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How Yuzaburo Mogi of Kikkoman helped turn soy sauce into a global productAT THE International Trade Fair in Chicago in 1959, visitors were delighted by the salty-savoury taste of roast beef marinated in a novel condiment called soy sauce; slices were being given away by young Japanese men. What the nibblers did not know was that the foreigners were not merely demonstration staff but workers at the saucemakers new American unit, who wanted to see at first hand how American consumers responded to their product. Among them was Yuzaburo Mogi, a 24-year-old student at Columbia Business School and the scion of one of the founding families behind Kikkoman, a soy-sauce manufacturer which traces its origins to the early 17th century.By the time he reached the top of the firm in 1995, Mr Mogi was well on his way to transforming it into an international food business and turning an obscure Asian seasoning into a mainstream global product. We tried to appeal to the non-Japanese, general-market consumer, says Mr Mogi, who speaks fluent Englisha rarity among Japanese bosses. Kikkoman is now the worlds largest maker of naturally brewed soy sauce. Foreign sales of its sauce have grown by nearly 10% a year for 25 years. Its distinctive curvy bottle has become commonplace in restaurants and kitchens the world over, alongside other condiments such as Italian olive oil or French mustard. Interbrand, a brand consultancy, ranks Kikkoman among the most recognisable Japanese names in a list otherwise dominated by carmakers and electronics firms.

Sean Penn discusses LGBT rights

Here is the full transcript from backstage with Sean Penn, now a two-time Oscar winner Q. Congratulations. I asked you a couple questions at the SAG Awards. You were talking about that, actually, you remember Harvey Milk, being old enough to remember him. Can you talk about, now that you've won the highest honor in Hollywood for this award, what it means to you to be able to bring his story and how important you feel his story is? What Harvey Milk was and what he represented. A. You know, that means a lot to myself and to everybody involved, not only in the movie, but to anybody who believes in equal rights for human beings, it's pretty simple. And, certainly, what I mentioned from the stage earlier tonight, to see this culture of ignorance, and that breeds this kind of hateful expression, that these people have their signs outside essentially telling you that you're less than human. There's nothing more important than the themes of this movie as well as addressing things that are simply, you know, entertaining, I think. But there's nothing more important, and so being part of something like that is a privilege. And when you see something like what you saw outside today, it enhances that. Q. Hi, Sean. Congratulations. You certainly deserve the award. I wanted to ask you, what did you say to those people who were holding those signs tonight, if you happen to go back past Sunset and Highland and see some of those signs and what they're saying? A. I'd tell them to turn in their hate card and find their better self, you know. I think that these are largely taught limitations and ignorances, this kind of thing, and it's a really it's very sad in a way, because it's a demonstration of such emotional cowardice to be so afraid to be extending the same rights to a fellow man as you would want for yourself. I would ask them not to tempt those of us who see something more deeply than they are looking at it, as angry as they tend to be in a void. Q. Tonight, in your acceptance speech, you mentioned President Barack Obama. I'm wondering what you would like to see the president do in relation to gay rights. A. We know his public position as far as the specific issue of gay marriage has not been, let's say, officially supportive of that. I would like to believe that that's a political stand right now and not necessarily a future one or a felt one. I don't think that he or that any of us, and in particular our president, will long be able to take that position. It's inevitable that this is not because it's not a human luxury; these are human needs and they will be gotten. So he's going to have to he'll adapt. Right now I think it's more focused on, more interested in what we're going to do to tell him that we will support him in making those kinds of taking those kinds of initiatives. He's got people dying right now en masse, and people are desperately poor en masse, and I think those two emergencies need to be taken care of, without him taking too much time about the details of how he approached civil rights. But the day is going to come and it's going to come quickly. Q. Could you speak a little bit you spoke very emotionally about your competition this evening with Mickey Rourke. Could you speak a little bit about your relationship and what you feel about him and sort of the sense of how you guys have grown together? A. I've been making movies for over 25 years and I can't speak for his consistent sense of me. He's an excellent bridge burner at times, but we've had for the most part a very close friendship. And he's somebody that I alternatively looked up to and advised and directed, I've wanted to work with and admired and quite literally had me, almost throughout THE WRESTLER, weeping. He's one of our most talented actors, he always was. I don't really think of it as comebacks are funny, and we talk about it with him, but everyone in this room has to make a comeback every day. Life is tough. And I think what's sensational about him is always what's been sensational about him; he's one of the great poetic talents in acting that we have. Q. One of the signs of the protesters out there said, "Heath is in hell." Can you speak to that? A. I don't know what that means. Q. I think it references that he's gone and that the Academy Heath's in hell. A. I think if we get used to dismissing these kind of comments rather than commenting on them, we'll be better off. It's meaningless jibberish. We've got to focus on people who are clear enough about what they mean. Q. The words "passionate" and "commitment" are words that your friends and everyone around you associate you with. Do you know where that came from, and do you wish it on your children? Is that something that you try to instill in them? A. Well, I think we all try to we hope for that in our children, and by whatever means you attempt to instill it in them. I can't accuse myself of having those qualities, although I appreciate what they said, and I certainly strive for that.

Anti-cold cat

V-Day

Last year, the two Fannie May stores in our little town (a 5-square-mile rectangle) closed their doors for good. One wouldn't exactly call it a civic tragedy--it's not as though they were pumping millions into the local economy and keeping hundreds, or even dozens, of citizens employed. There were the usual newspaper articles and people talked about the closings a lot, but no one seemed very concerned. Consternation reigned in my house, though. My wife, who shall be referred to henceforth as Wife A. (the "A" represents an initial, not her designation as most favored of my many wives), is a little insane about Fannie May's dark-chocolate-covered almond clusters. Not a large woman, but she can burn through a one-pound box of them in a few hours. Her restraint in the presence of this particular confection is so laughably weak, in fact, that she only wants to see them twice a year: on Christmas morning, when a box from Santa magically appears under the tree, and on Valentine's Day. But on those two days, she REALLY wants them. So we had several stages of grief over this closing, principally denial ("there's no way they would just CLOSE the stores!"), anger ("so I guess the pencil pushers are running the show now") and bargaining (mostly with the hapless store employees over their dwindling stocks of chocolate).The final and best stage, acceptance, came with our discovery of my new favorite store, Old Fashioned Candies, in the next town south of us. I don't know how I could have lived here for 10 years without discovering this place. It's a gem, and it's got Fannie May beaten in every category. First, it looks like nothing in this store, not a single thing, has changed in 40 years. If you're of a certain age (I'm 41), you walk in and feel as if you've walked directly into your childhood. Second, in the center is a huge table covered with jars of every candy they sell, and you just scoop what you want into little white paper bags. Third, they make the candy right on the premises, in full view, so you can just stand there, getting in everyone's way, and watch them dipping strawberries in liquid chocolate, mixing vats of creamy goo, etc. Fourth, hanging on the wall they have chunks of chocolate molded into every shape you could possibly want, and some you don't want. Pelicans, dollar signs, babies, snowmen, pigs ("hogs and kisses"), sailboats, and one each of all the letters and numbers. You don't think my daughter wanted to buy chocolate house numbers to replace the boring old painted ones we have? ("Something on our house should be edible!") Fifth, and best of all, their dark chocolate clusters are THE BEST! The chocolate is rich, almost black, and twice as flavorful as that apologetic stuff they used to sell at Fannie May. (I guess that last sentence clues you in that one of the stages of grief was deciding that Fannie May was overrated.)I could go on about this place, but work beckons. The upshot is, we left with a box of the treasured item, Valentine's Day was saved, the family balance has been restored, and for the next few hours at least, there are dark-chocolate-covered almond clusters calling me from the next room.

iriver, Speedo suit up

Another Spring, another opportunity for iriver Japan and Speedo to sell a few MP3 players designed for underwater use. Yes friends, the Aquabeat you've grown to know, love and disassociate with overly tight swim trunks has a successor, the Speedo LZR Racer. Design wise, you won't notice a lot of differentiation from the first, but this waterproof-to-three-meters device has twice the internal memory (2GB) and a built-in rechargeable battery good for around eight hours of continuous playback. It's said to be shipping now in Japan for ¥12,800 ($128), though we hear it won't be coming to America without first nailing down a Michael Phelps endorsement. Not that said task will be too tough or anything.

Multiverse Techno Sidewalk

This weekend we were back in DC to hit the museums we didn't quite get around to on our birthday weekend. First we went to the Pompeii exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in the East Building (the funky triangular building). I want to thank malnurtured snay for tipping me off to that. We are going to Italy in a month and this was a nice sneak preview of what we hope to see while there.Next up on our agenda was the Newseum, which I have been to but my wife hasn't. Rather that go back out into the cold I decided we should take the underground concourse over to the West Building. Between the two is a moving sidewalk that has a light display that looks like special effects from Stargate. The tunnel is filled with over 41,000 programmed LED lights and it's a real piece of art called 'Multiverse' by Leo Villareal and will be on display until November. I had downloaded it to my computer and wondered what sort of music to set it to. I knew it had to be artsy and modern. I couldn't find my Kronos Quartet plays Phillip Glass album, but then I ran across a bunch of techno my son had left on the computer. The music I picked turned out to be done by XsToRmEr1 and was under a Creative Commons non-commercial license, so now I don't even feel guilty about using it.I just wanted to share the trippy juxtaposition I put together to show that you never know what you are going to stumble onto in DC while searching for gelato.

Beatles Rock Band bundle will boast Höfner bass, Ludwig-branded drums

Not really surprising to hear, but exciting none the less... according to a teaser email sent out to people on The Beatles: Rock Band mailing list -- the special edition bundle will include a custom branded Höfner bass and Ludwig drums. The email also mentions other "custom" content, which we are hoping will be either a Rickenbacker guitar like the one Lennon often used or a gigantic Harrison-esque moustache / beard combo. We're just going to have to wait it out together guys -- it's not expected until September 9th -- so let's chill and enjoy the video after the break.

What else are the little people for, princess?

'Tis the season: Phil and I are loading up the TiFaux with holiday movies and unwinding after our hectic days by watching and heckling them, one by one. Last Thursday's showing was a particularly risible little film, A Christmas Wedding, starring Sarah Paulson as The Drip, Eric Mabius as The Blockhead She's To Wed and Dean Cain as The Guy She Should Have Run Off To Aruba With But Won't. The plot was clearly grown in a test tube; DNA contributors included Preston Sturges, InStyle Weddings and Donna Van Liere (the woman who "wrote" the "novelization" of The Christmas Shoes). Usually, these holiday films are good for giving Phil and I a good laugh or twelve as we notice unintentionally sinister set-ups or patently ridiculous plot developments or actors' obvious "Just give me the check" performances. But this movie just made me exceedingly cranky. I don't care if Sarah Paulson did play the awesome snake-in-the-grass Miss Isringhausen on Deadwood; she nuked all her goodwill with this ho-ho-horrible story about a woman who just has to have her Christmas day wedding but, oh, the demands of being a career gal mean she might be late! Oh, no! Will her blockhead fiance survive going to a bridal shower? Will she be able to break in her (name-checked) Blahniks on time for her first dance? Will the wedding be everything she's ever dreamed of since she was a little girl?The minute this aired, Rebecca Mead felt a chill run down her spine but didn't know why. Mead is the author of One Perfect Day, a book seeking to examine how the so-called "wedding-industrial complex" pressures women into making insane financial decisions regarding their wedding. I don't entirely buy the book's repeated argument that American women are but brainwashed puppets of unscrupulous capitalism. However, Mead's secondary point -- that women may be striving to give their wedding a deeper cultural meaning and the only tools they have at their disposal are their consumer choices -- is the one worth pondering. Our weddings are reflections of the culture we aspire to belong to as much as they are reflections of the culture we do belong to.As I move further and further away from my own wedding date, I comprehend less and less of what's being presented as mainstream wedding culture. While home visiting my mom, I read "One Ring Circus" (WaPo, Sep 7, 08), and gaped in baffled incomprehension at the author's narrative. I can't provide a telling quote because the prose's black magic lays in its cumulative impact. Loosely abridged, that article goes thusly: our heroine got hooked on the TLC show A Perfect Proposal, and had yearned for a similarly excessive spectacle for herself. When she hits the ripe old age of 24, she tells her college boyfriend it's time to propose to her. She hectors the boyfriend until, at last, she gets the ring. That she might engineer a memorable proposal for her life partner never even came up.The telling detail for me was not the author's desperate yearning to be the star of her own fairytale, but rather that television had fueled her fantasies. And then yesterday, the WaPo ran another piece,p "Here Comes the Bride. The Question is Why?" The argument for why we're fascinated by reality-wedding shows:We're attached to the idea that with enough money and coaching, anyone can rise to the professionally styled rung of the meritocracy where the not-so-well-born rich hang out. We can't talk about class (or the nexus of money, education and privilege) directly, but we can still broach the subject as long as we couch it in purely aesthetic terms. Problem solved![...]Shows that elevate the nuptials of the non-famous to A-list levels of showmanship and expense, or that expose the bad behavior of spoiled, entitled, self-centered brides, or that simply submit the average bride to the same homogenizing ministrations now endured by stars before they're allowed to range free on the red carpet, all imply that it is always preferable to emulate the rich and famous than not to. Even if we can only afford to emulate them at their worst.The author of yesterday's WaPo piece had a live chat this morning, and I barked aloud at this huffy inquiry: My daughter is getting married to a very special young man from a wonderful family. She and her attendants are wearing Priscilla of Boston, and the reception will be at the Ritz Carlton. My husband and I are paying for it. We are all extremely excited about everything and having a great time with the planning, including the shopping trips, the tasting, everything. I have no idea what this "Wedding Industrial Complex" is. All I know is that this is a happy event for all concerned. Both my daughter and her husband are mature people in their early thirties who have never been married before, do not live together, and have strong religious beliefs, so I have no doubts about the marriage. So why can't they have a lovely event to celebrate the start of their lives together? I like how the querent begins with the brand-name checking, then moves into piqued "Why must you begrudge those who can afford it their nice things?" territory. Way to convey how you're above all that vulgar spectacle while reminding everyone what you can afford! And it hit me: This is why I loathed A Christmas Wedding. In the movie, good-hearted working class people repeatedly go out of their way to get the yuppie bride to her nuptials on time, while back at home, good-hearted working class people ignore years of snobbish behavior from the bride's well-to-do family and rally to the wedding cause. The miracle of Christmas is a total absence of class resentment. Wedding princesses are even more magical than family gatherings or commemorating the birth of Jesus!Not only did you have the usual as-seen-on-TV Christmas, you had the as-seen-on-TV wedding on top of that. It was the television equivalent of combining chlorine bleach and ammonia. The blend of entitlement, out-of-control consumption and princess fantasy was too much. I only hope Carina Chocano was right in today's chat when she predicted that the wedding tide is about to turn.

Children