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COMMENTARY / World
Jul 20, 2001

Genoa: the recession summit

LONDON — Only a dozen streets from Genoa's Ducal Palace, the protesters will be assaulting the barricades this weekend like medieval siege engineers. Inside the palace, the eight men who rule the world's richest economies — well, seven of the world's richest economies plus Russia, which is there...
COMMUNITY
Jul 20, 2001

Checklist of things to look for in a swimming school

A good school should build self-confidence, teach safety precautions in water and create a warm, friendly and happy atmosphere among students and instructors. Visit a few fitness clubs or private swimming schools in your neighborhood and consider some of these points:
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jul 20, 2001

Long-horned beetle

* Japanese name:Gomadara kamikir * Scientific name:Anoplophora malasiaca * Description: A black, 25-35 mm long bullet-shaped beetle with white spots and long, black and white-striped antennae, up to 11/2 times the body length. The legs are bluish; there is a spine on each side of the thorax. The...
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Jul 19, 2001

Campaign finance reform bill continues to dominate a divided U.S. Congress

This was "the week that was" for campaign finance reform. The stakes were high. The votes were close. You could cut the tension around the Capital with a knife. And when it was over, just like all the years in the recent past, there was no result. The only winner may well have been U.S. President George...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 19, 2001

Biased history helps feed U.S. fascination with Pearl Harbor

SAN FRANCISCO -- Why does America continue to nurture a deep preoccupation with Pearl Harbor, 60 years after the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base in Hawaii? The makers of Disney's blockbuster $135 million film "Pearl Harbor" said the movie is primarily a love story, but its title, climax and cinematic...
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 19, 2001

Cracking the Coleridge conundrum

Snorting salt through the nostrils may seem a strange habit, but it must surely be healthy and can even be a crucial adaptation. After all, albatrosses do it and they can live for 50-70 years, an exceptional age among birds.
JAPAN / Science & Health / NATURAL SELECTIONS
Jul 19, 2001

Fight club: eavesdropping and animal conflict

As any schoolkid in the playground can tell you, fights don't just involve those trading blows, but those watching too. Like spies, these bystanders observe, obtaining useful information about the individuals in the fight that they may be able to use to their advantage in future aggressive situations....
CULTURE / Film
Jul 18, 2001

Ms. Tokyo takes a trip to reality

Koko ni Iru Koto Rating: * * * 1/2 Director: Masahiko Nagasawa Running time: 115 minutes Language: JapaneseNow showing The TV trendy drama was a bubble-era phenomenon, with its stories about the love troubles of beautiful young singles working at glamorous "katakana jobs" (such as "event planner"...
BASEBALL / BASEBALL BULLET-IN
Jul 18, 2001

Lasorda not doggin' it in Osaka

Tommy Lasorda gets around. On Sunday, July 8, the 73-year-old former Los Angeles Dodgers manager was at the Osaka Dome, "producing" an American ballpark event for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, wolfing down some Dodger Dogs and doing a TV interview. Two days later, "Tumblin' Tommy" was coaching third base for...
COMMENTARY
Jul 17, 2001

In search of a new slogan

"Are you an American?""Yes!""What did you think about last night's decision on the Olympics?"
LIFE / Travel
Jul 17, 2001

Peak experiences hiking the Japan Alps

KAMIKOCHI, Nagano Prefecture -- In his novel "The House of Nire," Morio Kita writes, "In the already fading light the linked peaks of the Alps were solid and harsh, all ranged there in the early dusk like a huge folding screen."
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 16, 2001

A bitter lesson awaits Bush in Genoa

WASHINGTON — The G8 summit beginning July 20 in Genoa, Italy — U.S. President George W. Bush's first such meeting with the leaders of the eight principal industrial nations — is shaping up as another galling reality lesson for the new American administration, a reminder of the frustrations of global...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

Following in the master's footsteps

During the 10th century, according to legend, there was a blind man called Semimaru who was famed as a biwa (lute) player. Tiring of the stresses of Kyoto life, he moved outside the city and lived by himself in a small house.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 15, 2001

U.S. fear of bilingualism is unfounded

In Quebec, French signs by law have to be twice as big as their English translations. The top spot in the Los Angeles radio market belongs to KSCA-FM, a Spanish language station.
COMMUNITY
Jul 15, 2001

For the sake of sake

Every winter and spring for the last 10 years, Philip Harper reckons he has had no more than a few nights of uninterrupted sleep, but he's more than willing to sacrifice some shut-eye in pursuit of the perfect glass of sake.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2001

Vipassana spirituality a refreshing breeze

BANGKOK -- There was recently a cultural event in Bangkok that deserves to be singled out. It was a special Dhamma talk given by the foremost Vipassana meditation teacher of our times, Satya Narayan Goenka, to a select audience presided over by Princess Galyani, the sister of the King of Thailand.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Jul 14, 2001

Red Army daughter seeks to set record straight

"My parents named me after the month of a certain political action," explains May Shigenobu. "But in Japanese I am known as Mei, which means 'life.' " The specific political operation to which she is referring? The bombing by Japanese leftwing radicals of Lod Airport in Tel Aviv on May 30, 1972.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Jul 14, 2001

Patrick Carey

Patrick Carey thinks he may be the only non-Japanese to have walked the entire distance of the Old Tokaido, from Tokyo to Kyoto, and to have written about it.
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 14, 2001

Turning talk of free trade into policy

LONDON — Japan's trade sanctions joust with China is small beer in world terms — or even in the context of the overall commerce between the two nations. But it sounds a warning bell — all the more so since it is just one of a series of challenges to free and open trade that could throw into doubt...
ENVIRONMENT / GARDENING FOR ALL
Jul 12, 2001

Foreign plants are right at home in Japan

I have always been interested in the natural origins of plants. Where does a particular plant come from? How and when did it come to this country? Geographic botany investigates the distribution of plants around the world.
COMMENTARY
Jul 11, 2001

Do as I say, not as I do

WASHINGTON -- Americans claim to be upset about high energy prices, but you wouldn't know after watching Congress vote to ban drilling off the Gulf of Mexico and in the Great Lakes. Legislators seem equally opposed to oil exploration in the Alaska Natural Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), even though environmental...
LIFE / Travel / NATURE TRAVEL
Jul 10, 2001

Where pachyderms on the run find haven

A thumping makes the banana-flower curry shiver in the bowl. The cutlery rattles, and there is an excited rush of diners to the second-floor windows of the restaurant. Bellows and borborygmus* rise from below. The air is pungent with a dusty, thunderous aroma.
SOCCER / THE BALD TRUTH
Jul 10, 2001

Troussier has no room for hanky-panky and circus animals

Its official: Philippe Troussier is not running a circus. The Japan coach was, in tabloid-speak, "gobsmacked" last Wednesday when he was quizzed about his team selection moments after Japan had defeated Yugoslavia 1-0 to win the Kirin Cup.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2001

Survey offers solid treatment of history

THE MAKING OF MODERN JAPAN, by Marius B. Jansen. Harvard University Press, 2000, 896 pp., $35 (hardback). "The Making of Modern Japan," Marius Jansen's last work, is a reliable, solid and authoritative interpretation of Japan's recent past. It is a fitting testament to a learned man whose scholarly...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2001

Slaying the 'monsters' of Meiji Era modernity

CIVILIZATION AND MONSTERS: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan, by Gerald Figal. Duke University Press, 1999, 290 pp., $49.95 (hardback); $17.95 (paperback). In his prologue to "Civilization and Monsters," Gerald Figal defines Meiji modernization within the context of the fantastic and supernatural...
CULTURE / Books
Jul 8, 2001

The Japanese Constitution gets a provocative look

FIVE DECADES OF CONSTITUTIONALISM IN JAPANESE SOCIETY, edited by Yoshio Higuchi. University of Tokyo Press, 2001, 368 pp., 8,000 yen. A major stumbling block for Japan on its road to becoming a more influential member of the global community has been a profound absence of voice. Japanese politicians,...
LIFE / Food & Drink / THE WAY OF WASHOKU
Jul 8, 2001

The buckwheat starts here

Some of the most enjoyable, satisfying and memorable meals I have had in Japan involve soba (buckwheat). I can still smell the broth of a hot bowl of kake soba I had the winter after the Olympics in Nagano.
EDITORIALS
Jul 6, 2001

Face-lift won't solve CCP's problems

The Chinese Communist Party, which celebrated its 80th anniversary on July 1, is giving itself a face-lift. In a speech marking the event, President Jiang Zemin said the party will grant membership to private business managers. That should come as no surprise, however, given that the CCP has been campaigning...
ENVIRONMENT / ANIMAL TRACKER
Jul 6, 2001

Beach wood louse

* Japanese name:Funamushi * Scientific name: Ligia exotica * Description: Beach wood lice are isopods, which are in the crustacean group, like shrimps. But unlike shrimps, their bodies are flattened parallel to the ground. Like regular wood lice, they have seven pairs of legs and large eyes. They...
CULTURE / Film
Jul 4, 2001

Love: The final frontier

In science fiction, technological progress is often portrayed as bringing humankind ever closer to God in terms of understanding and exploiting the universe. At the beginning of Steven Spielberg's "A.I.," a scientist with the interesting name of Dr. Hobby (William Hurt) expounds before a group of underlings...

Longform

Totopa in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward was picked by consultants TTNE as the best sauna of the year.
Japan’s sauna movement: Relax, refresh, repeat