I've touched on the history of Kyoto and Nara over the past month, so will not again bring up their past, except for one ideal look back at this region of Japan.  You can read  Eating as our ancestors did  from this weekend's issue of  The Japan Times , but I'll quickly summarize: Researchers are trying to learn what the country ate 1300 years ago, so are looking at the Nara period from 710-794. Nara is the easternmost site of the Silk Road, and to this area first came to Japan religion and rice in water culture. Essentially, then, there was rice, fish and vegetables.   But fish went bad quickly, so they dried it or added salt. The making of soup from dried fish flakes (usually bonito, a type of tuna) led to what became the notion of umami, the essence of deliciousness, for glutamic acid is found in the flesh/bones, which gets converted to monosodium glutamate, almost another term for umami. The sodium to preserve fish, however, no doubt led to all kinds of ailments, loweri

News of the day: The  Rittenhouse  killings occurred in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  The parade deaths this weekend were in Waukesha, Wisconsin.  The consensus seems to be that the Rittenhouse innocence verdict will mean more  AR-15 rifle s at protests and general outings, and further protect gun rights. The Ahmaud Arbery trial jury will begin deliberating tomorrow.  If all three white assailants are set free by the 11 white and 1 black panel, all hell will break loose.  Clearly, the timing was orchestrated for colder weather to minimize the potential backlash.  The defense strategy seems to be angling for a mistrial or deadlock. BTS got all the big awards at the  American Music Awards .  Their  Butter  won Favorite Pop Song.   Watch them perform this song last night. This weekend I viewed a special showing of  MASH:  Goodbye, Farewell and Amen  ( amazingly enough, you can watch the entire 2.5 hour movie if you click on that ), the  1983 finale of the TV series : Almost 40 years later, this fi