Sakata with a population of almost 100,000 is in Yamagata Prefecture. However, it was 127,000 in 1960.   Many immigrants to Hawaii came from this area.   From the 17th to 19th century, Sakata was very prosperous because it was a shipping route for the Sea of Japan into the country, November is the wettest month, but it was sunny yesterday.   This city escaped damage in World War II, with only one air raid.   The Sakata Festival from May 19-21 is their major historical event.   You can catch the bullet train from Tokyo to Niigata, then transfer north to Sakata. City most known for the 2013 film,  Oshin  (click on it to watch the entire movie), which followed the 297 15-minute episodes of  Oshin , the serialized morning television drama, which aired in 1983 and 1984.   Here is a typical episode . I had never before heard of Sakata, but if you decide to visit, here is Trip Advisor link on  Things to do in Sakat...

I was  scanning back   to determine my nostalgic posting to focus on today, and saw:  WILL RARE EARTHS BECOME A PRODUCT OF THE BLUE REVOLUTION ?  I mentioned I had two previous experiences with this subject:   In the 1970's the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where I worked was trying to accomplish fusion using Neodymium YAG lasers.  YAG stands for Yttrium, Aluminum and Garnet, which is a silicate mineral mostly used as gemstones and abrasives.    Neodymium and Yttrium are rare earths. I then went on to work for the U.S. Senate and my first task in 1979 was to staff the effort of the  Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Act , whose chief sponsor was Senator Spark Matsunaga when the bill passed.  While deep ocean manganese nodules were then of particular attraction, turns out that among the wide variety of minerals found in these deposits, rare earths more recently have turned out to be the most important with  concentrations as hi...