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COMMENTARY / World
Aug 20, 2012

Why do American junk food giants feel the urge to force-feed us tidbit sermons on social issues?

Since when does serving up junk food give someone a license to preach?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 20, 2012

A how-to guide to becoming a translator of how-to guides

Thinking back, I never set out with the intention of becoming a translator. I was employed by a small travel agency in Osaka and was only dimly aware that such an occupation even existed. But word got around that I could read Japanese, and one winter day in 1975 I was approached by an inventor who had...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 19, 2012

Yakuza face new battles within and without

The nation's largest underworld syndicate, the Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi, is 97 years old.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 19, 2012

Monster parents make matters worse for their children and teachers

In the West they hover and swoop. In Japan they stalk and are known to strike. We all have them and some of us have been them. And in recent years the media, both social and antisocial, have put them under the magnifying glass of criticism.
CULTURE / Books
Aug 19, 2012

Japanese-Americans: life after the war and internment

AFTER CAMP: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life and Politics, by Greg Robinson. University of California Press, 2012, 328 pp., $27.95 (paperback) "A Jap is a Jap."
COMMENTARY
Aug 18, 2012

'Extreme' choice makes Romney presidential

When, in his speech accepting the 1964 Republican presidential nomination, Barry Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue," a media wit at the convention supposedly exclaimed, "Good God, Goldwater is going to run as Goldwater."...
EDITORIALS
Aug 18, 2012

Dealing with the Senkaku intruders

On Wednesday (Aug. 15), the 67th anniversary of the end of World War II, seven people disembarked off a boat from Hong Kong and set foot on the Uotsuri Islet of Japan's Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives
Aug 18, 2012

Innovative organic farming achieves sustainability in rural Hokkaido

How to endure? It's an elemental question perfectly matched to the endless, ripening fields of the organic farm Land Mann in the town of Biei, Hokkaido.
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2012

Orix looking to buy stake in Dubai life insurance firm

Orix Corp. is in talks to spend about $400 million to buy a stake in a Dubai-based life insurer from a European bank, according to President Makoto Inoue.
BUSINESS
Aug 18, 2012

Government foresees deflation end even though prices are still falling

The government has forecast an end to deflation even after a report this week showed the economy is still struggling to shake off more than a decade of falling prices.
COMMENTARY
Aug 17, 2012

Ryan invites a 'conversation'

The selection of Paul Ryan — chairman of the House Budget Committee — as Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate has the potential to turn this dreary presidential campaign into a meaningful debate over the size and role of the federal government.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Aug 17, 2012

'Dogtooth'

Dogtooth" shows the kind of stark, nightmarish images that assail the senses during a fretful summer nap, when the body soaks the sheets and you're disoriented for a while afterward. What just happened here? It's not easy to say, except that the long procession of bizarre scenes evoke the distinct sensation...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Aug 17, 2012

Light meals for Tokyo's long, sticky summer

Summertime, and the living is far from easy in the city. Stuck in the middle of the heat island, appetites fray and taste buds wilt like yesterday's lettuce. Simple snacks are called for, not major meals, with copious quantities of liquid sustenance too.
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2012

Wasteful ways to quench thirst

With the unrelenting hot weather across Japan, we're reminded daily in TV news reports about the importance of keeping hydrated, which unfortunately too many of us do with little thought.
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2012

Standing up for Japan's farmers

The Aug. 9 Bloomberg article "JA farm co-op behemoth puts self first, free trade last" was right on the mark about special interests' preventing Japan's comparatively inefficient agricultural system from evolving. However, some issues deserve greater emphasis.
Reader Mail
Aug 16, 2012

Tepco must reveal everything

Regarding the Aug. 10 front-page Jiji Press article "Seawater option for meltdown galled execs": Over the ages, we humans have made small mistakes, big mistakes and very big mistakes. It is human to err. To learn from the mistakes and take effective steps not to repeat them is what set humans apart from...
JAPAN
Aug 16, 2012

Two Cabinet ministers visit Yasukuni

Marking the 67th anniversary of the end of World War II, two Cabinet ministers on Wednesday paid what they said was a private visit to war-related Yasukuni Shrine, the first by such high-ranking politicians since the Democratic Party of Japan took power in 2009.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 16, 2012

Spillover could force Washington to consider how to end Syria's war

"The beginning of wisdom," a Chinese saying goes, "is to call things by their right names." And the right name for what is happening in Syria — and has been for more than a year — is an all-out civil war.

Longform

Eme-Ima Kitchen is one of over 10,000 kodomo shokudō in Japan. A term first used in 2012 to describe makeshift eateries offering free or cheap meals to disadvantaged kids, it now refers to a diverse range of individuals, groups and organizations working to provide not only food but a sense of belonging to both children and adults.
Japan’s ‘children’s cafeterias’ are booming — but is that a good thing?