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COMMENTARY / World
May 25, 2008

Recognizing the limits of American influence

JERUSALEM — Israel's 60th anniversary has come and gone. So, too, has President George W. Bush's final visit to the Middle East. Amid the celebrations and the soul-searching, no meaningful breakthrough in the deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is visible.
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

Too quick to blame Bangladesh

Our attention has been drawn to the May 17 Reuters article "Bangladesh group linked to blasts (in western India)." This report has no remote connection to reality. Bangladesh neither tolerates nor harbors any anti-Indian elements in the country.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
May 25, 2008

Nishioka scores winning run on Imae's 'sayonara' sac fly

CHIBA — A stiff neck kept Tsuyoshi Nishioka from starting in the Chiba Lotte Marines' game against the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

The reconciliation of opposites

Peter Singer's brilliant article May 19, "If there is a god, then why is there suffering?," made me laugh. It is one more example of the rationalism that has invaded the Western world since the time of the Greeks.
JAPAN / G8 SUMMIT 2008
May 25, 2008

U.N. climate chief urges ministers to show their cards

KOBE — The United Nations' top climate-change official expressed concern Saturday about what Japan means by "industrial sectoral" approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and warned that the concept should not replace national targets in any new environmental treaty that would take effect when...
EDITORIALS
May 25, 2008

Mr. Ma reaches out

Taiwan has a new president. Mr. Ma Ying-jeou, of the KMT (Nationalist) Party was inaugurated Monday after a decisive win in March's election. In his inaugural remarks, Mr. Ma hit the right notes, reaching out to both Taiwanese at home and Chinese 150 kilometers away across the Taiwan Strait. This is...
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

Why record what you won't want?

I read with interest Robert Lezzi's assertions in his May 15 letter, "Beware future memory meltdown," that we should expect, sooner rather than later, a loss of memories associated with recordings of art, music and family events stored on DVDs.
LIFE
May 25, 2008

Sonoko

"You're a strange girl!" muttered my mother, shaking her head.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
May 25, 2008

Carp need more production from Kurihara

Kenta Kurihara is somewhat disappointed in his statistics so far this season, and a bit embarrassed as well.
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

Japan already finances U.S. wars

Regarding the May 21 front-page article "Up defense spending, Schieffer tells Tokyo": U.S. Ambassador Thomas Schieffer's complaint about Japan's military spending amounts to blatant interference in Japan's internal affairs. More than 60 years after the end of the war, Schieffer is still not free from...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
May 25, 2008

Children following their ambitions, cartoonists discussion, nature-speciality

One of the most popular segments on the Saturday morning variety show "Shittoko!" profiles children who are working hard to fulfill individual dreams. In order to celebrate 100 segments on the show, TBS will air a special two-hour program, "Kodomo no Chikara wa Mugendai (The Power of Children is Unlimited)"...
CULTURE / Books
May 25, 2008

Abu Ghraib stirs memory of a prisoner of conscience

BLACK GLASSES LIKE CLARK KENT: A GI's Secret From Postwar Japan, by Terese Svoboda. Saint Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 2008, 225 pp., $14 (paper) In most of the developed world, for most of the post-World War II era, the notion that torture might be OK was about as open to discussion as the notion...
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

Overcoming the food crisis

With reference to the May 17 article "Import-dependent Japan fears food crisis": As a researcher (human health, environment and rice) and fellow citizen, I am deeply concerned about the "import-dependent" Japan food crisis. Japan has the land, technology and human resources (albeit aging) to offset this...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 25, 2008

St. Petersburg, where a morose spirituality brings forth poets

In Petersburg we will come together again As if we had buried the sun there. — Osip Mandelstam What city in the world can boast as many great poets and novelists as St. Petersburg? Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Blok, Akhmatova, Mandelstam, the Bohemian Kharms, the satirist Zoshchenko, Brodsky (the poet...
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

Let the SDF deploy overseas

Craig Martin's May 21 article, "Permanent SDF overseas deployment law endangers democracy," was an extreme pleasure to read, although I do not agree with everything in it.
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

Better answers are out there

As a member of the diplomatic corps in Tokyo, I would like to share my thoughts on Peter Singer's article. Singer obviously capitalizes on the recent catastrophes in Myanmar and China to deliver to the distraught public a classical piece of atheist propaganda. It always strikes me how reliable anti-religious...
Reader Mail
May 25, 2008

Know where the argument leads

I would say that it is important to understand not only Peter Singer's arguments, but where those arguments lead him. For example, in a question-and-answer article published in Britain's Independent in 2006, Singer repeated his notorious stand on the killing of disabled newborns. Asked if he would kill...
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
May 25, 2008

The poetic power of skepticism

AMERICA AND OTHER POEMS by Nobuo Ayukawa, selected and translated by Shogo Oketani and Leza Lowitz. New York: Kaya Press, 2008, 152 pp. $14.95 (paper) Nobuo Ayukawa (1920-1986) has in the West remained a relatively unknown poet. Though included in the "Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature"...
Japan Times
JAPAN / AFRICA LIFELINE
May 25, 2008

Opportunity to knock on Japan's door at TICAD, Gabon envoy says

The upcoming conference on African development in Yokohama will showcase opportunities in resource-rich African countries that are hoping to build strategic partnerships with Japan, according to Gabon's ambassador to Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / G8 COUNTDOWN
May 25, 2008

Climate confab kicks off in Kobe

KOBE — The invention of the Gutenberg Bible in the mid-15th century revolutionized printing and led to the Renaissance, mass literacy, and the industrial revolution, leading to the development of mass production and the use of fossil fuels.
Japan Times
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
May 25, 2008

Morozov blames agent for breakup with Takahashi

When you have been in the business as long as I have, you develop a kind of sixth sense about when something is not right.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
May 25, 2008

The art of 'not being funny' drums up big laughs on TV

It was a year ago that comedian Yoshio Kojima got his big break, and Japanese TV hasn't been the same since. Kojima is the young man who wears the colorful bikini briefs and nothing else while happily dancing and declaiming in meter: "Sonna no kankei nai (I couldn't care less)." His only punch line is...

Longform

Ichiro Suzuki, one of the most iconic players in NPB and MLB history, was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame with 99.7% of the vote.
With Hall of Fame induction, Ichiro makes himself heard loud and clear