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Reader Mail
Jul 31, 2008

Mind boggles at police reports

Regarding the July 29 articles "Woman slashes six at train station" and "11 nabbed in record porn seizure": Can anyone in Japan explain to me why the woman who slashed six at Hiratsuka Station is not identified by name, and why it remains "legal to possess child pornography for individual use."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / INSIDE ART
Jul 31, 2008

You can always buy your way in

Art changes with the times, so why shouldn't art galleries? Some say that Japan's unique "rental gallery" system, where young artists pay hundreds of thousands of yen per week to show their work, is on its last legs. If so, is it a case of good riddance? Or does this represent the retreat of a perfectly...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 30, 2008

Ex-captive: Bogota prevailing over FARC

The recent bloodless rescue of 15 hostages in Colombia, including a former presidential candidate who had been held for more than six years, was seen internationally as a signal that the Bogota government was finally prevailing over the nation's leftist guerrillas.
EDITORIALS
Jul 29, 2008

Spending off the road

The ruling coalition partners Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito have started discussions on how to proceed with the plan to free up the use of revenues from road-related taxes. A consultative body, made up of officials from both parties, will serve as the ruling bloc's decision-maker on the issue....
Japan Times
JAPAN / EXPLAINER
Jul 29, 2008

It came, it saw, and it bowled over Japan

It has slurped its way into becoming Japan's favorite food.
Japan Times
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jul 27, 2008

Athletics squad faces pressure in Beijing

There was a mild dose of optimism Japan would collect a bunch of medals at the 2007 IAAF World Athletics Championships in Osaka. Some said the nation's athletes would benefit from the home stadium advantage and the fact they were acclimated to the hot, humid summers in Kansai.
CULTURE / Books
Jul 27, 2008

Space and the city: experimenting in Japan

BURN YOUR BELONGINGS by David F. Hoenigman. SIX GALLERY PRESS, 2008, 201 pp., $24.99 (paper) In a letter to Charles Olson on June 5, 1950, the late Robert Creeley wrote that "form is never more than an extension of content." In her "How To Write" published in 1931, Gertrude Stein claimed "Sentences are...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Jul 26, 2008

Mazda resurgent as Ford finds need for small autos

Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Officer Alan Mulally's crisis is Mazda Motor Corp. CEO Hisakazu Imaki's opportunity.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / LIQUID CULTURE
Jul 25, 2008

Cooling it down with Tokyo's best

"Go around the beaches and let's have a list of the best seaside bars," said my editor. In this heat? Not a chance. But here's something better: five refreshing cocktail recipes from a quintet of great bartenders. Each of these invigorating drinks was designed to zap your summer indolence and clear the...
COMMENTARY
Jul 23, 2008

Omar al-Bashir versus the ICC

All the opposition groups in Darfur celebrated when the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced on July 14 that he was seeking the indictment of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on the charge of genocide, but almost everybody else had a problem with it. They don't doubt that al-Bashir...
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2008

Scorched-manager policy

MONTREAL — Signs of the American economy's perilous condition are everywhere — from yawning fiscal and current-account deficits to plummeting home prices and a feeble dollar.
Japan Times
LIFE / WEEK 3
Jul 20, 2008

Temporary arrangements

Akio Watanabe knows what a dead end feels like.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jul 19, 2008

The rising middle classes want their wheels

BEIJING — W hat becomes immediately apparent on entering the 10th annual Beijing car show is the emotional intensity with which China has thrown itself into its greatest consumerist passion to date: the first throes of an affair with the car. The entire nation, it turns out, is in love with them, is...
Reader Mail
Jul 17, 2008

Leadoff street view seems lame

Regarding Debito Arudou's July 8 Zeit Gist article, "Beware the foreigner as guinea pig": I couldn't help but notice the curious order in which opinions about the article were placed in Views From the Street (at the bottom of the page). The first opinion not only is a biased and bigoted viewpoint of...
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Jul 16, 2008

Lives and a death

CHUKOTKA, Russia — This month, instead of writing this column as usual at my desk in Hokkaido, I am writing from a desk on board the Clipper Odyssey as we cross the Gulf of Anadyr in Russia's far northeastern Chukotka region. Our voyage began at Otaru, Hokkaido, and we have taken in southern Sakhalin,...
EDITORIALS
Jul 16, 2008

North Korea's nuclear programs

The six nations in negotiations on the denuclearization of North Korea last week agreed on basic principles for verifying the North's declaration of its nuclear programs.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Jul 15, 2008

Human rights — strictly personal, strictly Japanese?

Go figure. Just a few weeks after I wrote about how Japanese courts try to avoid doing anything dramatic, on June 4 the Supreme Court ruled that a section of the Nationality Law was unconstitutional. Such rulings being so rare, I steeled myself for a big helping of highfalutin' Japanese legalese and...
Japan Times
Features
Jul 13, 2008

Japan's culture policy lingers in limbo

It's a fact that has long puzzled devotees and plain old tourists alike. Japan's manga and anime arts have been wowing the world for more than a decade, and yet the national government still hasn't got around to setting up a proper museum for their enjoyment, preservation and study.
Japan Times
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball
Jul 12, 2008

Aoki makes big impact

For the Tokyo Yakult Swallows, who have made substantial changes to their roster over the past year or two, Norichika Aoki serves as a stabilizer on and off the field.
BASEBALL / Japanese Baseball / NPB NOTEBOOK
Jul 12, 2008

Talented Tigers excel in season's first half

The Hanshin Tigers are so far ahead in the Central League standings the Japanese media has already given them a magic number.
COMMENTARY
Jul 11, 2008

Life and death of an American editing legend

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — An over-used cliche in the American language is that some man or woman is or was "larger than life." As with most cliches, this one can render a measure of value by capturing the aura of an unusual individual.

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