Tag - counterpoint

 
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July 19, 2024
 

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COUNTERPOINT

COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 16, 2012
Beacons of hope and inspiration light even the darkest pits of despond
The renowned Polish-born film and television director and screenwriter Agnieszka Holland has created a stunning work about life and death in the Lviv ghetto during the closing months of World War II.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 9, 2012
Putin's siege-mentality Russia now firmly in the grip of a 'cold civil war'
There is an old Soviet-era Russian joke about two rival groups of archeologists who cannot agree on the age of a mummy discovered in Central Asia. At their wits' end, they call in the NKVD — the name of the dreaded KGB in Stalin's time — to settle the dispute.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Sep 2, 2012
Prescient work of writer Sawako Ariyoshi begs for rediscovery
Aug. 30 marked the day, 28 years ago, that Japan and the world lost a writer of immense importance. Sawako Ariyoshi's works of fiction and nonfiction took up many social issues that came into prominence in the years after her death. To my mind, she is not only one of the greatest authors of modern Japan,...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 26, 2012
Should the public trust Japan's leaders when the 'big one' hits Tokyo?
No two calamities are alike, yet the needs of victims vary only in scale, not in kind.
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.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 12, 2012
New breed of single fathers should be a model for men across Japan
He is a much maligned creature at home and abroad. Some call him good for nothing; others say he is good for only one thing: bringing home the bacon ... and, in recent years, a most lean bacon it has become. On the weekends his primary pastime is gorone, to wit, snoozing in his clothes during daytime...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 5, 2012
Japanese rice from Down Under forges new hope from historical links
"I think I can create a farming environment that can give hope to Fukushima farmers."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 29, 2012
In our time of global aggression we could learn from the 'Land of Sorry'
Back in 1991, I was offered a tenured position at a university in Kyoto. Needless to say, this was a big step for me and my family, who were all looking forward to settling into Kyoto life.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 22, 2012
Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto: 'What Japan needs now is dictatorship'
Confrontational, outspoken, feisty and highly focused, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto is a self-made man determined to redraw the loci of power in Japan. He is clearly using the local platform from which to spring into the national arena. The question on everyone's mind is: Will Hashimoto ever be the prime...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 15, 2012
Shades of Meiji surround provincial Hashimoto's growing national profile
First of two parts
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 8, 2012
The sorry state of affairs in Japan is enough to turn WGs into FGs
Many years ago I coined a phrase — "Frozen Gaijin" — to describe a particular kind of foreigner living in Japan.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jul 1, 2012
Ryuichi Sakamoto reminds Japanese what's the score on nuclear blame
"Keeping silent after Fukushima is barbaric," is how composer and musician Ryuichi Sakamoto recently made clear his proactive stance toward Japan's ongoing nuclear disaster.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 24, 2012
Fumiko Hayashi: Haunted to the grave by her wartime 'flute and drums'
If you compare the treatment dealt out in the immediate postwar period to Japanese writers who supported their nation's military aggression in World War II with that meted out to such writers in Europe, the Japanese literary collaborators seem to have got off lightly.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 17, 2012
Might Japan's acquiescence to domestic violence be ending at last?
In November 1980, a murder in Kanagawa Prefecture just south of Tokyo stunned the nation. It involved a 20-year-old student who beat his parents to death with a metal baseball bat.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 10, 2012
The self-styled 'Land of the Free' nurtures yet another facet of hypocrisy
Last month, two members of the U.S. Senate vilified Eduardo Saverin, the cofounder of Facebook Inc., for doing something that Americans are apparently coming to consider a punishable sin.
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Jun 3, 2012
Hush ye not! Here's a heckle of an idea to get rich — and save the world
You gotta hand it to the Americans. By god, they invented or at least morphed into profitability just about everything that's on my desk as I write this: my landline telephone; my iPad, which is open to my Facebook page; a DVD of the director's cut of "Edward Scissorhands"; even the plastic-lidded cup...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 27, 2012
Nuclear power profiteers seem keen to risk getting blood on their hands
Areport this year by the Independent Investigation Committee on the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster, a group set up in September 2011 by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, condemned what it called Japan's "absolute safety myth." The Japanese government, in collusion with the media and the regional electric-power...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 20, 2012
Poverty stalks the land — and its long-term victims will be today's young
Open any Japanese newspaper, listen to the radio, watch television or keep tabs on any other form of media, social or otherwise, and you are bound to find references to this country's "rapidly aging society."
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 13, 2012
Born of disaster, modern architecture is itself now an ongoing disaster
In the French writer-director Jacques Tati's superb 1967 film "Play Time," people are like prisoners condemned to roam about in and amid the glass cages of high-rise office blocks. They are lost, both to the world and themselves. In the world of Tati, who died in 1982 aged 75, all cities look alike;...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
May 6, 2012
Japan's women are increasingly taking the future into their own hands
Sara Blakely's story is inspirational. The 41-year-old Floridian began her working life as a door-to-door fax-machine salesperson. Then one day she looked in the mirror — but not at her face.
Triple whammy takes Japan bankruptcies to decade high
More Japanese firms have gone bankrupt in the first half of this year due to soaring costs, labor shortages and the end of pandemic-related support.
With eye on China, Japan deepens ties with Pacific islands at Tokyo summit
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the Cook Islands' Prime Minister Mark Brown shake hands during 10th Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting on Thursday in Tokyo.
Say cheese: Japanese scientists make robot face 'smile' with living skin
A researcher at the University of Tokyo shows a face mold covered in human skin tissue at its lab.
Rainy season ends in Tokai and Kanto regions
The streets of Tokyo's Ginza district on Thursday. The rainy season appears to have ended in the regions of Tokai and Kanto, including Tokyo, on Thursday, according to the Meteorological Agency.
India’s envoy in Japan calls for boosted supply chain and defense cooperation
Indian Ambassador Sibi George says one of his main tasks in his post is to boost Japanese public and private investments the South Asian powerhouse.
After Tokyo Olympic disappointment, Nadeshiko Japan look for redemption
Japan's Hikaru Kitagawa dribbles past a defender during an Olympic qualifying match against North Korea at National Stadium in Tokyo in February.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

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