I'm fascinated by geneaology as a road tale. Which is why I used one of those Mac geneaology programs to trace my maternal family tree back to Somerled. It was during that excursion I realized I might be related to historical Macbeth, and, if that was the case, should bone up on the cursed play by Shakespeare. Which I did.

When the threads of geneaology disappear, one must rely on theories of origins. One I think is cool:
http://www.amazon.com/Biblical-Hebrew-Origin-Japanese-People/dp/9652293393
Theories about the origins of things are always theories. But then there's the problem of the shape of my nose.

Which just goes to show, the more you look into things, the more in common everyone seems to have. Litigators have a saying: "Don't ask any question that you don't already know the answer to."

They're called the "Lost Tribes of Israel" because, er, well, they lost track of them. Maybe they weren't lost. Maybe they went to Japan to invent karaoke and sushi and live in relative paradise. Fine with me. Fun to think about.

Which would mean Samurai Levinstein vs. Samurai Kiyooka might be a matter of semiotics and not genetics. Or, in other words, two ways of describing the same thing.