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CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Jun 15, 2008

War and propaganda: a Japanese narrative

CERTAIN VICTORY: Images of World War II in the Japanese Media, by David C. Earhart. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe Inc., 2008, 552 pp., with photographs, maps, illustrations, $74.95 (cloth) One way to induce people to kill other people is to dehumanize "the enemy." And one of the ways to do this is through propaganda....
CULTURE / Books
Jun 15, 2008

Stopping North Korea going nuclear

THE PENINSULA QUESTION: A Chronicle of the Second Korean Nuclear Crisis, by Yoichi Funabashi. Washington: Brookings Institution, 2007, 592 pp., $36.95 (cloth) NORTH KOREA ON THE BRINK: Struggle for Survival, by Glyn Ford with Soyoung Kwon. London: Pluto Press, 2008, 249 pp., £18.99 (cloth)
CULTURE / TV & Streaming / CHANNEL SURF
Jun 15, 2008

Medical variety show, 'surprising' news stories, women's boxing

There's no cure for growing old, but you can slow down the aging process in a fairly painless manner. On this week's edition of the medical variety show "Shujii ga Mitsukaru Shinyojo (The Clinic Where You Can Find a Family Doctor) (TV Tokyo, Monday, 7 p.m.), guest physicians explain how rejuvenation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / ON THE ROAD
Jun 15, 2008

Women vie for the lead in motor racing

Hollywood's finest scriptwriters couldn't have come up with a better story line. A 92-year-old American car race where the winners celebrate with milk rather than champagne; where female drivers are more popular than their male counterparts; and where all V8 engines, supplied by Honda, run on renewable...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jun 15, 2008

Trio release music that's all bottled up

One recent night at Note Cafe, a small coffee shop tucked away on a side street off a shopping arcade in the Jujo district of northern Tokyo, two women and a man sat round a table together. They took out a dozen glass bottles of various sizes, shapes and colors, and placed them on the table.
Reader Mail
Jun 15, 2008

Get wise and lose the ties

Regarding the June 7 article "Cool biz Fukuda goes past tieless": The history of the necktie is a long and convoluted one. Some commentators suggest that its precursors hail from the Han Dynasty in China and Imperial Rome, where its function was to protect against the cold. During the Thirty Years War...
BUSINESS
Jun 15, 2008

G8 finance chiefs target inflation

OSAKA — The Group of Eight finance chiefs pledged Saturday to tackle the economic risks posed by soaring oil and food prices that are threatening global growth, which is already being hampered by the U.S. subprime mortgage loan crisis.
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / JAPAN LITE
Jun 14, 2008

Pilgrimages done on the run

Welcome to the hood: the Buddhahood. Some sects of Buddhism believe you can attain Buddhahood by chanting certain purification chants over and over. Others, such as Shingon, use pilgrimage as a method of achieving divine enlightenment and understanding of the world.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Jun 13, 2008

Lady virtuoso 'sings' like a bird

Her music is as lovely as a song sung by a pretty bird. Of course, birds don't actually "sing," and neither does Kimiko Wakiyama. Like a bird, she whistles. In fact she's a champion whistler, who won the women's crown at the 2007 International Whistlers Convention (IWC 2007) in North Carolina.
CULTURE / Music
Jun 13, 2008

Lee "Scratch" Perry "The Mighty Upsetter"

British dub pioneer Adrian Sherwood says in the press release for "The Mighty Upsetter" that it is Lee "Scratch" Perry's best album in decades — and it's hard to disagree with him. They key factor in its success is that notorious nutcase Perry (playing at Fuji Rock Festival this year, as is Adrian...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film / SHORT TAKES
Jun 13, 2008

"Tsukiji Uogashi Sandaime"

Director: Shingo Matsubara
JAPAN
Jun 13, 2008

Let 10% of Japan be foreigners: Nakagawa

Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers made an ambitious proposal Thursday to raise the ratio of immigrants in Japan to about 10 percent over the next 50 years.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / MY PLAYLIST
Jun 13, 2008

We Are Scientists

Three years after their catchy debut "With Love and Squalor" burrowed its way into the homes of 150,000 people worldwide, Brooklyn-based indie-rockers We Are Scientists are back.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 12, 2008

Why do displays of compassion differ between East and West?

NEW YORK — Why are French, British and American warships, but not Chinese or Malaysian warships, sitting near the Burmese coast loaded with food and other necessities for the victims of Cyclone Nargis?
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 12, 2008

Fukutoshin subway line debuts

Part of a new subway line that will snake down through Tokyo to link Saitama and Kanagawa prefectures will open Saturday, giving the public a new convenient way to access the crowded Shibuya, Shinjuku and Ikebukuro districts.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Stage
Jun 12, 2008

Actor Nomura brings noh to new audiences

If you've ever napped through a noh performance, you're not alone. But this 600-year-old Japanese theatrical genre is being updated to make it more of a 21st-century entertainment than a Japanophile's endurance test.
BUSINESS / G8 COUNTDOWN
Jun 12, 2008

Soaring prices pose challenge to G8 finance chiefs

Finance chiefs from the Group of Eight countries are expected to discuss Friday in Osaka how their economies can tame the soaring oil and food prices battering businesses and consumers around the world.
Reader Mail
Jun 12, 2008

Whiff of hypocrisy in gate-tending

For Japanese people to express antipathy toward allowing the population of resident foreigners to rise suggests not a small dose of xenophobia. For a foreigner in Japan to echo the sentiment adds a whiff of hypocrisy.
BUSINESS
Jun 12, 2008

Focus on batteries for Toyota hybrids

Looking to put a charge into sales of its electric vehicles, Toyota Motor Corp. said Wednesday it will boost efforts next month to develop next-generation batteries that can outperform lithium-ion cells.
COMMENTARY
Jun 11, 2008

Washington and Baghdad: the treaty that isn't

In the Sherlock Holmes story "Silver Blaze," the world's most famous private detective refers to "the curious incident of the dog in the night." "But the dog did nothing in the night," replies his interlocutor. "That was the curious incident," says Holmes. The dogs aren't barking over the U.S.-Iraq treaty,...

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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.