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Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

Ainu-like people of Washington

There is a good possibility that the Makah Indians of northwest Washington state originated in Japan. They are a seafaring people who hunted whales. They are unique in many respects compared with neighboring Indian tribes.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 26, 2007

Worlds notebook; Day 1

OSAKA — News and notes from Day One of the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships:
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

An offer Americans can refuse

Is Hiroaki Sato asking that I give up the gun that saved me from an attack by a knife-wielding robber several years ago? Is he asking my neighbor's wife to give up the gun that stopped an attempted rape in 1997? Is he asking tens of thousands of people who annually avoid death or serious injury because...
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

The quest for U.N. membership

On July 23, the U.N. Secretariat rejected Taiwan's application for U.N. membership. Four days later, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said "the position of the United Nations is that the People's Republic of China (PRC) represents the whole of China as the sole and legitimate representative government...
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

'Greatest evil' is not apparent

Despite preliminary testing in the New Mexican desert, I think it is fair to say that no one could possibly have fully understood the horror of an atomic blast -- especially a detonation over an urban area -- before it was actually done in August 1945. This undermines all anti-atomic bomb...
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2007

Eyes on the prize with India

Japan and India have very good reasons to forge closer ties. They are both democracies and share fundamental values. With proper attention, their economic relationship, which has been stunted, can grow to their mutual benefit. They share security concerns: stability in Central Asia and the Mideast, access...
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

What about shootings in Japan?

The timing of Hiroaki Sato's article leaves something to be desired. Sato asks why Americans can't give up their guns, yet a Japan Times front-page article on the same day ("Gang boss shot hours after rival gunned down," Aug. 20) is about two yakuza shootings. Why can't the Japanese give up their...
Reader Mail
Aug 26, 2007

Democracies separated by culture

Regarding Hiroaki Sato's Aug. 20 article, "Why can't Americans give up their guns?": I submit that it may be impossible for Sato to understand the cultural differences between the United States and Japan on the subject of personal liberty and a free citizen's possession of the means to defend it.
MORE SPORTS
Aug 26, 2007

Kibet slogs to victory

OSAKA — Talk about a grand opening.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 26, 2007

Flawed options for Darfur peacemakers

PRAGUE — The long-sought joint peacekeeping force for Darfur, which would combine the existing 7,000-man African Union force with as many as 20,000 additional military personnel and civilian police under U.N. command, has now been approved. But several roadblocks still stand in the way, making it very...
CULTURE / Books
Aug 26, 2007

Marine sniper in a modern-day retelling of the legendary 47 ronin

Author Stephen Hunter's series character Bob Lee Swagger, the ex-marine sniper who gained the nickname "Bob the Nailer" for his wartime exploits in Vietnam, has few soft spots. One is his late father, Earl, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor for valor on Iwo Jima.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 26, 2007

Paranoid android Abe blind to reality when it comes to eye contact

Image and issues always compete for voters' attention on the campaign trail, with the former usually winning. A successful candidate is the one who uses the media most effectively in shaping an image that's acceptable to more people than the next candidate's. Issues, on the other hand, have become more...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 26, 2007

APEC 'circus' precedes main Aussie drama

The eyes of the world will be on Sydney next month, and as that's where I am at the moment, I can tell you we are expecting the city to be under siege.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 26, 2007

Homegrown art: rice-paddy ukiyo-e

Mysterious "corn circles" of incredible complexity that appear overnight, or a baseball park as in the 1989 film "Field of Dreams" — who knows what you might come across in your local rural idyll these days.
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Aug 26, 2007

It's ladies first now in Japanese love hotels

Japanese Love Hotels: A Cultural History, by Sarah Chaplin. London/New York: Routledge, 2007, 242 pp. with photos, figures and tables, £85 (cloth) The love-hotel industry is one of Japan's most profitable. It accounts for more than ¥4 trillion a year, a figure nearly four times than that of the profit...
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 26, 2007

Embarrassing celebrity game show, children in poverty special, honeybee nature show

The risk of being publicly embarrassed is one that all TV talent run when they appear on variety shows. It's part of the job. However, you are virtually guaranteed to be embarrassed on the health-related variety show "Saishu Keikaku: Takeshi no Honto wa Kowai Katei no Igaku (Final Warning: Takeshi's...

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji