contents
nhk museum
tuning in to history

politics
tokyo by sound truck
travel
hot spring luxury (bilingual)

jazz
kicking and alive in tokyo

free gifts
art to view and art to wear
travel - hot spring luxury

baseball - godzilla invades america samurai special
takechi hanpeita ・the tragic will to power

loose lips
what the japanese are saying

baseball
godzilla invades america
tokyo faces
kabukicho

araki
not just a flash in japan (japanese)

tokyo faces - kabukicho

tomio mohri - working with space
tomio mohri
working with space

film reviews
007 die another day
the two towers
red dragon
kissing jessica stein
bowling for columbine
24 hour party people

film festivals
tiff
resfest
filmex

events calendar
where do you want to go today?

classifieds
from schools to housing to services
Events - Keiko Lee

whale watching - in tokyo (bilingual)
joe strummer
a tribute

whale watching
in tokyo (bilingual)

tj crossword puzzle
solve & win

media wars
all the news with fear and favor

horrorscope
predictions and predilections
media wars


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editorial

I don稚 know about you, but I am often mistaken for other people, like Fred Varcoe, for instance. Must be the hairstyle or the fact that I just happen to have a generic face. In any case, I am glad we finally have a chance to run a story about my famous doppelganger. That痴 the good news. The sad news is the occasion, because Fred Varcoe recently lost his job of 15 years to some sort of pressure-group campaign.

Readers who don稚 belong to a pressure group don稚 know what they are missing. Pressure groups are a neat way to bond with similarly minded people to vent your frustrations at almost anything, in a well-targeted and focused fashion. A common modus operandi is for one member of the group to spot a terrible violation against the group code, like finding something disagreeable in a publication (such as Tokyo Journal or the Japan Times) quote it out of context, and post it for the benefit of fellow members. Group etiquette then dictates that every good member should begin raving and ranting, and start harassing the offending party via e-mail. Here at TJ we get this kind of mail all the time. They usually go something like, 添ou have insulted our minority by misquote-misquote blah, blah, blah, and therefore I and my compatriots will boycott all your advertisers.・Wow. Here痴 an attention getter if there ever was one ・especially when it comes from some guy who lives in a small town in the U.S. and has never been to Japan in his entire life.

I prefer the more honest approach by the woman from Kyoto who wrote, 的 severely object to misquote-misquote blah, blah, blah. However, I must admit I have not seen the article in question. If you mail me a copy of your magazine I will give you a more detailed opinion.・Ummm. And then there are those letters filled with profanities. These are actually the most interesting to read, because I am trying to stay up-to-date with street vernacular and with what痴 hot these days. Needless to say, our writers are also targeted from time to time. This is all part of the fun of being in the publishing business and living in the cross-hairs of peculiar pressure groups and odd individuals.

But back to Fred Varcoe. In his case, the hate campaign apparently didn稚 stop at profanities but was upgraded into death threats, and somehow, the Korean embassy also stepped into the fray to pressure Fred痴 employer. The rest is history, and Fred is left involuntarily stuck between jobs. Read all about it in this issue.

Believe it or not, the good doctor was asked to throw the first pitch at the recent Major League Baseball vs. Japanese Professional Baseball All-Star Series at Tokyo Dome...


Stephan Hauser