JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION
-
- English Instructor (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe)
- Berlitz Japan, Inc. (ベルリッツ・ジャパン株式会社), Kansai
- Salary: ¥125,000 ~ ¥250,000 / Month
-
- ALT - Mie Prefecture - Yokkaichi City - June start
- NPO法人グローバル教育推進機構（GLAD), Mie
- Salary: ¥230,000 / Month For a full working month. Some months differ.
-
- Business Teaching Positions - Part-time - Kanto Region
- Interac, Tokyo
- Salary: ¥3,000 ~ ¥5,000 / Hour
2
Jeff Huffman
NeverSubmitNov. 26, 2011 - 11:43AM JST Seems to be that the climatologist, especially those harping on about global warming use these catch all phrases of "El Nino' and "La Nina" to cover up their consistently wrong predictions.
No. The el nino and la nina cycle has been understood for years. They have become more pronounced as the Southern Pacific warms up.
Posted in: 2nd appearance of La Nina may portend frigid winter for Japan
0
Jeff Huffman
shanabelleNov. 09, 2011 - 11:20AM JST It might not have been the "Democrat Machine" who set this all in motion (and I also doubt that they are at all in fear of him as a serious candidate)... methinks the Church of LDS may have...
No. This has Karl Rove's fingerprints all over it. The Dems would love to have an idiot like Cain (or Bachmann or Perry or Gingrich or . . . ) get the nomination. Romney is the "reasonable" candidate though he still doesn't stand a chance against Obama. He's a lousy public speaker and the Tea Party knuckle-draggers will never let him run away from the fact that he was an enthusiastic supporter of the heath care reform adopted in Massachusetts that was pretty much the model for the federal policy.
Oh! And he's a Mormon. Though not as looney as Scientologist or Raeliens. they still believe in various weirdnesses beyond the standard Christian weirdness.
Posted in: Cain says he won't be forced out of White House race by sex scandal claims
2
Jeff Huffman
SushiSake3Nov. 09, 2011 - 09:59PM JST Serrano - "Question: Where were these women in 2000 when Cain was running for president or in 2004 when he was running for the Senate? Wasn't important enough to go public then?"
Sorry. You're mixing up your idiot right wing African-Americans. That was Alan Keyes. Remember, not all black people look alike.
That's called Rearranging Chairs On The Titanic. :-)
No. That's called being wrong.
Posted in: Cain says he won't be forced out of White House race by sex scandal claims
2
Jeff Huffman
johninnahaOct. 31, 2011 - 02:18PM JST The solution is pathetically simple. Don't go to pachinko. Don't go to "Soaplands." Don't use the "Fashion Health (massage parlors)." If nobody bought the "services" of these guys, they'd collapse over night.
Hardly. The range of legitimate business that these guys are now involved with is so vast that the shady stuff is pretty insignificant any longer.
Posted in: Yakuza pundit: New laws unlikely to eradicate gangs
0
Jeff Huffman
marcelitoOct. 28, 2011 - 08:48PM JST He, s been turning into a pretty " vague" PM lately... Kinda dissapointing
All you bemoaning the fact that Noda is being "vague," (the correct term is non-committal) seem to forget that Japan has one of the highest debt to GDP ratios in the world economy and just suffered it's greatest natural disaster in nearly a century. Japan doesn't have any extra capital to bail out poorly managed economies like Greece or Italy. Japan needs to spend its money at home or its 2nd largest per capita GDP will quickly slip out of the top ten.
Let China splash some cash as it is sitting a reserves that not even its massive public works/infrastructure development is sufficient to absorb.
Posted in: Noda offers vague promises to help stabilize Europe
0
Jeff Huffman
TahoochiOct. 22, 2011 - 01:49PM JST Am I missing something here?
Yes you are. They aren't talking about exports. They are talking about establishing more distribution and brewing abroad.
Article Unavailable
3
Jeff Huffman
NetNinjaOct. 22, 2011 - 12:45PM JST American beer just sucks.....I'm AMERICAN, I said it. I don't waste my time with that stuff. There's only one that used to hold it weight. That was Miller Geniune Draft. Not that lite stuff. Just a good ol fashion cold MGD.
"Miller Geniune Draft"? You're joking right? The major American breweries, Coors, Buttwiper and Miller make some of the worst beer on Earth. Asahi Super Dry, which was made initially as a summer beer, has more character than any of the Big Three from the U.S.
U.S. beer making today is dominated by local or regional craft beers. The ignoroid, mouth-breathing hoi poloi may still buy their sixer of MGD, but people who appreciate real ales, bitters, etc. quit drinking that swill literally two decades ago. Washington State has about 150 breweries and Oregon as many or more. There isn't hardly a one horse town in the States any longer that doesn't have a micro brewery. As a matter of fact, America has been the beer capital of the world now for about ten years.
Article Unavailable
2
Jeff Huffman
The last thing you want any of them to do is follow suit with Asahi and Kirin, brewed in the North America under license by Labatts and Buttwiper. Guess which beers they taste like?
I'd love to see Suntory Brew Malts here as well Sapporo's brewing Yebisu.
Article Unavailable
4
Jeff Huffman
George W Bush still supports troops
He's never supported the troops. If he did he never would have sent them off to die or be physically and/or psychologically maimed in illegal wars that had nothing to do with U.S. security.
Posted in: George W Bush still supports troops
-3
Jeff Huffman
@ Johnnygogogo
I know very well who Noda-sensei is. She was considered the "dean" of Japanese instructors in the U.S. when I was a university student,35-years ago.
OSU is no longer among the elite Nihongo programs in the U.S. and Jorden was left behind in terms of pedagogy years ago. Her method or Romanization was annoying beyond belief.
Posted in: Demand for Japanese language instruction in U.S. skyrocketing
-3
jeffrey
As a matter of fact, a much larger number of HS and university students were studying Japanese twenty years ago than today. While there might be a slight uptick in the numbers because of otaku pursuing the language, many secondary schools have dropped Japanese in favor of Chinese. Japan is no longer seen as having any economic significance compared to the Middle Kingdom and this has always been the primary reason most people studied either language in the U.S.
No offence to Professor Noda, but Ohio State University is hardly the first school that comes to mind in the U.S. for the study of Japan. Your column would have been better served if you'd spoken to someone at Harvard, Columbia, Stanford or the University of Washington.
Posted in: Demand for Japanese language instruction in U.S. skyrocketing
0
jeffrey
I think whether it's "digital" or not is beside the point. If it's designed to playback music saved to an iPad or iPod, it's not producing hi-fidelity sound.
Posted in: Compact hi-fi system from Yamaha
1
jeffrey
GWSep. 09, 2011 - 11:59AM JST Godan, I too love Japan but the last decade has been brutal & I too was hoping that 3/11 wud bring MUCH needed change to Japan, allow it to re-invent itself, but sadly looks like its going to be an excuse to mess things up even worse.
This was the silver lining I hoped for as well post-3/11. A lot of good came during the rebuilding of greater Tokyo after the Great Kanto Earthquake (less so after the Kobe quake), but then that was also a time of relative economic health in Japan.
I guess, historically, "gaiatsu" (the Meiji Restoration and the post- WWII occupation) has been the only real agent of change in Japan over the last 100 + years.
Posted in: Dissatisfaction will pave way for Japan's future
0
jeffrey
lostrune2Aug. 24, 2011 - 05:14AM JST The reasoning for the make up of the teams is population and density. It has always been the US vs. International in the Little League (LL) finals. Because of its huge size and thus greater # of LL baseball-playing towns, the US has a lot more LL baseball town teams (basically, one town = one team) than any other nation, so they are divided into regional champions.
Not entirely correct.
My son plays in Little League. He was on the league Minors (9 and 10 year old) All Stars. These teams are selected from the best players in the league to play in the state-wide LL tournament. The Majors team (11-12 year old) All Stars from whichever league they play in are typically the kind of teams competing in the LL World Series.
Typically, the successful teams are from suburban areas because they have larger pool of athletes to draw from. Very rarely do small town teams make it beyond local play. Clinton County, PA has a population of only about 37,000, so they've done quite well for themselves. In contrast, Langley, BC, a suburb of Vancouver, has a population of more than 93,000, thus a lot more players to choose from.
Posted in: Japan beats Saudi Arabia 13-4 at Little League World Series
-1
jeffrey
What's up with the runner's 1970s jogging attire? And maybe he shouldn't have gone "commando" as well.
Posted in: TV commercial of the week: adizero vs MiniSkirt
0
jeffrey
BurakuminDesAug. 24, 2011 - 12:34AM JST I must be missing something. Surely entire nations are not playing individual small American Counties? Japan v Clinton County, Pennsylvania, for example, just seems a bit of a mis-match.
Nope. The Little League tournaments begin here as state regional, then state, then U.S. regional, then the elimination rounds that include foreign teams. I work with the father of a, now, middle-aged man, whose team won it all in 1979. A lot of these American teams are comprised of kids that play baseball almost year around.
BTW, the Saudi team is comprised of mostly ex-pat U.S. kids.
http://www.littleleague.org/series/2010divisions/llbb/teams/mea/team.html
Posted in: Japan beats Saudi Arabia 13-4 at Little League World Series
0
jeffrey
". . . should be resolutely avoided by any gourmand with even a hint of addictive personality disorder."
A gourmand by definition has an eating disorder as the historic meaning of the word is someone with refined tastes but who eats too much (a thin gourmand is be a contradiction in terms). Younger people often use the word when they simply mean gourmet.
Posted in: Basashi cuisine from sushi to pizza
3
jeffrey
Am I the only one who read this that found it confusing that the article begins the discussion with potential supplies in Mongolia . . .
There are legitimate concerns that demand will soon outstrip supply, but we believe we're close to providing a more economically viable solution by developing rare earth mines in Mongolia.
. . . and then the article jumps to possible seabed sources?
Geologists led by Yasuhiro Kato, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Tokyo, found heavy concentrations of rare earth minerals in sea mud at 78 locations on the floor of the Pacific.
Whoever Business Wire may be, they're worse than Kyodo. EDITOR!
Posted in: Massive Japanese rare earth find underscores huge global demand
0
jeffrey
papasmurfinjapanJun. 30, 2011 - 01:08PM JST My son goes to kindergarten, where "pool season" starts at the beginning of June which is still pretty cold.
"(p)retty cold" in Japan in June? Where do you live, Hokkaido?
Half the kids end up catching a cold
You don't catch cold because it's cold. You catch a cold because, usually, you're run down and your immune system is weakened. This could happen at -40F or 35C.
then rainy season starts and they have little chance to go in the pool, then just as rainy season ends, so does "pool season".
This may be the case as it would be unwise to get wet while in a pool. Agreed. "Pool season" in Japan, as air conditioning and heat use, is completely devoid of a relationship to the weather. For most of Japan, outdoor "pool season" could be from the beginning of May until, often, the end of October.
I questioned my wife, who is a former kindergarten teacher why they don't postpone pool season until August-September - the hottest months of the year - and she looked at me as though I was crazy. Her reply was "of course they can't go in the pool after summer break, they have to practice for the sports festival in October!"... well of cours
Of course, this is the primary reason that there really are relatively few Japanese athletes of international caliber.
Better not move the wife abroad. The logic shock would kill her.
Posted in: 16 children taken to hospital after collapsing during athletics meet
0
jeffrey
techallJun. 30, 2011 - 12:55PM JST A number of years ago I coached a little league baseball team of mostly ex-pat kids. I was shocked to see the coaches of the Japanese teams forbidding their kids from drinking water during practices, I know this to have been true of high school teams too. Their reasoning ws to build "ganman" spirit in the players. Nothing mentioned of this in the article but I wouldn't be surprised.
Agreeing with and but adding to techall, 30C degrees (86F), even with high humidity, is hardly oppressive. If that was the case, they'd never hold a track meet in the Deep South, Middle Atlantic or Midwest parts of the U.S. from late May until October.
Rather than heat exhaustion/stroke, my guess is that you had dehydration in addition to cases of Japanese kids passing out because of the (marginal) heat and humidity on top of the normal pressure cooker lives that Japanese kids live. You don't suffer heat stroke at that temperature.
Though I agree with the numerous posters who wonder why undokai aren't held in the spring just after school begins or in October once typhoon season has (usually) past and the heat has abated.
And contrary to one poster's assertion above, Japan is not a "tropical" country. Okinawa isn't even in the tropics.
Posted in: 16 children taken to hospital after collapsing during athletics meet