: a tale of two countries

On July 7, 2008, officers of the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force visited Nanjing, the ancient capital of China, for an artillery demonstration — a visit barely mentioned in the Chinese media, even though it was the first time Japanese soldiers returned to the scene of the crime — the Nanjing massacre...
EDITORIALS
Aug 10, 2008

Death of a difficult man

Mr. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Prize winner, prophet and Russian nationalist, has died at the age of 89. Mr. Solzhenitsyn's life was marked by extraordinary adversity that he channeled into prolific writing. As is often the fate of such voices, he was alternately applauded and ignored, a source of...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 10, 2008

Engineering a historical oblivion for soldiers of the wrong wars

My dad was a lucky man. Born in 1903, he was just too young for service in World War I and a bit too old for the same in World War II. Not that he couldn't have volunteered for the latter. He certainly could have, but decided not to.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 9, 2008

U.S.-India nuclear deal weakens nonproliferation

On Aug. 1 the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) endorsed a "safeguards agreement" with India that would allow inspections of nuclear facilities that India designates as "civilian."
OLYMPICS
Aug 9, 2008

In the Olympic Village, for real and for not so real

Call him the people's champion or an everyday man, either way Rafael Nadal is sure to win his fair share of new fans during the Beijing Games.
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2008

U.S. won't interfere with Japan's antiterrorism policy, Boucher says

The ball is in Japan's court when it comes to deciding the contribution it can make to antiterrorism efforts in Afghanistan, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said Friday in Tokyo.
BASEBALL / MLB
Aug 9, 2008

Matsui begins running program

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) New York Yankees outfielder Hideki Matsui began a running program Thursday for his sore left knee at the team's spring training facility in Tampa.
EDITORIALS
Aug 9, 2008

Tightening the social safety net

The Cabinet has endorsed emergency measures mainly designed to alleviate public worries about pension, medical services and employment. They are bundled as a plan to provide reassurances in five areas. The initiative, pushed by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, is timely, but with about 160 proposed measures...
JAPAN
Aug 9, 2008

For DPJ, it's solidarity vs. debate

Whatever other motivations may have been in play, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's recent reshuffle of his Cabinet was surely intended to raise the low support rate for his Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition in anticipation of the next general election.

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