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Japan Times
BASKETBALL / HOOP SCOOP
Jun 30, 2013

Brown imparting wisdom to Japan squad

Larry Brown, the Basketball Hall of Fame coach, has never been accused of embracing job stability. So maybe it's not surprising that his older brother, Herb, also a basketball lifer, has had a nomadic existence in the coaching business, too.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel / BACKSTREET STORIES
Jun 30, 2013

Blazing a woodland trail through Shin Kiba

Even if you can't read the kanji for Shin Kiba, you'll sniff out its meaning of "new wood place" the moment you arrive. The Yurakucho subway line's terminus there in eastern Tokyo smells like a cedar closet. Inside the station, a display of Japanese carpentry — including beams featuring dovetail, mitered...
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 30, 2013

A defeat for DOMA, and the end of the 'ick' factor

Future generations will shake their heads at how fearful Americans sounded today debating same-sex marriage. At least most of the Supreme Court justices get it.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 30, 2013

Constitutional revision: Proposed Abe-rights look to be all wrong

After the Upper House elections on July 21, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe may try to revise the Constitution. This longstanding agenda is now within reach because the Liberal Democratic Party he heads might be able to rally the necessary two-thirds of votes in both chambers of the Diet.
Japan Times
WORLD
Jun 29, 2013

Charles Saatchi: art supremo with an image problem

When the art collector Charles Saatchi wants something, he knows how to set about getting it. Gallerists and curators are full of stories about the way he walks into an exhibition, fixes on the single best work of art on show and rushes toward it — in the words of one acquaintance, "like a heat-seeking...
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 29, 2013

Deepening, revising ties with Southeast Asia

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Japan mark the 40th anniversary of their cooperative relations this year. ASEAN and Japan's partnership, which began with the establishment of the ASEAN-Japan forum on synthetic rubber, has evolved over the 40 years. The two parties have formed close cooperation...
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Economy / GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS SYMPOSIUM
Jun 28, 2013

Fragmented or lacking institutions hinder economies from recovering

Japanese companies still face an uphill battle to maintain their competitiveness, given the obstacles and opportunities in the country's political and economic environment.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Jun 28, 2013

First MOX shipment since 3/11 arrives in Fukui

Japan's first shipment of mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel since the Fukushima nuclear crisis broke out on March, 11, 2011, arrives at Takahama, Fukui Prefecture.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics
Jun 28, 2013

Komeito to campaign for nuke phaseout, denies disconnect with LDP

New Komeito, the junior coalition partner of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, pledged Thursday to push for a nuclear phaseout at the earliest possible date and bolster the Constitution by adding more provisions, a sharp contrast to the LDP's desire to promote atomic power and rewrite the national...
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 28, 2013

China lets Tibetans venerate Dalai Lama

The Chinese government has loosened restrictions that kept Tibetan monks in two provinces from openly revering the Dalai Lama, Radio Free Asia reported.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013

'Senkyo 2 (Campaign 2)'

In the more than three decades I've lived here, I have progressed (if that is the right word) from irritation at the oddness of Japanese election campaigns to something like curiosity. How, I once wondered, could anyone choose intelligently among candidates whose "dialogue" with the voters was mostly...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 28, 2013

'Compliance'

Of all the films you'll see this year, "Compliance" has, for sure, the most unbelievable plot of them all. The little tagline at the beginning saying "inspired by true events" hasn't stopped people from taking outrage at director Craig Zobel's supposed exaggerations, with "Nobody could possibly be that...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Jun 27, 2013

Everyday goods: the Japanese art of convenience

"Mingei" translates as "folk art" and is connected to objects that are made or used by ordinary people on an everyday basis. Usually this evokes hand-crafted objects, such as ceramics, baskets, items of woodwork, etc. As such, the term is evocative of the era before mass global trade. In modern Japan,...
Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC
Jun 27, 2013

Snowden's stay in H.K. filled with intrigue

The message was blunt and was delivered Friday night by a shadowy emissary who didn't identify himself but knew enough to locate Edward Snowden's secret caretaker: The 30-year-old American accused of leaking some of his country's most sensitive secrets should leave Hong Kong, the messenger said, and...
Japan Times
SOCCER / SOCCER SCENE
Jun 27, 2013

Zaccheroni feels heat for first time after early exit from Brazil

Alberto Zaccheroni has enjoyed an exceptionally smooth first three years as national team manager, but after coming in for widespread criticism in the wake of Japan's early exit from the Confederations Cup, the Italian can expect a bumpy ride before the World Cup begins next summer.
Reader Mail
Jun 27, 2013

Responsibilities toward the state

The June 23 Bloomberg article by Peter Gumbel, "French high school curriculum includes pitfalls U.S. should try to avoid with its Common Core," talks about the relatively high standard of the French baccalaureat secondary school graduation exams, and a corresponding dropout rate.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE FOREIGN ELEMENT
Jun 25, 2013

Authors take polar-opposite tacks as they try to decipher Japanese women

It's an all-too-familiar story: On the romantic front, foreign ladies living in Japan have it bad while the guys do unbelievably well. For every woman who complains about Japanese men's aloofness and lack of communication skills, there is a man who boasts about all the local chicks he's had.
Japan Times
WORLD / Politics
Jun 24, 2013

Is Rand Paul going mainstream, or is mainstream going Rand Paul?

Rand Paul seems to be crossing over to the mainstream — or maybe it's the other way around. When Kentucky's junior senator arrived in Washington just over two years ago, he seemed destined to inhabit the role of perpetual outlier. But now, he's in the mix on just about everything that is happening,...
Japan Times
WORLD / Society
Jun 24, 2013

Baby names by red and blue, not pink and blue

Republicans and Democrats don't seem to agree on very much these days. They are divided on the kinds of television shows they watch, cars they drive and beers they drink. And now research by political scientists at the University of Chicago adds one more thing to that list: baby names.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 23, 2013

Happiness: Abenomics falls short

What makes people happy? The global trend toward quantifying happiness certainly got a big boost from Bhutan, the tiny Himalayan kingdom that has championed and made a cottage industry out of the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH).
Reader Mail
Jun 23, 2013

Mild wisecrack in comparison

On behalf of Christians everywhere, I apologize to Drusilla de Lanor for making her think she has to "walk on eggshells" around us. I share her view that Brian Redmond overreacted to Amy Chavez's "that guy on the cross" quip, although not for the same reason. While De Lanor thinks Redmond's letter was...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 23, 2013

Modern science needs to reject 'fairy tales,' get a grip on reality

At an interdisciplinary gathering of academics discussing the concept of time, I once heard a scientist tell the assembled humanities scholars that physics can now replace all their woolly notions of time with one that is unique, precise and true. Such scientism is rightly undermined by theoretical physicist...
WORLD
Jun 22, 2013

Fighting the poachers on Africa's thin green line

Esnart Paundi rarely smiled for the camera. One old photo shows her wearing her ranger's camouflage fatigues and a pensive expression as she crouches beside a mound of bushmeat and three despondent poachers, one handcuffed. In another she is in a black leather jacket at her sister's home, leaning against...
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jun 21, 2013

Gallus: Torishiki spinoff is a chick of the same feather

It's always exciting when a favorite restaurant sprouts an offshoot, especially if that restaurant is among the best of its kind in the city. And even more so when it's such a hot table that reservations are nigh-on impossible.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 21, 2013

In electronic snooping, level of oversight is key

Americans are learning what electronics whizzes and hackers have known all along — that computers and smartphones, which make our lives more productive and entertaining, have at the same time ended privacy as most of us have understood it.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

'Sayonara Keikoku (The Ravine of Goodbye)'

What are the limits of forgiveness? Our various gods may forgive our sins, but we humans don't always find it easy to follow suit. Violations of the body are among the crimes hardest to forgive, since the victims are left with not only scars, visible and invisible, but also a cold anger against the perpetrator(s)....
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

How top lowbrow U.S. humor translates in Japan

Somewhere in the history of American cinema, someone (maybe John Waters?) decided that gross and profane and funny could all sit on the same park bench and start up a friendship. That was way back in the 1970s.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jun 21, 2013

'After Earth'

It's the year 1,000 A.E. — After Earth, hence the name of the movie — a millennium since humanity fled an ecologically ravaged Earth for a new home on another planet. Commander Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his sulky 13-year-old son Kitai (Jaden Smith) are out on a routine training mission when their...
EDITORIALS
Jun 21, 2013

Trying time for Turkish democracy

The unrest in Turkey continues, touched off by a May 31 clash between police forces and protesters opposed to the Turkish government's plan to redevelop Gezi Park in Istanbul. At the root of the unrest is the resistance by people who fear the government is retreating from the principle of secularism....

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