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BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Apr 21, 2008

Squabbling ruined chance for private-sector BOJ chief

The dispute over replacing the Bank of Japan governor, whose seat was left vacant when Toshihiko Fukui's five-year term ended March 19, was finally settled April 9 when Deputy Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa was officially promoted to chief of the central bank.
Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Greasing the wrong wheels

In "Leviathan" Thomas Hobbes wrote, "Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money." These words apply to the tentative law of road construction included in the gasoline tax. The word "temporary" means "semi-permanent" in the crooked world of politics, and this huge budget has snowballed to...
Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Lunatic fringe runs rampant

Regarding the controversy over the "Yasukuni" documentary by Li Ying, why must the theaters cancel screenings of the film -- and their freedom of speech rights -- because rightwing sound trucks will "inconvenience" their neighbors? Surely it is the responsibility of the police to prevent this inconvenience....
Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Pets deserve better food

Regarding the April 4 article "Be wary: It's a dog-eat-dog food world out there:" This article on pet food indicated that in previous years pets such as dogs and cats were fed on scrap food. As a result of being fed on remnant food, pets live relatively short lives. But scientists have since developed...
Reader Mail
Apr 20, 2008

Loosen Net restrictions in China

The April 6 article "China allows access to English Wikipedia" mentions that the Chinese government has finally allowed people to access the English version of Wikipedia. On the other hand, there are still great numbers of Web sites that remain blocked.
CULTURE / Books
Apr 20, 2008

A Tibetan terror rules the waves

THE WHEEL OF DARKNESS by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. New York: Warner Books, 2007, 388 pp., $25.99 (cloth) Tales of suspense that incorporate obscure aspects of the supernatural from ancient civilizations have long enjoyed a popular following. Take William Peter Blatty's "The Exorcist" (1971), a...
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Apr 20, 2008

Belly-laughs boffin puts mirth to the test

When people laugh, it is often their cheery sounds or the wrinkles around their eyes that mark out their mirth. Yoji Kimura believes, however, that the key to determining the nature of laughter lies in the diaphragm.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Apr 20, 2008

Notes on 'Later Term Elderly People Medical Treatment' joke

Stop me if you've heard this one. A bunch of elderly people are sitting in the waiting room of a doctor's office, catching up on neighborhood gossip and their own health woes. As Mrs. Sato goes on about her lumbago, Mr. Kobayashi interrupts. "Where's Suzuki-san?" he says. "He's usually here by now."...
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Apr 19, 2008

Liverpool perseveres as owners air dirty laundry in public

LONDON — It says much about the new wave of Premier League owners that a hugely popular manager who feels his position is being undermined is considering his future despite continued success, while one jeered by the club's fans seems set to remain in charge.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Apr 19, 2008

Rightists' 'Yasukuni' preview gets thumbs down

At a special preview of "Yasukuni" demanded by rightwing groups, some of the 150 members criticized the controversial, but award-winning, documentary about the so-named Tokyo war shrine and even threatened to sue the state for subsidizing part of its production.
EDITORIALS
Apr 18, 2008

Safety comes first at nuclear plants

The Atomic Energy Commission's white paper on nuclear power for 2007 that has been adopted by the government says that a worldwide increase in nuclear-power generation is indispensable to fighting global warming. This is in line with the government's call for halving CO・emissions by 2050. But promoting...
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / HOTELS & RESTAURANTS
Apr 18, 2008

The Great Japan Beer Festival, the Grand Hyatt hits 5, and Cantonese cuisine at the Mandarin Oriental.

Grand Hyatt's fifth anniversary The Grand Hyatt Tokyo will serve special dinner courses at all of its restaurants and one of its bars as part of "In celebration of the Five Senses of the Grand Hyatt Tokyo," which marks its fifth anniversary on April 25.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 18, 2008

'Paranoid Park'/'You, the Living'

Spree killer, rock star, average teenage skater. Director Gus Van Sant sees all three in much the same light: emotionless, affectless, blank. Numb characters for a numb generation? Or is Van Sant's penchant for an aesthetic — an aloof, arty minimalism — blinding him to things like personality, expression,...
BUSINESS
Apr 18, 2008

Toyota's Hino Motors to end truck production at U.S. plant

Toyota's truck subsidiary, Hino Motors Ltd., will stop making trucks at one of its U.S. plants as surging oil prices and the credit crisis squelches demand, a company spokesman said Thursday.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Apr 18, 2008

'Shaolin Girl'

Chihiro Kameyama, Japan's most successful film producer, is not a man to miss an opportunity. When Stephen Chow's comedy "Shaolin Soccer" became a smash in Japan in 2002, Kameyama had the idea of joining with Chow to make a Japanese spinoff. Now, six years later, we have "Shaolin Shojo (Shaolin Girl),"...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Apr 18, 2008

How Cheap Trick put the Budokan on the map

The first pop group to ever play Nippon Budokan Hall in Tokyo was The Beatles in 1966, a concert that caused quite a scandal because of the auditoriums' semisacred status as Japan's premier martial-arts venue. Rightwingers protested the show but in the end the prerogatives of capitalism prevailed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Apr 17, 2008

A simulacrum of the city

'With love from . . ." — it's the kind of message an expatriate might pen. Implicit in it is the warmth in the offering, a written embrace.
JAPAN
Apr 17, 2008

Designer's 'ecological fur' line slammed as 'green-wash' ploy

Basking in the runway spotlight at a Tokyo fashion show Monday, next to the ¥5 million Russian sable coat is a cape of lowly polyester sewn with chinchilla that's being billed as "ecological fur."
BUSINESS
Apr 17, 2008

Japan blocks TCI from upping J-Power stake

The government on Wednesday rejected a U.K.-based hedge fund's request to raise its stake in Japan's largest electricity wholesaler, citing a potential threat to national security.

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan