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Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Sep 24, 2013

Pussy Riot member on hunger strike

In the Soviet era, female political prisoners who were sent to labor in Russia's Mordovia region described their privations in tiny words written on cigarette papers, which took months to reach the world. Today, an inmate can hand a real letter to a husband, and it is posted on a blog, emblazoned on...
COMMUNITY / Voices / HOTLINE TO NAGATACHO
Sep 23, 2013

Why are so many Nepalese in Japan taking their own lives?

Dear Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Minister of Education Hakubun Shimomura and Minister of Health, Labor and Welfare Norihisa Tamura,
Japan Times
CULTURE / Entertainment news
Sep 22, 2013

Pacman, Peso and Pyongyang

A few weeks ago, a Kickstarter project was posted on the Internet featuring two young men who went by the names of Pacman and Peso.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 21, 2013

Crossing the Himalayas through memory to Ladakh

I'm in a small van careering along a rough and narrow road beside a rushing river with brightly painted temples along its banks and craggy peaks towering overhead. We're traveling in the prescribed Indian fashion — drive as fast as you can and hope for the best or, better still, pray.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Sep 18, 2013

'Sengai and the World of Zen'

During his life as a monk, Sengai Gibon (1750-1837) was admired for not only his artistic ability but also his modesty and simplistic way of life. Despite his social status, he chose to don an everyday black robe instead of one of distinguished purple silk, and his beliefs were reflected in what is now...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Sep 12, 2013

'Hyde Park on Hudson'

For all intents and purposes, "Hyde Park on Hudson" should have you on hello. Instead, it may leave you feeling the tiniest bit revolted. Focusing on the events of a weekend in the life of 32nd U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, arguably the best-loved commander-in-chief of the 20th century after...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Sep 12, 2013

Photographer 'faces future' with portraits of centenarians

The idea of getting old scares most of us. We don't want to think about getting wrinkles, becoming bedridden or succumbing to Alzheimer's disease. Still, we must come to terms with the fact that growing old is a reality for all of us lucky enough to live long lives.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Sep 7, 2013

Ballet prodigy gets a big lift from mom

Sixteen-year old ballerina Miko Fogarty may be an American teen prodigy, but despite hailing from that land steeped in stardom culture, she seems to have none of the usual celebrity trappings — or to be particularly interested in them.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Sep 2, 2013

Housing loans: Nothing is 100 percent easy

The government has yet to confirm the timing of the approved consumption tax increase from 5 to 8 percent. It's slated to take place next April but there is still fear that the economy is too frail to withstand the effect the added tax might have on actual consumption. Consequently, the government is...
EDITORIALS
Sep 1, 2013

New disaster warning system

The Meteorological Agency on Aug. 30 started a system to use a 'special warning' designation for natural disasters that are very likely to cause heavy damage.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 31, 2013

Married or single, Japan is a desolate country

"The past century is a history of sexual distortion," social psychologist Hiroyoshi Ishikawa told Time Magazine in 1983.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS
Aug 31, 2013

Nearly 50 years after epic win, Mills backs Tokyo for 2020

Billy Mills' rise to prominence began nearly 50 years ago. Now, as he looks back on his highly successful career as a distance runner, author, humanitarian and motivational speaker, he reflects on how significant a role the 1964 Tokyo Olympics played in his life.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Aug 30, 2013

Cory Booker: hope, hype — and heir to Barack Obama?

If Cory Booker were a television character you might think the writers were over-egging things a bit. Tall, athletic, handsome, he is an ambitious politician with a flair for drama. He rescues a woman from a burning building, saves a freezing dog, chases a scissor-wielding mugger, invites hurricane victims...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 22, 2013

'Natsu no Owari (The End of Summer)'

First published in 1963, Jakucho Setouchi's "Natsu no Owari (The End of Summer)" was the "Fifty Shades of Grey" of its day: a best-selling novel written by a woman that viewed the unconventional love life of its 38-year-old heroine with the sort of matter-of-factness then considered daring. But the story,...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Aug 21, 2013

Oliver Stone warmed to Okinawans, fired up base foes

On Aug. 13, a dozen anti-base demonstrators scuffled with police outside the gates of U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa, as marines watched from behind the fence cracking jokes and laughing.
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Aug 18, 2013

¥100 store recipes; the 33 steps to Freemasonry; CM of the week: Nihon Seimei Hoken

The government continues to chip away at the welfare state, reducing benefits for poor families and forcing them to find new ways of saving what little money they have. Luckily the variety show "Ikinari! Ogon Densetsu" ("Suddenly! The Legend of Money"; TV Asahi, Thurs., 7 p.m.) is always there to help....
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Aug 17, 2013

Shock-and-awe art fills festival streets with fun

"Are you tourist?" asked the man seated beside me on the early afternoon flight from Tokyo's Haneda airport to Kochi in Shikoku. He spoke in hesitant English.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 16, 2013

What being a minority allows us to see

Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before — many times. Someone called your child hafu (half) and you take offence. Or your contract is only one-year renewable, whereas your Japanese coworkers have "lifetime employment." Or maybe someone called you a gaijin as you walked by. I've heard these stories dozens...
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 16, 2013

Reformers set sights on Scotland's immense private estates

On bleak Scottish moors and soft, mossy hills, the oldest and grandest theme park in the world rose on Aug. 12. The vast and sprawling sporting estates that possess most of Scotland's surface thrummed with the frantically beating wings of grouse and echo to the gunshot, bravo and jolly well done. The...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Aug 14, 2013

Jeté-ing from ballet to kitchen-sink drama

Though she's moved from elegant arabesques to doing the washing up, former prima ballerina Tamiyo Kusakari is stealing the show in "Ani Kaeru (The Older Brother Returns)," a kitchen-sink drama playing every night through Sept. 1 at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre in Ikebukuro.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 14, 2013

We lose serendipity if Bezos personalizes news

Whatever the emerging form of newspapers, it is crucial that they continue to provide readers with all sorts of stories, ideas and opinions that readers didn't select.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Japan Pulse
Aug 14, 2013

Nazo toki trend goes mainstream

A pop-up shop with a difference appeared on the fashionable streets of Shibuya last month. Open until Aug. 25, and again between Sept. 6 and Sept 23, the Nazo Tomo Cafe is a mystery waiting to be solved. Inside, for ¥1,000, customers can team up with strangers or friends to solve a puzzle of their choice....
MORE SPORTS / MAN ABOUT SPORTS
Aug 13, 2013

It's not easy being 'Johnny Football'

Up front, I admit it: MAS has a huge man-crush on "Johnny Football."
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 10, 2013

Seven years on, and everyone's itching for more

To date, including his all-male production of "The Merchant of Venice" that's set to run next month at Sainokuni Saitama Arts Theater outside Tokyo, Yukio Ninagawa will have staged 29 of the 38 plays attributed to William Shakespeare — and his ambition to direct the entire oeuvre remains undimmed....
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 10, 2013

Koda's baby gaffe may find different reception now

Five years ago, singer Kumi Koda caused an uproar when she joked on a late-night radio show about how a woman's amniotic fluid (yōsui) becomes "spoiled" as she gets older. The subtext of the comment was the advantage of having babies at a younger age, but those quick to ridicule Koda's lack of gynecological...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Aug 9, 2013

Sounds that stem from quietude — when a tree falls down

Perhaps the best thing about living on a small island in Japan of just 583 people (258 men and 325 women) is that you can walk out your door and kiss the online world goodbye. Here, most people don't walk around glued to their cellphones, the majority don't even have smartphones, and very few take pictures...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Aug 6, 2013

Grahams shepherded Post through tumultuous eight decades

It began with a bankruptcy sale in 1933, when a Republican businessman and presidential confidant reinvented himself as a newspaper publisher in the nation's capital. It ended with an announcement that his descendants had sold the newspaper to an Internet wizard who lives in the Washington on the other...
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 2, 2013

Detroit is bust, but it's still Henry Ford's world

Henry Ford, born 150 years ago, defied the bromide about necessity being the mother of invention, as there was no demand for the Model T until he built it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 1, 2013

'Magic Mike'

Magic Mike," director Steven Soderbergh's peep into the world of male strippers, almost feels like a response to his 2009 film "The Girlfriend Experience," which looked at online escort services. Despite starring wildly popular porn starlet Sasha Grey, the film was cool, cerebral and decidedly asexual;...

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