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Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 25, 2004

Funny how things work out

Uptown Girls Rating: * * 1/2(out of 5) Director: Boaz Yakin Running time: 92 minutes Language: English Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] "Living isn't worth it if you're not gonna have fun!" declares bubbly 22-year-old Molly. "Fundamentals are the building blocks of...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Issues / THE ZEIT GIST
Feb 24, 2004

McEnglish for the masses

American sociologist George Ritzer coined the term McDonaldization to describe how a method of production that originated in fast food restaurants is sweeping through every aspect of society.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 23, 2004

Casting calls begin for vice presidency

WASHINGTON -- Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry has the Democratic nomination for president nearly wrapped up with his victory in Wisconsin last Tuesday, giving him victories in 15 of the 17 primaries and caucuses contested to date. There will be some mopping up, and then a cakewalk to his hometown of Boston...
COMMENTARY / THE VIEW FROM NEW YORK
Feb 23, 2004

Critical war questions beg for an answer

NEW YORK -- First, my historian friend George Akita sent me a clipping of former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's article that appeared in The Honolulu Advertiser (Aug. 7, 2003). Titled "We need rules for waging war," the piece begins with McNamara remembering the night of March 9, 1945, when...
COMMENTARY
Feb 23, 2004

U.S. harsh line won't help

The official U.S. negotiating position for the upcoming North Korean peace talks in Beijing was recently laid out by the top U.S. negotiator, a respected man of peace. But details of the position may actually be a prescription for war. This is alarming.
EDITORIALS
Feb 22, 2004

Water, water everywhere

Water is not what it once was, a synonym for simplicity and transparency. We used to bathe in it unthinkingly, admire it in our scenic views, drink it straight from the well or tap, and generally take it for granted. It soothed us by its very plainness: "Meditation and water are wedded forever," said...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Feb 22, 2004

Legends keep it visceral and current

Colin Newman of the English punk band Wire uses the words "interesting" and "energy" a lot when he talks about music. "Interesting" can often be a backhanded compliment, but Newman uses it literally because he tends to approach pop as an intellectual endeavor.
COMMUNITY
Feb 21, 2004

Breathe under water with Aqua Adventure Divers

If Kevin Winchester is not covering ground on skis, or by motorbike (a mighty Honda CB1300cc, as befits a member of Tokyo Riders), he is flying high or diving deep. But don't call him sporty, or the outdoor type. "They are just things I like to do!"
JAPAN
Feb 20, 2004

Bolton downplays disagreement over Japan-Iran oil deal

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton on Thursday tried to play down any disagreements between the U.S. and Japan over Tokyo's oil development deal with Tehran.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT / WILD WATCH
Feb 19, 2004

Distance lends enchantment

Take a look at a map of the west side of the Pacific and you'll find a fractured scatter of islands from the Kuriles south of Kamchatka, through Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea and New Caledonia all the way to New Zealand and its sub-Antarctic Islands straddling the Roaring 40s and the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Feb 18, 2004

We just can't get enough

With Valentine's Day just past, let's pay tribute to one of the most enduring love affairs of our time -- that between Japan's gallery-going public and France's Impressionist artists. It's the Real Thing.
EDITORIALS
Feb 17, 2004

Pyongyang talks leave door ajar

It appears that North Korea now wants to reach some sort of agreement with Japan over the abduction issue. Last week, two ranking officials of the Japanese Foreign Ministry visited Pyongyang for the first government-to-government talks in 16 months. Although nothing specific is alleged to have resulted...
COMMENTARY
Feb 17, 2004

U.S.-British naivete unmasked

With the United States bringing out new rules of international relations regularly, it is important to take stock from time to time. One of them, spawned by the Iraq conflict, is the uncertainty doctrine. This says that whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or not does not matter. What is...
EDITORIALS
Feb 15, 2004

Romance by the numbers

You have to hand it to Singapore: It is doing its best to lose its longtime image as the nanny state of Asia. In fact, with the launch earlier this month of the now annual "Romancing Singapore" campaign, it is behaving less like a nanny and more like a madam.
Japan Times
Features
Feb 15, 2004

Soaking up Sakura

Pass by the noisy pachinko parlor near BicCamera in Yokohama, turn the corner at the red paper lantern outside the yakitori shop and, tucked away down an alleyway, you'll find a villa-like little storefront labeled "Snack Sakura."
Japan Times
Features
Feb 15, 2004

Laughs and tears in life at Lily's

Lil is a woman who knows a thing or two about survival.
Features
Feb 15, 2004

Lap up a taste of the good times

"I'm going to be in tears before the end of all this. I just know it," says Heidy, fluttering her mascara-clad eyes.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / Our Lives / PERSONALITY PROFILE
Feb 14, 2004

Roland Thompson

His happiest memory, Roland Thompson says, is of his training, and learning advanced techniques, in Soke Shioda's black-belt aikido classes. His saddest memory is of the day Shioda died. He regards himself as "very fortunate to have been with him, and to have trained with him, during that last part of...
JAPAN / LABOR PAINS
Feb 13, 2004

Medical sector faces hard choice amid aging society

As Japan gropes for solutions to the imminent labor shortage amid the rapidly graying population, the failure of a private-sector project to import nurses is a bitter reminder of the hurdles involved in attracting and keeping foreign professionals here.
SOCCER / PREMIER REPORT
Feb 13, 2004

Hoddle returning to Southampton not a good, or popular, idea

LONDON -- Imagine your company has a product soon to go on the market and to test public opinion you canvass the views of most of the potential buyers.
JAPAN
Feb 12, 2004

Visaless foreigners to be denied national health cover

After the Supreme Court ruled last month that it is illegal to bar visaless foreigners from the national health insurance scheme, the health ministry is mulling the creation of an ordinance to do just that.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Feb 11, 2004

Ah, that's Dogma amore

Italian for Beginners Rating: * * * * (out of 5) Japanese title: Shiawase ni naru tame Itariagokoza Director: Lone Scherfig Running time: 97 minutes Language: Danish, Italian Currently showing [See Japan Times movie listings] "Italian for Beginners" is a sweet, unpretentious love story...
EDITORIALS
Feb 11, 2004

Bringing abductees and kin home

As yet there is no end in sight to the abduction issue involving Japanese citizens. North Korea -- whose agents kidnapped them in the 1970s and 1980s -- must take the initiative to break the deadlock, but it continues to reject any formal negotiation. To get Pyongyang moving forward, Tokyo is now poised...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 11, 2004

You are always on my mind

Familiarity with an object or place can dampen the senses. It may not necessarily breed contempt, but it often leads to indifference. We see it all too frequently, as in the simple case of not visiting wonderful places in our own neighborhood, or the attitude folk here in Shizuoka have toward Mount Fuji:...
EDITORIALS
Feb 8, 2004

Over-exposed in Houston

Say this for U.S. President George W. Bush: He might have wrong-footed the question of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, but he struck just the right note when asked to comment on the flap over singer Janet Jackson's risque performance in the Super Bowl halftime show in Houston the night before. Mr....
CULTURE / Books / THE ASIAN BOOKSHELF
Feb 8, 2004

Less confusion on Confucian: Time to redfine 'tradition'

WOMEN AND CONFUCIAN CULTURES IN PREMODERN CHINA, KOREA, AND JAPAN, edited by Dorothy Ko, Jahyun Kim Haboush, and Joan R. Piggott. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. 338 pp., 35 illustrations and tables. $24.95 (paper). It is often thought that Confucianism is somehow discriminatory toward...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY
Feb 7, 2004

Two Myers-Briggs analysis sessions change lives

Californian-born Terri Nii of KNT Co. appears to have found a most agreeable and satisfying balance in her life.
COMMENTARY / WASHINGTON UPDATE
Feb 6, 2004

Candidates in sudden death

WASHINGTON -- What a difference a month can make in the campaign to win the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. As the election year started, we had a front-runner with a big bankroll and double-digit leads in the polls: Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was threatening to run away with the nomination,...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle / ON THE BOOK TRAIL
Feb 5, 2004

"The Pig Scrolls," "Blood Red Horse"

"The Pig Scrolls," Paul Shipton, Puffin Books; March 2004; 224 pp. Author Paul Shipton warns us at the outset of his (sort of) Greek-style epic that though every effort was made to ensure the accuracy of the material, the Great Library of Alexandria was closed on the Tuesday afternoon he tried to go...

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