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Reader Mail
Aug 3, 2008

Pets demonstrate sanctity of life

In Japan, around 400,000 dogs and cats are killed at public health centers every year. Most are taken there by their owners for "unavoidable reasons," as the owners put it. What that means is that the owners are going on a trip and won't be home to care for the pet, or they're just tired of taking care...
Reader Mail
Aug 3, 2008

Environmental impact of whaling

Having co-authored "The History and Science of Whales," advised the Japan Whaling Association, and served as counselor at the Institute of Cetacean Research for a number of years, I now find myself retired and severed from much of the controversy over whaling. However, Internet reports of whaling "progress"...
EDITORIALS
Aug 3, 2008

Mr. Fukuda begins anew

More than 10 months after Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda came to power, he has finally formed a Cabinet of his choosing. When he became prime minister in late September 2007, following the sudden resignation of his predecessor Shinzo Abe, he had to retain 15 of the 17 Cabinet members appointed by Mr. Abe...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Aug 3, 2008

Maserati: The ultimate in automotive artwork

Ask any concert pianist whether they would rather play a Steinway & Sons piano or a Yamaha, and I'll bet you a season ticket to the Opera House in London's Covent Garden that they would nod for the former. When I chatted with just such a virtuoso several months ago, he was smitten with the Steinway....
CULTURE / Books
Aug 3, 2008

Japan politics in the 'short 20th century'

MARUYAMA MASAO and THE FATE OF LIBERALISM IN TWENTIETH- CENTURY JAPAN by Karube Tadashi, translated by David Noble. I-House Press, 2008, 212 pp., ¥2,500 (cloth) Masao Maruyama was one of the most influential contemporary Japanese intellectuals. Tadashi Karube is his heir in the sense that he is a professor...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Aug 3, 2008

Respects paid to Allied soldiers in Yokohama who died in Japan

YOKOHAMA — More than 100 people gathered in Yokohama Commonwealth War Cemetery on Saturday to remember the importance of peace as they paid respects to soldiers from the British Commonwealth and other Allied nations who died in Japan.
Reader Mail
Aug 3, 2008

Let the South Pacific pods be

I wonder whether whaling advocates would be happy if I were to clean out my neighbor's well-kept vegetable garden of daikon and nasu. Are these same whaling advocates overjoyed when Korean crab boats clean out stocks in the Sea of Japan?
Reader Mail
Aug 3, 2008

Katakana stigmatizes conditions

In his July 22 article, "Katakana makes Japanese trendy and accessible," Roger Pulvers notes that "Sometimes a foreign katakana word or phrase enters Japanese to replace a perfectly good native equivalent. This makes something appear more attractive and trendy than it normally would."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Aug 3, 2008

Jiang Rong: Writing in a world of wolves

Jiang Rong (pen name of Lu Jiamin), who is now 62, was born in Jiangsu Province, China, and educated in Beijing. In 1967, at age 21, he volunteered to go and work in Inner Mongolia, where he'd heard about the practice of people there paying homage to "wolf totems" erected in the rolling grasslands that...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 3, 2008

The new language of translated films

CINEMA BABEL: Translating Global Cinema, by Abe Mark Nornes. Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2008, 304 pp.,$22.50 (paper) Though foreign film is now seen by all, we are still dependent on translation to discover what is going on up on the big screen or on the little tube. This translation of dialogue can be...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 3, 2008

The commodification of bodies of both sexes

LONDON — In the 1960s, feminists coined the slogan, "Our bodies, our selves." But that liberating sentiment has recently undergone an ironic twist. As an anonymous American woman, justifying her decision to undergo cosmetic surgery, put it, "All we have in life is ourselves, and what we can put out...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2008

Truth, friendship and accountability in CFT

On July 15 in Bali the leaders of Indonesia and East Timor met and received the final report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) and issued a joint statement accepting the findings and recommendations. It was a display of harmony and friendship that reveals the main shortcoming of the CTF...
BASKETBALL
Aug 2, 2008

Lottich joins German hoops club

Matt Lottich, a standout point guard on the Osaka Evessa's three bj-league title teams, will not return to the team next season, it announced on Friday. Lottich, who turned 26 on Tuesday, wanted to pursue playing opportunities in Europe, the team said in a statement.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2008

High-rise concrete pour hits man

A man was seriously injured Friday afternoon after a continuous stream of wet concrete splattered him from eight stories above at a building under construction in Minato Ward, Tokyo, police said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 2, 2008

Minister backs cause for justice

Most people turning 60 begin to think about slowing down or fertilizing the greener pasturelands of retirement.
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Aug 2, 2008

Toyota develops standup mover

Toyota Motor Corp. unveiled a compact motorized transporter Friday that people ride standing up.
JAPAN
Aug 2, 2008

Key challenge: Keeping New Komeito on board

Although Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda finally managed to name his own Cabinet on Friday, the lineup appears subdued and reserved, just like him, critics say.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Aug 2, 2008

Uchikawa sparks CL to All-Star win

YOKOHAMA — There were fireworks going off during the second game of the NPB All-Star Series on Friday.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 2, 2008

In the cool lap of luxury

I first met Uncle earlier this year at the cherry-blossom-viewing party on Shiraishi Island. He seemed kind of young to be an uncle, but his beard made him look a little older. Uncle was passed out under the cherry trees.

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