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COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 25, 2012

Austerity — we've embraced it in the countryside

Austerity. It's a word steeped in meaning. No one is more aware of a stagnant economy than the Japanese people, who are spending less and learning to relish cheap, imported goods.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1

Director: Bill Condon
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012

Morning movies: 50 audience favorites to get you out of bed

Moviegoers set your alarms early, because the Toho Cinemas chain will in March begin its third annual Gozen Jū-ji no Eiga Sai (10 a.m. Film Festival). This year's event is the second series under the tag line "50 Films That Never Get Old," and the yearlong "festival" showcases 50 classic films, ranging...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 24, 2012

'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" was released last Christmas in the United States, slightly after the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. One would like to suppose that the filmmakers realized the crassness of opening a 9/11-themed film any closer to the actual anniversary, but I'd bet...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 23, 2012

Is the World Wide Web about to be 'closed'?

Within the tech community, there is much angst about whether the Web is about to be "closed." Will it be controlled by companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google, or will it remain "open" to all?
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2012

Proposed monument misses why we like Ike

Two coming developments, one dismal and one excellent, pertain to America's memory of a great man. One of several oversight panels soon will consider a proposed memorial to Dwight Eisenhower. The proposal is an exhibitionistic triumph of theory over function — more a monument to its creator Frank Gehry,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 23, 2012

akai ko-en try to avoid getting caught in the Web

With a layered sound that blends postrock dynamics and sprawling song structures with pure J-pop sensibility, akai ko-en is quickly becoming one of Tokyo's most talked-about new bands. But just try searching for the group on YouTube and see how far you get.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2012

A 'stewpid' time to raise VAT

The International Monetary Fund has joined Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and leading politicians and bureaucrats in laying down a remorseless softening up barrage of facts, figures, argument and just plain determination that the country's consumption tax should rise as quickly as possible.
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 22, 2012

At the end of a loved one's life, why is it so hard to let go?

I know where this phone call is going. I'm on the hospital wards, and a physician in the emergency room downstairs is talking to me about an elderly patient who needs to be admitted to the hospital. The patient is new to me, but the story is familiar: He has several chronic conditions — heart failure,...
JAPAN
Feb 22, 2012

Hopes fade for Monju's energy dream promise

Japan's long and expensive pursuit of a superefficient nuclear reactor — a model once touted as the key to its energy future — now teeters on the brink of failure amid new government concerns about its runaway costs.
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Feb 21, 2012

Miso's moya moya

Dear Alice,
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 20, 2012

Myth of the U.S. president as master of events

Americans are presidency-addicted. We can't get enough information about our commanders in chief, yet there is a woeful misunderstanding of the office.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 20, 2012

Clean poverty, clean living and love on a shoestring

Okane wa doko ni itteshimattanoka (お金はどこに行ってしまったのか, Where has all the money gone?). Until a few years back, the tone among Japanese business pundits used to go like this — a little humorous and slightly hopeful, almost as if we were all playing kakurenbo (かくれんぼ,...
Reader Mail
Feb 19, 2012

Explaining things to Okinawans

I write in response to a Japanese newspaper's editorial view that the outcome of last Sunday's Ginowan mayoral election in Okinawa Prefecture should serve as a springboard to ensure that U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma is relocated to the Henoko district of Nago in the same prefecture.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Feb 19, 2012

From Aboriginal land to Japan's nuclear reactors

Peter Watts, co-chair of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, was recently in Japan as one of some 100 speakers at the Global Conference for a Nuclear Power Free World held in Yokohama on Jan. 14 and 15. During an interview with The Japan Times, Watts — who is a member of the Arabunna people, one...
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 18, 2012

Learning a foreign language: blood, sweat and beers

A recent education ministry survey evaluated Japanese "third-year middle school students" on their attitudes toward learning English. One editorial indicated that the results of the survey showed that students nationwide had an "ambivalent and contradictory attitude toward English." Wow, imagine 14-year-olds...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 17, 2012

Behind Obama's Mideast policy of capitulation

No sooner did U.S. President Barack Obama welcome home American troops from Iraq and laud that country's stability and democracy than an unprecedented wave of violence — across Baghdad and elsewhere — revealed the severity of Iraq's political crisis. Is that crisis an unfortunate exception or, rather,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 16, 2012

The photographic cartographer

Tomoki Imai remembers well the turning point in his life when he decided to become a professional photographer. Already an aspiring film director at the Tokyo University of the Arts, the Hiroshima-native was turned onto the raw and trigger-happy cityscape and portrait snapshots of self-styled photo "genius"...
CULTURE / Art
Feb 16, 2012

The photographic cartographer

Tomoki Imai remembers well the turning point in his life when he decided to become a professional photographer. Already an aspiring film director at the Tokyo University of the Arts, the Hiroshima-native was turned onto the raw and trigger-happy cityscape and portrait snapshots of self-styled photo "genius"...
JAPAN
Feb 16, 2012

Nuclear safety boss faults agency, utilities

Nuclear Safety Commission chief Haruki Madarame apologized Wednesday for mistakes and safety shortcomings that surfaced during the triple-meltdown crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 power plant and blamed them on bureaucrats and utilities that failed to heed calls for better disaster preparedness.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Feb 15, 2012

Nets squandered chance to draft Kobe

Kobe Bryant's annual Garden variety visit last Friday triggered me to re-examine the draft of 1996. Many people have gone straight from high school to Hollywood and become overnight sensations . . . after countless years of dejection and rejection. Kobe actually morphed into a Lakers' legend almost on...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / INDIA-JAPAN SYMPOSIUM
Feb 15, 2012

Rising consumerism in India offers Japan huge potential, experts say

India is rapidly evolving as a consumer market and Japan, whose trade and investment relations with the emerging South Asian giant have so far been limited, should take advantage of the huge potential created by the new trends of consumerism in the country, scholars and experts from Indian universities...
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Feb 15, 2012

Opinions split on moving powerhouse Phoenix to Western Conference

There's a very real possibility that the Hamamatsu Higashimikawa Phoenix will play in the bj-league's Western Conference next season, as the league's preliminary scheduling blueprint for 2012-13 has shown. It's not official yet, but the expectation here is that it's a done deal.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 14, 2012

Nagoya: Do you think crusading Mayor Takashi Kawamura is doing a good job?

Reader Mail
Feb 12, 2012

Mixed messages about manners

For many years, reading manners posters has been one of my commuting pastimes. Others include reading books, sleeping, people watching and, when possible, scenery watching. Sometimes I even try to hold my breath from one station to the next as a kind of fitness check.

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