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Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Voices / VIEWS FROM THE STREET
Feb 1, 2005

Should foreigners be allowed to hold government positions in Japan?

Greg Stelljes Software Dev., 30 I don't think it's a problem if it's at a lower level. At the highest echelons it might cause a problem. Where they're from and the current political situation should be considered. Upper management should be more security checks.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2005

Key to a common currency

The Economist magazine forecast in a recent issue that a future multiple reserve currency system could include the Chinese yuan: "The world might drift toward a multiple reserve currency system shared by the dollar, the euro and the yen, or indeed the yuan at some time in the future."
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Jan 31, 2005

Far-fetched redesigns between the lines

NEW YORK -- "Contrapuntal reading," as Edward Said called it, is the ability to read between the lines. The reader must be able to have what is referred to, but not described, play off the main descriptive concern. This ability is particularly important with novels written while empire-building was in...
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 31, 2005

Fires of hope for the leprosy-afflicted

There is a disease that is completely curable. It is phenomenally hard to contract. If caught early, it has little to no effect on those who have been touched by it. Yet, mention of this disease fills people with more dread, with more gut-level loathing, than any other. The disease is leprosy. It is...
EDITORIALS
Jan 30, 2005

Not just rhetoric anymore

Nine days ago, U.S. President George W. Bush delivered his second inaugural speech, a rousing, 21-minute address in which, among other things, he extolled liberty and proclaimed "ending tyranny in our world" the ultimate goal of U.S. policy. God himself backed this policy, Mr. Bush said. Wasn't it in...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 30, 2005

McLaughlin: a mind-set for music

Guitarist John McLaughlin burst onto the jazz scene in the 1960s as a member of Miles Davis' cutting-edge electric groups. On famed works like "In a Silent Way," "Bitches' Brew" and "Jack Johnson," his guitar work very much helped define Miles' sound. Then in the early '70s, his own jazz-rock fusion...
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

'Curiosity' at the core of days packed with lots to chew on

Atsuko Tanuma's day begins at 5 a.m. It's a routine she has followed for 17 years, since she started preparing lunch-boxes for her first son when he began kindergarten at the age of 4.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

Counselor counters the blues through chanson and jazz

Junko Umihara turned up a bit late for our interview at a cafe in Tokyo's Hiroo district one afternoon recently. She had been with a patient at her Umihara Mental Clinic in nearby Minato Ward, she said, "and counseling took a bit longer than scheduled."
Japan Times
Features
Jan 30, 2005

'Secret' writer joins Diet drama

There are lawyers-turned-politicians. There are bureaucrats-turned-politicians. There are professors-turned-politicians . . . sports players-turned-politicians . . . actors-turned-politicians . . . and so on.
JAPAN
Jan 29, 2005

Roppongi: from ashes to 'High Touch Town'

The Roppongi district of Tokyo has been through a turbulent time in the 60 years since it was destroyed by firebombing during World War II.
SPORTS / SPORTS SCOPE
Jan 28, 2005

Top student players need to get a 'real' rugby education

The university final earlier this month between Waseda and Kanto Gakuin highlighted all that is good and bad about college rugby in Japan.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music / THE SECOND ROOM
Jan 28, 2005

2004: Year of the bounce; Serious Sirius

Calamitous. The world was a bouncin' in 2004.
BASKETBALL / NBA / NBA REPORT
Jan 27, 2005

Wilkens debacle means honeymoon over for Isiah in New York

NEW YORK -- Paying off or buying out predecessors' blunders -- coaches, players and front office personnel -- is acceptable standard operating procedure for newly hired sports executives.
MORE SPORTS
Jan 26, 2005

Takahashi returns to training

Sydney Olympic champion Naoko Takahashi began a one-month training camp on Tuesday and is in high spirits about her comeback to competitive marathon racing from an ankle injury.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2005

Hike in Tokyo-Seoul exchanges eyed

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi expressed hope Tuesday that exchanges of people between Japan and South Korea will top 5 million this year, the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations.
JAPAN
Jan 26, 2005

Panel: Is a woman's place on the throne?

A private advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi kicked off discussions Tuesday on the Imperial House Law, with the central theme to be whether and how a female could ascend to the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Jan 26, 2005

Sub Pop's second coming

In the late '80s and early '90s, Seattle and its music scene became the center of the pop culture universe. Sub Pop, the small label founded by sometime journalist Bruce Pavitt and nurtured with his partner Jonathan Poneman was its primary documenter.
Japan Times
Features
Jan 23, 2005

Rapa Nui

Easter Island has been many things in the three centuries it has been known to the West: mooted landing site of UFOs; exotic long-haul holiday destination; and favorite location of the Discovery Channel -- to name just a few.
COMMENTARY
Jan 23, 2005

The lobbyists who advertise

MANILA -- As the complexity of the issues facing our societies continues to grow, political decision-makers increasingly face the problem of how to handle what is often termed information overkill.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Jan 23, 2005

LDP big guns fight NHK censorship claims

Last Monday, a meeting organized by the Violence Against Women in War Network Japan to discuss its ongoing lawsuit against NHK was moved at the last minute from a tiny room in the Bunkyo Kumin Center to a large hall at the YMCA. The change was made to accommodate the many reporters who were suddenly...
Japan Times
Features
Jan 23, 2005

Women to the fore in study of statues

At midday on March 29, 1914, a yacht named Mana, flying the British colors, dropped anchor in the tiny inlet of Cook's Bay, Hanga Roa. On board was an anthropologist who would carry out the first systematic survey of the Easter Island statues, and who would also record the last memories of a dying generation...
COMMENTARY
Jan 22, 2005

Too soon to end U.S. military's aid effort

LOS ANGELES -- What seems truly noteworthy about the U.S. response to the tsunami disaster (especially as viewed here from the West Coast) is the dramatic duration of the caring. Even as the TV media have begun to lose interest (predictably), the general interest here seems not to be waning at all.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Jan 21, 2005

Has master manipulator Ferguson unnerved Wenger?

LONDON -- Earlier this season, the sports pages of English newspapers were delighted when the public row between Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsenal's Arsene Wenger kicked off (though no one expected it to be continuing and even gathering pace three months later).
Japan Times
SUMO
Jan 21, 2005

Asashoryu a win away from title

Mongolian grand champion Asashoryu defeated Tochiazuma at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament on Thursday but will have to wait another day to wrap up his 10th Emperor's Cup.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / TOKYO FOOD FILE
Jan 21, 2005

Inakaya East: Performance art of the robatayaki

As you slide open the door and enter, a chorus of yells assails your ears, echoing around the room. Before you are even seated, there will be more shouts and responses unleashed by the same bevy of full-throated floor staff. And then again when you order that first drink. And so on all evening. Welcome...
EDITORIALS
Jan 20, 2005

Unfinished tasks for Mr. Koizumi

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, speaking at the Liberal Democratic Party's annual convention Tuesday, again expressed his resolve to privatize postal services, saying that "without constant efforts for reform, possibilities for Japan's development will be closed." Mr. Koizumi defines postal privatization...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Jan 19, 2005

Not a whodunit but a whydunit

Coming last in a daylong round of media interviews, I was expecting my 40 minutes with Shinji Aoyama to be strained, as in "I'm so tired I can hardly stand." Instead, he came into the meeting room at Toho with a smile and a brisk manner, as in "I'm just getting warmed up." While he was obviously there...
COMMENTARY
Jan 18, 2005

Same old contrived hysteria

Japan seems headed for yet another bout of emotional confrontation with North Korea and China.
COMMUNITY / How-tos / LIFELINES
Jan 18, 2005

Repairs, old CDs and disaster information

Apartment problems My wife and I have lived in our small apartment for 7 years. In that time, we have had virtually no contact with our landlord or real estate agent.

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