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Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Nov 4, 2014

Surprise showing by Jaguars forces change of plan

Every NFL dog has its day. Even the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars.
Reader Mail
Aug 20, 2014

Help the 'Well Said' translations

I appreciate the Japanese-language learning columns included in The Japan Times, and read them almost every week. However, I feel that two aspects of the "Well Said" column need improvement.
COMMENTARY / World
Apr 29, 2014

Unfortunately torture is an all-American value

Even when Americans rose up in 2011 to protest their government as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, torture was less than an afterthought on activists' menu of complaints.
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Mar 1, 2014

Many have fallen victim to NPB's 'false spring'

As a high school student back in the early 1960s, I can recall reading a book titled, "A False Spring." It was authored by Pat Jordan, a Connecticut native and a superb teenage baseball pitcher who, according to Wikipedia, was pursued by more than 15 major league organizations in 1959. Interesting, as...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Jan 10, 2014

Educator with a mission sends out support from Hiroshima

Some people seem to have a knack for turning their hand to anything that comes along and, moreover, making a success of it. This is certainly the case with Hiroshima-based Adam Beck. Over the years, the American has been a children's theater director, an English teacher, a newspaper columnist and the...
Reader Mail
Aug 31, 2013

The American ramen dream

Regarding the Aug. 23 Everyman Eats column, "The ramen burger that ate New York": I don't know, I'm a purist. I love a good American hamburger, cheeseburger with fries even better, and I love a fine bowl of gourmet ramen.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 13, 2013

The scoop on print media tragedies

The effect of the digital revolution is uneven. While China seems to launch newspapers almost weekly, in the U.S. they seem to be folding or changing ownership.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2013

Long-ago wiretap inspires a battle with the CIA for more information

Paul Scott, the late syndicated columnist, was so paranoid about the CIA wiretapping his home in the 1960s that he'd make important calls from his neighbor's house. His teenage son Jim Scott figured his dad was either a shrewd reporter or totally nuts.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 14, 2013

Sign of the Financial Times: Will it sell independence?

Too many years ago, this young reporter was about to move from one of Britain's biggest newspaper groups to a paper with a daily sale of fewer than 200,000 copies. A hard-bitten veteran, who had spent years reporting for the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph pleaded with me over farewell drinks not...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Dec 23, 2012

Journeying to the ends of the Earth ...

Travel is an addiction for which there seems no cure. Once under its sway, it is best just to ride out the alternating fevers and chills and see where they take you.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Dec 11, 2012

Is Shintaro Ishihara the most dangerous man in Japan? Readers discuss

Parallels with wartime general
CULTURE / Music / STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Aug 30, 2012

The customer is always right, but that's what's wrong in Japan's live-house scene

The roundly despised pay-to-play system in place throughout most of Tokyo's live-music scene, and to a slightly lesser extent in many other cities, is something I've written about in this column before.
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jul 3, 2012

In formulating immigration policy, no seat at the table for non-Japanese

Last month the Japanese government took baby steps toward an official immigration policy. Ten ministries and several specialist "people of awareness" (yūshikisha) held meetings aimed at creating a "coexistence society" (kyōsei shakai) within which non-Japanese (NJ) would be "accepted" (uke ire).
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
May 27, 2012

Japan has a role to play in environment and rights issues in Belize

"The United Nations' largest-ever conference, billed as a historic opportunity to create a greener future, appears to be going up in smoke."
Japan Times
Reference / SO WHAT THE HECK IS THAT
Apr 17, 2012

Pampered pets

Dear Alice,Don't you think it's time you did a column on the crazy pet products and services available in Japan? I can't believe the lengths some dog owners go to — dressing their pets in frilly clothes, pushing them around in baby carriages and taking them into cafes. My wife says I'm crazy but I...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Mar 27, 2012

JET teacher outfoxes board, Dr. Savoie's Hague prescription: readers' responses

Some responses to Patrick Budmar's Feb. 28 Light Gist column, "Teacher outfoxes board, exposes bid to fleece JETs":
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Mar 21, 2012

Zen Master has nothing to gain by coaching Knicks

You know me; I'm too professional, polite and reverential of the coaching profession to speculate about interim Mike Woodson's successor while he still retains the Knicks' (favorite) title . . . at least as long as he's undefeated.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Mar 6, 2012

A few of readers' favorite things; heated discussion on the burning issue of warmth

A selection of readers' responses to Debito Arudou's Feb. 7 Just Be Cause column, "These are a few of my favorite things about Japan":
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Feb 7, 2012

These are a few of my favorite things about Japan

The Just Be Cause column has been running now for four years (thanks for reading!), and I've noticed something peculiar: how commentators are pressured to say "nice" stuff about Japan.
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Jul 5, 2011

Disunited 'English-speaking diaspora' bites back

The Community Page received a large number of emails in response to Debito Arudou's June 7 Just Be Cause column, headlined " 'English-speaking diaspora' should unite, not backbite."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Feb 13, 2011

K-pop takes on the world while J-pop stays home

Last week, the Fuji TV newsmagazine "Mr. Sunday" looked at Korean pop's success in Japan from two angles. Taking a street-level perspective, the show's host, Seiji Miyane, hung out in Tokyo's Okubo district, which has become "the new Harajuku" because young Japanese women flock there to rub up against...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Jul 4, 2010

Manga's Cinderella story

"I want to tell you a real love story," whispers a pen-wielding Misako, a graphic-novel version of comic artist Misako Takashima, on the first page of the 2007 book, "Rock and Roll Love."
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 2, 2010

Children's rights, judicial wrongs

Last in a two-part series
COMMUNITY / Voices / HAVE YOUR SAY
Mar 31, 2009

Immigration pains; 'zombie debate' revisited

Japanese system worse Re: "I am not a Pakistani child bride (but the U.K. can't tell the difference)" (Hotline to Nagatacho, March 17):
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 3, 2009

Wishes for 2009: Less unfair criticism of referees, fewer fake injuries

LONDON — Apart from England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008 the year could hardly have gone better for English football. In fact, the World Cup-winning year of 1966 excepted, 2008 is probably the most successful 12 months the sport has ever enjoyed.
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Apr 23, 2008

Is growth driving us to oblivion?

Last month, when I wrote a column headlined "Apocalypse when? Can three experts all be wrong on looming disaster?," I expected that readers would harangue me for taking up ranks with the pessimists. After all, for every doomster, there seems to be a Pangloss reassuring us that all will be well.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / OUR PLANET EARTH
Dec 26, 2007

Wrapping up the year with dollops of whale and tuna

With Christmas behind us and New Year's less than a week away, this month's column combines a bit of yearend desk clearing with some suggestions for belated stocking stuffers.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Aug 29, 2007

Let's (try to) get serious about silliness

August is known as the "silly season" in the media in the United States and the United Kingdom, as newspaper editors faced with legislators all gone on holiday struggle in vain to fill their pages and resort to, well, silly stories.
CULTURE / Books
Jan 28, 2007

From the truth comes some strange fiction

Homunculus by Hugh Paxton. Macmillan New Writing, 2005, 256 pp., £12.99 (paper). The grotesquely fanged monster armed with a spear and an assault rifle that comes hurtling out of a rising sun on the cover of "Homunculus" should be fair warning to readers that something a tad disturbing is to be found...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jun 4, 2006

Time to kill -- but not mosquitoes

I am only an hour's drive from my destination -- the lodge of Safari Hoek, where, as promised in the last column, I plan to write up an "ethical" hunting safari outfit -- when I inadvertently bag my first trophy.

Longform

Japan's growing ranks of centenarians are redefining what it means to live in a super-aging society.
What comes after 100?