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Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy
Mar 11, 2013

How Great Recession turned middle-class jobs into low-wage jobs

The U.S. job market is slowly improving, and most economists expect that gradual recovery to continue this year. Yet one of the most disturbing trends of the Great Recession is still very far from being reversed. America's middle-class jobs have been decimated since 2007, replaced largely by low-wage...
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 11, 2013

U.S., Asia harden turtle safeguards

The United States, in a conservation victory Friday, won the approval of an international wildlife summit for stronger protections for endangered freshwater tortoises and turtles, including Maryland's iconic diamondback terrapin.
JAPAN / Politics
Mar 2, 2013

Japan to join F-35 parts output, export strategy

Japan plans to join the global parts-sharing system for F-35 stealth jet production, in an exception to its long-held principle of not exporting weapons or their components.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Feb 27, 2013

Glass may look geeky, but you have to applaud Google's vision

A few weeks ago, the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, spent four days in Cambridge as the Humanitas visiting professor in the university's Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, where I work. Afterward, one of the questions I was most frequently asked by people who hadn't been...
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Feb 23, 2013

The stalking cure: rehabilitating an all too common menace

When forensic psychiatrist Frank Farnham first meets a stalker, he doesn't judge. Some of his clients have done awful things. They have intimidated, pursued and terrified their victims.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / TECH_JAPAN
Feb 20, 2013

Freeware has animators dancing to the Hatsune Miku beat

If you search for the acronym MMD on Niconico or YouTube — the two most popular video-sharing sites in Japan — the resulting list will have over 100,000 anime videos, most of which have 3-D anime-style girl characters singing and dancing to electronic J-pop music. What's surprising is that these...
COMMENTARY / World
Feb 5, 2013

Five myths about America's immigration 'line'

The 'line' of people seeking citizenship or legal status has become an integral part of the U.S. immigration debate. But there's more than one line.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Feb 1, 2013

Some thoughts on the rudiments of rutabaga

I can't wait to see NHK-G's special program to air Feb. 23. They are finally going to address a topic I have harbored secret thoughts about since I came to Japan in 1994. NHK is going to broach the topic in a no-holds-barred documentary. The subject is turnip tossing.
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 29, 2013

In Japan, gun control is the norm and discipline is rigid

The recent mass shootings in the United States have spurred the White House to pursue what many in the nation consider taboo: strict gun controls.
Japan Times
JAPAN / DAVOS SPECIAL 2013
Jan 23, 2013

Aiming to take Japan's best onto the global stage

Japanese leaders in business, culture, politics and other fields should look abroad and take what Japan can do best to the world, said Yoshito Hori, president of Globis University and managing partner of Globis Capital Partners.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Jan 11, 2013

Gomez, Ogawa helping Shiga stay in playoff picture

In 10-game increments, you can get a pretty good measure of how a team is playing during the long, 52-game bj-league regular season.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / KANPAI CULTURE
Jan 11, 2013

Japan's latest wine trend is only natural

It's official: Natural wines are entering mainstream consciousness in Japan. I know this not simply because sections devoted to organic, "bio" (biodynamic), or shizen-ha (natural) wines have become fixtures in many retail shops, or even because sales of natural wines have risen around the world. The...
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jan 8, 2013

Xenophobia finds fertile soil in web anonymity

As diplomatic strains with China and South Korea worsen over territorial disputes, more and more Japanese are using the relative anonymity of cyberspace to vent their political spleens online.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 3, 2013

Kitaro taps into Native American culture

"Kitaro and I were destined to meet each other," Dennis Banks tells The Japan Times. "Our beliefs are similar: Mother Earth, who we are ... we are all the children of this Earth."
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / JAPAN TIMES BLOGROLL
Jan 1, 2013

Spoon & Tamago

Raised in Japan, the Brooklyn-based artist and writer who goes by the moniker Johnny Strategy has been blogging about Japanese art and design at Spoon & Tamago since 2007. Having studied art education and art and visual technology, he also has a background in pottery and hones the craft when not generating...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 31, 2012

Even language has winners and losers

If there's one thing to be sure of in Japan these days, it's that by the end of the year you will have a prime minister different from the one you started out with. This year was the sixth year in succession to follow this pattern. Somewhat differently, though, this year there was a general election...
BUSINESS / Tech
Dec 29, 2012

Rapid move to e-books surprises experts, roils market

America's obsession with digital tablets is driving a boom in e-book reading, a new survey shows, a trend that is dampening the appeal of printed books and shaking the centuries-old publishing business.
LIFE / Travel
Dec 23, 2012

Award-winning Hakuba inn offers a warm and bespoke welcome to all

A report published this year by a national association of ryōkan (traditional inn) owners notes that one of the most common problems facing its several thousand members is a dearth of suitable successors — meaning there will be no one in line to run them when the current operators retire.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Dec 21, 2012

Aoki continues All-Star streak with seventh selection

Before the Ryukyu Golden Kings ever played a game and before Okinawa proved to be a terrific location for a Japanese professional basketball team, Cohey Aoki had already established himself as a fan favorite in the bj-league.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Dec 20, 2012

Harnessing the spirit of Kuniyoshi

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861) belongs to a category of ukiyo-e print artists that have long polarized art historians and connoisseurs for their jarring colors and compositions, cynical depictions of sex and violence, and use of Western pictorial techniques. These so-called "Decadents" were seen to represent...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 19, 2012

U.S. school massacre won't change views on guns

We live in a society that makes it very, very easy to kill kids, though we want to pretend that isn't true.
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Dec 18, 2012

Stop thinking — the test is about to start

Events / KANSAI: WHO & WHAT
Dec 8, 2012

Tour Suita library's foreign-language collection

A library tour will be offered for foreigners in the city of Suita, Osaka Prefecture, on Monday. The event will run from noon to 1 p.m. at Senri Library, which has the biggest selection of foreign-language books, CDs and DVDs in among the many libraries in the city.
COMMENTARY
Dec 5, 2012

American colleges have free speech on the run

In 2007, Keith John Sampson, a middle-aged student working his way through Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis as a janitor, was declared guilty of racial harassment. Without granting Sampson a hearing, the university administration — acting as prosecutor, judge and jury — convicted...

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