On September 1, 2009, for the time in 56 years Japan's Democratic Party (the DPJ henceforth) took the helm of state. The LDP's crushing defeat brought to an end its relationship with the bureaucracy. While at the Lower House election on August 30, 2009, the DPJ announced that it would: 1) build a close and equal alliance and relationship with the United States+ 2) develop an autonomous foreign policy and security issue are unlikely to emerge as flash points, one big concern was Mr. Hatoyama's flip-flops on the prospects for Japan's refueling mission in support of U.S.-led antiterrorism operations in and around Afganistan. Prime Minister Hatoyama in particular and the DPJ itself remained vague in its stance when it comes to the question of the relocation of the Futenma Air Station issue in spite of the fact that Prime Minister Hatoyama reportedly saido to President Obama, “Trust me.”b In the final analysis, a series of talks between the Obama administration and the Hatoyama administration produced one of the worst agreements and resulted in least dramatic consequences in December, 2009 leaving strained relations between Tokyo and Washington. The purpose of this short article is twofold. The author (1) gives a brief chronological overview of U.S-Japan relations right after the end of the second world war to the present on the basis of his presentation done in Ohiso campus on September 13, 2009; (2) reviews the recent 2009 U.S-Japan relations in the light of foreign perspectives and U.S Smart Power, and (3) then offers a few suggestions for the future U.S.-Japan relations.

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This article attempts at highlighting some of the key concepts that need to be taken into account for combating the faddishness or fuzziness that has kept haunting our nation of “Kyosei Science”. It first dwells on the implications of the contemporary “science-philosophical” thoughts put forward by Husserl, T. Kuhn, and J. Habermas, and the pragmatist metaphor of “Neuration Ship“. The pluri-disciplinary membership to the Neuration Ship crossing toward the horizon of Kyosei Science, voluntary as it stands, willingly shares a common preoccupation with praxeologically-oriented studies, research and allied lifeworld activities. Inter-Disciplinary communicative acts that involve not only “three conditions for validity” is an era of “ reflexive modernization” of today. Discussions dwell, furthermore, on the fuzziness associated with the Japanese terminology of “Kyosei”. Among the various interesting alternatives for its English translation, particular attention is paid to Daisetsu Suzuki's notion of co-evolution of geosphere, biosphere and noosphere towards an Omega Point. Finally, Habermasian ethics of discourse (Diskur) is shown to corroborate the inevitability and impossibility theorem about “Kyosei” put forward by a trio of Japanese social theorists, S. Miyadai, H. Suzuki and S. Horiuchi.

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In this paper, the author treats B.F. Skinner as a Kyosei philosopher. Kyosei is a Japanese word that means harmonious coexistence of people and things around them. The reasons why he regards Skinner as a Kyosei philosopher were as follows, i. Skinner originated behavior analysis that can contribute to kyosei science. II. Skinner was eager to create a desirable kyosei society based on behavior analysis.

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This article illustrated several aspects of man-nature interface as I have learned through my experience in environmental learning and relates educational activities in Hokkaido. selected topics include: (1) the wisdom hidden in Ainu traditions which has proven useful when promoting experiential field learning about man-nature inter-linkages; (2) the administrative manual on Hokkaido reclamation orienting immigrant peasants toward nature-friendly and traditions-inspired ways of cultivation of wild lands; (3) an ironical story of the extinguished of Yezo wolf Proliferating Yezo deer to the detriment of human farms creation the “Kuwahara Wolf Pasturage” -a “nature school” demonstrating symbolic relationship among wolfs, leopards, horses, dogs, and eagles. Discussions are further extended to dwell upon (4) the Ainu people's efficacy in utilization of limited nature resources to satisfy their minimal living standards; (5) ancient nature-friendly residential constructions characteristic of the Okhotk culture; and (6) features of the Saito Pasturage - a dairy farm combining open grazing whit hoof-plow cultivation in a stony mountainous region. Finally, the author stresses the importance of sentient understanding of Kyosei in teh context of environmental leaning.

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The pathogenic approach is rather ineffective for prescribing for solution of workers' health problems. Especially to deal with the problems of strain-caused “karoshi” and suicides resulting from overwork, the authors of this article prefer adopting the “salutogenic” model of Antonovsky, which pays heed to such concepts as human sense of coherence (SOC) along with generalized resistance resources (GRRs). As this approach associates workers' health issues with their state of mind bearing upon the sense of worthiness of living, it may well be interleces with the emerging discussion on the positive significance of “spirituality” in the context of workers' health as well as “kyosei” relationship (agreeableness) in workplace. This study is based on a questionnaire survey conducted on female employees in a local autonomy, which included a number of parameters representing leadership functions, management functions, stressfulness symptoms, burdensomeness of work, work-life balance, spirituality (self, lifeworld and project), and moral harassment. It has been found that stress tends to increase by harassments that disturb kyosei and to decrease with spiritual leadership and the functioning of management. The relationship between spirituality and the process toward kyosei can be interpreted in termsof making network among a mass. So reducing both management and leadership functions can increase stress, except in the case where they operate as a “double bind” (in Bateson's sense of the term). This study thus demonstrates that there is scope for paying heed to elements of spirituality along with the functions of management ans leadership in fostering both physical and mental health essential for the kyosei process in workplace.

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