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Reader Mail
Oct 26, 2008

Lots of materials for weapons

Maybe Japan can outlaw lawn mower blades, as they can be turned into a nasty knife. Then it can outlaw pipes used by plumbers, because they can be made into a weapon. (The government will submit its bill revising the Firearm and Sword Control Law during the current Diet session.) leonard martino
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Oct 26, 2008

Giants advance to Japan Series

The Yomiuri Giants won the Central League pennant last season but failed to reach the Japan Series.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 26, 2008

Taking a look at the one-game advantage in the Climax Series

Until 2004, the term "postseason play" in Japanese baseball simply meant the Japan Series.
SOCCER / J. League
Oct 26, 2008

Marinos pick up valuable points in quest to remain in J1

KASHIWA, Chiba Pref. — Three-time J. League champion Yokohama F. Marinos took a big step toward first-division survival with a 3-1 win over Kashiwa Reysol on Saturday, while Nagoya Grampus' bid for a first-ever championship hit a snag with a 0-0 draw against Jubilo Iwata.
BASKETBALL
Oct 26, 2008

Productive Sun helps Phoenix rout Apache

Sun Ming Ming took a big step forward on Saturday and helped his team earn a runaway victory in the process.
Reader Mail
Oct 26, 2008

Indian vs. Chinese progress

Regarding Brahma Chellaney's Oct. 23 article, "Remember the China lesson": Some questions remain unanswered in the author's comparison of the economic progress made by China and that made by India.
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2008

NGOs on the go

Japan's election as a nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council in mid-October means that Japan will again be able to make positive marks around the world. Though this is the 10th time for Japan to serve, the current problems in the world mean that Japan's interactions with foreign countries...
Reader Mail
Oct 26, 2008

Typical reaction of the vested

Regarding the Oct. 24 article "Aso gets riled when quizzed over swanky wining, dining": Isn't this how it goes? As long as the folks at the top have enough money to wine and dine in exclusive restaurants, why should they worry about "ordinary" people who have to check for special discounts and look for...
Reader Mail
Oct 26, 2008

Rescuing beauty of the past

Regarding Tomoko Otake's Oct. 19 article, "Showa-ing it like it was": What a beautiful article on a terrific idea. Memorabilia owner Hironobu Komiya is anticipating what anthropologists and historians of the future will want to find in order to write properly about the Showa Era (1926-1989). Komiya is...
Reader Mail
Oct 26, 2008

No commemorative stamp for spy

I found Jun Hongo's Oct. 21 article -- "Japan's spies: What cloak, dagger?" -- profoundly interesting, but I happened to notice a minor mistake. The article states that Richard Sorge, the German who spied for the Soviet Union in Japan during World War II, is currently "honored with commemorative stamps...
EDITORIALS
Oct 26, 2008

Mobile phones take over

Japan has become a nation of mobile-phone talkers, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication reported this month. More people now talk on mobile phones in Japan than on fixed-line phones; total talk time on mobile phones reached an astonishing 1.9 billion hours in 2007. That's a lot of metal...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Oct 26, 2008

A Japanese poet who found his true nature through nature itself

On Sept. 21 on this page, in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the death of the poet, scientist and religious thinker Kenji Miyazawa (1896-1933), I turned to him for inspired insight into the Japanese view of nature.
Reader Mail
Oct 26, 2008

Try enforcing existing laws

Great! Another law gets toughened. Only problem, so few of the laws already in existence are even enforced. It seems that the only ones that interest authorities are easy to press and involve as little labor and danger to the enforcers as possible.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 26, 2008

How Japanese mysteries evolved from imitation to adaptation

PURLOINED LETTERS: Cultural Borrowing and Japanese Crime Literature, 1868-1937, by Mark Silver. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2008, 217 pp., $52 (cloth) Western-style stories of crime and detection began making their appearance in Japan from the mid-19th century, initially as translations of...
LIFE / Lifestyle
Oct 26, 2008

Motel of Lost Companions

It was a foolish argument . . . the worst kind of argument too, over food. And not even food exactly, but over salad dressing.
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2008

U.S. airman injured in plane crash

A small plane carrying four U.S. airmen burst into flames after making an emergency landing on Okinawa, leaving the pilot with minor injuries, officials said Saturday.
CULTURE / Books
Oct 26, 2008

Memoirs of a modern-day geisha

BAR FLOWER: My Decadently Destructive Days and Nights as a Tokyo Nightclub Hostess, by Lea Jacobson. St. Martin's Press, 2008, 352 pp., $24.95 (cloth) There will never be a lack of visitors to Japan who want to share their impressions in print; and the stream of tears from confessional memoirs will never...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Oct 26, 2008

New Taiwan envoy upbeat on Japan ties

As Taiwan's de facto ambassador to Japan, John Feng believes that strengthening ties between Tokyo and Taipei is vital to securing bilateral prosperity.
BUSINESS
Oct 26, 2008

Japan Post sets eyes on real estate development

Japan Post Holdings Co., with $30 billion' worth of properties across the nation, will redevelop sites in central Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya as it turns to real estate as a new source of profit, a company official said.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Oct 26, 2008

The 'tough love' of sumo and the military can turn ugly

Euphemism is a required art for anyone who communicates with the public, be they politicians or PR flacks. The idea is to change or otherwise soften concepts that may be considered too blunt. Matters regarding sex, bodily functions and death are often euphemized so as not to offend delicate sensibilities,...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Oct 26, 2008

TV tributes to an artificial heart innovator, Picasso and Sadaharu Oh

The subject of this week's edition of "Professional: Shigoto no Ryugi" ("The Professionals") (NHK-G, Tuesday, 10 p.m.) is 56-year-old Chisato Nojiri, the leader of a special-project team that recently developed a new type of artificial heart.
Reader Mail
Oct 26, 2008

Filmmakers' reality is legitimate

The Washington Post article by Andrew Klavan, "Myths about Tinseltown liberals," which ran in The Japan Times on Oct. 19, presents critical observations of leftwing filmmakers. In my "leftwing" view, Sen. Joe McCarthy did not serve the interests of the United States with his blunderbuss approach to ferreting...

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