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COMMENTARY
Jan 9, 2012

Collision of political, economic logic condemns India to rudderless rule and chronic corruption

India's economy grows mainly in the night, some say, when the government is asleep. If every economic prospect pleases, India's politics can be vile.
LIFE / Language / KANJI CLINIC
Jan 9, 2012

The Kanji of the Year for 2011: human ties that bind

Every November, in its Kanji of the Year poll, the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation invites the public to vote for the character that best symbolizes the year drawing to a close. It then announces the winner in mid December.
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2012

Looking ahead: 10 shows to mark on the 2012 calender

"Fuyuko Matsui: Becoming Friends with All the Children in the World" Yokohama Museum of ArtDec. 17, 2011-March 18.www.yaf.or.jp/yma
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jan 5, 2012

Looking ahead: 10 shows to mark on the 2012 calender

"Fuyuko Matsui: Becoming Friends with All the Children in the World" Yokohama Museum of ArtDec. 17, 2011-March 18.www.yaf.or.jp/yma
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / JUST BE CAUSE
Jan 3, 2012

Kim to 'flyjin,' a top 10 for 2011

Here's JBC's fourth annual roundup of the top 10 human rights events that affected Japan's non-Japanese (NJ) residents last year. Ranked in ascending order of impact:
EDITORIALS
Dec 31, 2011

The great unraveling

The last 12 months yielded another humbling year. One event after another confirmed the limits of our ability to predict and shape the future. Blame idle imaginations, selfish societies, pusillanimous politicians or blind bureaucracies. Whatever the cause, 2011 should remind us of the need to be better...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Dec 22, 2011

Japan's dramatists take on the 'nuclear village'

The place to start when reviewing this year's highlights in contemporary Japanese theater, has to be The Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11. That day led to a nation in mourning, an ongoing nuclear crisis and an awakening among dramatists, who saw the importance of their role to stimulate debate...
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 5, 2011

U.S. budget cuts and the next war of choice

The failure of the U.S. Congressional Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction to reach agreement on budget cuts now sets the stage for $1.2 trillion in automatic reductions to begin in January 2013.
COMMENTARY
Nov 28, 2011

How to ramrod an American congressman

A widespread perception that members of the U.S. Congress respond increasingly to special interests has received additional support from a person who knows something about it.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS / ICE TIME
Nov 9, 2011

Mao needs victory at NHK Trophy to regain confidence

Just over one year ago, Mao Asada entered the NHK Trophy coming off her second world title and a silver medal at the Vancouver Olympics. The stage was set for a triumphant return at the Grand Prix event in her hometown of Nagoya.
BASKETBALL
Nov 6, 2011

Road to recovery: Sendai 89ers help healing

March 6, 2011, was a typical Sunday for the Sendai 89ers.
Japan Times
MULTIMEDIA
Oct 27, 2011

Artists who'll go bump in the night

If you catch sight of The Invisible Salaryman, or rather his bandages, dark glasses and business suit, as he loops Tokyo by rail on the Yamanote Line this coming Sunday, you may want to follow him to the "abandoned" hospital hosting the latest ArtGig Tokyo.
COMMENTARY
Oct 26, 2011

A call for improved national crisis management policy

More than seven months have already passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster. Industrial production in the affected areas has bounced back to pre-disaster levels, but the recovery of agriculture and fishery is lagging and nearly 70,000 people remain in evacuation facilities. On top of that,...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / LIGHT GIST
Oct 25, 2011

The ridiculously frightening world of Japanese spooks

Halloween is that time of the year when the occult, macabre and humorous come together to create a festival of fear and fun for all the family. A celebration of death and demons with its roots in pre-Christian Europe, the summer's-end spook-fest has morphed over the centuries into a highly commercialized...
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design / ON: DESIGN
Oct 25, 2011

The natural tide of the times

Back to basics Ki no Kami paper — the result of a collaboration between the Shiodome Innovation Studio (a creative unit that teams Japan's leading advertising agency, Dentsu, and Keio University's Shonan Fujisawa Campus with various creators) and the PaPaCo Yoshino wooden-toy maker — is designed...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Oct 2, 2011

Meticulous ode to love and fate

It is rather disconcerting to read a novel that opens with the assertion that "I've already slid right on past the big five-oh — a milestone no one thinks is very pretty and few are eager to reach — to become a man of fifty-one," particularly when this reviewer reaches that milestone this coming...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Oct 2, 2011

Arrival of October recalls great moments in game's history

Some of the greatest moments in baseball history, in Japan and the major leagues, have taken place during the month of October.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / CLOSE-UP
Oct 2, 2011

Satoshi Kamata: Rebel spirit writ large

Monday, Sept. 19, was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. But on that sweltering national holiday, it wasn't the heat that that drew tens of thousands of people to Meiji Park in central Tokyo, but their concerns for all the nation's citizens, and others, who may face a threat from nuclear power.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Oct 1, 2011

Subtle aid for women facing abuse in disaster-hit areas

At a glance, it appears to be nothing more than a hand massage. In a corner of a shelter for survivors of the March disasters in Onagawa, Miyagi Prefecture, members of the NPO Miyagi-Jonet are trying to provide some respite for stressed-out female survivors.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2011

The 9/11-3/11 connection

It's an interesting twist that the recent Sept. 11, 2011, anniversary marks two momentous events — 10 years since the multiple terrorist attacks in the United States that spawned a worldwide "war on terror", and six months since the devastating combination of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear plant disaster...
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 21, 2011

Checking the impulse to fight wars of choice

As the United States stumbles through its economic challenges at home, the pressure of world events will not subside. But America's ability to address them has changed. Its fiscal weakness limits its ability to act as global policeman.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 9, 2011

Beating the midlife blues

Are you feeling down about middle age? Do you find yourself thinking that time is hurtling and you'll never reach your goals — or, perhaps more distressingly, that they don't even fit who you are anymore?
COMMENTARY
Sep 3, 2011

Safe choice, but wrong choice?

Former Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda is the new prime minister of Japan. Noda is something of an anomaly: one of those self-deprecating politicians — he likens himself to a "loach," a scavenger that is kin to the catfish — who commands respect for having a steady hand and even temperament. Some...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 1, 2011

Kusama: Quite dotty, but very avant-garde

Yayoi Kusama's art fully emerged in a big way when she moved from Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, to New York in 1959. Despite the obstacles — she suffered from mental problems and was an unknown Japanese female artist in a milieu dominated by white male artists and critics — by the second half of...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 31, 2011

Destroying five myths about earthquakes

Earthquakes rattle our psyches as well as our structures. We Californians can crack jokes about jumpy East Coast types, but the truth is, our blood pressure also rises precipitously when the Earth suddenly springs to life, without so much as a warning.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Aug 27, 2011

Mask maker keeping Shimane tradition alive

Hanging on the walls of Jake Davies' home are around 20 artifacts that seem at odds with the idyllic village in Sakurae, Shimane Prefecture where his rustic abode is set.

Longform

Visitors walk past Sou Fujimoto's Grand Ring, which has been recognized as the largest wooden structure in the world.
Can a World Expo still matter? Japan is about to find out.