SEPTEMBER SONG

Day 150 of the Lower Puna Eruption.

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September Song represents a metaphor comparing a year to a person's life span from birth to death.  This is the final day of September, meaning that I am at the 75% point of my life, suggesting that I'll live to the age of 103.

September Song was originally sung in the broadway show Knickerbocker Holiday in 1938 by Walter Huston (this is the whole 1944 movie starring Nelson Eddy, with Charles Coburn doing the singing).   The 1950 film September Affair (again, this is the full 104 minute production) included Huston's version, which became #1 on the pop music chart that year.

In this movie, where Joan Fontaine (single pianist) and Joseph Cotton (unhappily married industrialist) meet on a plane, which is diverted for repairs.  They miss the connection and learned that the it crashed and everyone died.  In the meantime, they had fallen in love, so they decided to largely ignore their past and live forever together.  Go ahead, watch the film and learn about what happens.

Frank Sinatra reached #8 on Billboard in 1946 with September Song, and his 1965 album, September of My Years, included this song and another memorable one, It Was a Very Good Year, with

But now the days grow short
I'm in the autumn of the year

And now I think of my life as vintage wine 

Both songs well reflect my life today, and 2018 has been a very good year:  January 1 began with OZONI, WAGYU, OTORO, ABALONE, UNAGI, POKE, RAMEN AND HOPE FOR 2018.

• I'm pretty much sticking to my resolutions.
• It was on January 13 that my life could have come to an end, when I woke up to North Korean missiles headed for Hawaii.  But that was a false alarm, perhaps leading to a Trump-Kim summit in Singapore.

• Kyushu University paid my way to Fukuoka to provide a keynote address on hydrogen.  I felt like a rock star, as they actually gave me credit for re-starting the field in 1979 when I drafted the hydrogen bill that became law.  I asked for a fugu dinner, and that was memorable.  Can't say yet, though, if my vision has improved at all.

• The Blue Revolution is progressing.
• Had a wonderful trip to San Francisco and Las Vegas.
• I caught the flu, but Advil cured me, again, in two days.
• In  the Spring, I enjoyed a Sakura trip to Japan, with a stopover on Guam.

• This blog site came to an end on April 30.
• But was revived a few days later when the Lower Puna Eruption began.  
• I took a trip to Seattle and Anchorage for my upcoming book, Six Hours to Seattle.  Unfortunately, both cities are not good candidates for a mega-tsunami, so The Blue Revolution gained ground as possibly my next effort.
• I went to the Army game and enjoyed a week in New York City.

So tomorrow I begin the winter of my life, contented that I've lived a fulfilling first three seasons.  I'm listening to Vivaldi's Winter, and wondering if I'll be able to again equal that day in Venice when I got the last ticket for a performance of his Four Seasons, after an incredible white truffles meal at Quadri, on a day when my Blue-bar Pigeon first crossed my path.  While I still could find my way to Thailand/Japan/Korea this fall, I suspect the remainder of this year will be serene and satisfying in relative tranquility.  However, I still have a quarter century left as I leave behind September and the Fall.

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Typhoon Trami is ripping through Japan, making landfall east of Osaka at 134 MPH, rolling over Nagoya, and will exit into the Pacific Ocean at around the Fukushima site of the disable nuclear power plants.  Much more to come.

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MY HERO: SENATOR MAIZIE HIRONO

I've met U.S. Senator Maizie Keiko Hirono, but really don't know her.  Frankly, I've always thought that while she was well-meaning, she was also wishy-washy and a largely ineffective politician, possibly because she served on committees that in my days were of no concern to me.

Maizie was born in Fukushima (where the Great Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami caused the nuclear disaster) Prefecture, Japan, just after the end of World War II, and suffered through a very difficult childhood.  Her mother, actually, was a U.S. citizen who lived a good part of her early, and later, life in Hawaii, for her (meaning Maizie's mother) mother was a picture bride.  You can read the details (Maizie is to the left in this photo), but her mother divorced her no-good father, and moved back to Hawaii with older brother and her.

She graduated from Kaimuki High School, earned a psychology degree from the University of Hawaii, then a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown.  She returned home and served in a variety of elected roles, including the U.S. House.  In 2012 she beat former governor Linda Lingle for her Senate seat, becoming the first elected female Senator from Hawaii and first Asian-American women elected to the Senate.  Of course, was the first senator born in Japan.  While not particularly religious, she is also the first Buddhist senator.  Hirono has been on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and also on Energy and Natural Resources.  She has been at the forefront on women's rights, and earned an F rating from the National Rifle Association for her gun-control advocacy.

I guess I'm not fully up on how immigration works, but at the age of 12 Mazie became a naturalized citizen.  There are  23 people in Congress who were not born in the country.  She is running against Republican Ron Curtis for re-election this Fall, and will win in a landslide.

Horrors, but in May of last year she was diagnosed with stage 4 (worst as you can get) kidney cancer, which had spread.  Statistically, she has an 8% chance to survive for five years.  I must say, though, that she looks healthier than I've ever seen her, and a whole lot more active.  She probably went through a cathartic period and has come out swinging since then.

In particular, she has become a serious thorn in the side of President Donald Trump, who, I suspect, she considers to be loathsomely unfit for his office.  Last month she accused President Trump of being "an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal matter," and said that Brett Kavanaugh did not deserve the courtesy of a meeting with him.  She tossed in "okole" into the statement, as shown to the right.

Then on September 18:

"Guess who's perpetuating all these kinds of actions? It's the men in this country," said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, after edging past Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and stepping up to the microphone. "And I just want to say to the men in this country, just shut up and step up. Do the right thing — for a change."

In the past, she was courteous, circumspect and boring.  Now, she is leading the Democratic charge to dismiss Kavanaugh.  Hawaii gave Donald Trump 30% of our votes in 2016.  Then Lieutenant Governor Doug Chin (here with the Senator) led the national effort to overturn the President's travel ban.  Something tells me this can't be good for my state.  However, the Trump administration has swiftly approved anything that Governor David Ige has asked regarding Lower Puna Eruption and earlier floods.

In my fantasy world, Democrats will gain control of the U.S. Senate on November 6.  Mazie Hirono gets re-elected to serve two more terms and become a respected and effective U.S. Senator.  Even if Kavanaugh goes on to become a Supreme Court justice, she will now always be one of my favorite heroes.  I suspect, though, that he won't.

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There are six ocean storms:

Hurricane Rosa will roll over Baha, and right behind is Hurricane Sergio (note, they are up to the 19th letter, s) who will probably follow a similar path.  Below Hawaii is Tropical Storm Walaka (but this is not the 23rd of the season, as they name them differently in the Central Pacific)

Typhoon Trami pummeled Okinawa, but they are well-prepared for these storms.  Next, skirting right by Shikoku and making landfall over Honshu in a few hours as a Category 3, with a path close by Nagoya, Sendai, and back into the Pacific where the devastating tsunami hit in 2011:

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WE ALL FAIL, BUT YOU MUST OVERCOME TO SUCCEED

Failure happens, and regularly.  As a first example, somehow, life began, leading to Homo sapiens, us.  We began to evolve, and almost expired 70,000 or so years ago when the super eruption of Toba in Indonesia reduced humanity to perhaps only a thousand breeding pairs.  But we recovered, perhaps too well, for we are up to a population of 7.7 billion.

The USA, in a sense, only began between 13,000 and 23,000 years ago when the ice age allowed the Clovis people from Beringia to cross the Bering Strait to populate both Americas.  Irish monks might have come in the 6th century, or perhaps the Vikings in the 10th century, and Zheng He of China might have arrived 71 years before Columbus, with the latter opening the door to European colonization, leading to the formation of the United States of America.

The early years were difficult ones, but the Nation continued to overcome, and we are today the most dominant country in the world.  More recently came President Donald Trump with all his nonsensical travails, epitomized by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing, which dropped to another low with the actions of the Senate Judiciary Committee to advance him to the full floor.  However, Senator Jeff Flake "overcame" to secure an investigation by the FBI to occur before any final vote is taken.  Why should the the leadership listen to him?  If he votes no with just another Republican, consideration of a replacement Supreme Court justice will almost surely occur after the November 6 election.  Flake saved the integrity of the U.S. Congress....maybe.

My life has been fraught with failures, but I somehow kept overcoming.  Growing up in Kakaako and scoring in the bottom tenth percentile in my practice college board verbal test during my junior year:  HOW TO LUCK OUT AND GET INTO STANFORD.  Then, when I got there to learn that I was totally out of my element:  financially, intellectually, physically...in every way.  Plus being the only person of Japanese ethnicity in the entire class (there was no black person and I had no idea what Hispanic meant).  The two advantages I gained from graduating in less than four years were confidence and how to get along with white people.  Sorry for this blatantly racial paragraph, but success came in my ability to fit in and compete in the mostly Caucasian leadership of the University of Hawaii, NASA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and U.S. Senate.

But what have I accomplished in my entire professional career?  Last year I addressed a MENSA gathering in Honolulu, and summarized these opportunities:

• World Peace:  I proposed a 10% simple solution, and this got nowhere.

• Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence:  Worked at NASA Ames Research Center, and, well, no signs of alien presence...yet.
• Eternal Life:  how to live forever, and don't hold your breath.
• Remediation of Global Warming:  I advanced geoengineering options and a 5 cents/pound carbon dioxide credit concept, plus, noting that a two-by-four solution was necessary, wrote about The Venus Syndrome.  Then President Donald Trump tells us this is a hoax.

• Fusion:  Spent two assignments at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on laser fusion, which has gone nowhere.
• Transportation for our future:
• The best nearer term option is the direct methanol fuel cell.  Nothing is happening.
• We need to start now for a next generation aviation system.  Nothing is happening.

• I assisted in drafting original legislation for:
• Hydrogen, for which the hydrogen jetliner is the best future.  Nothing is happening.  However, I did participate in a hydrogen fuel cell gathering in Japan, and Toyota and Honda appear to be very interested.

• OTEC, the power and resource source of the Blue Revolution.  Nothing much is happening.
• Then there were three enterprises:
• Rainbow Pearls International:  no progress.
• Hawaii Geo-Spa:  no progress.
• The Ultimate Ocean Ranch:  no progress.

I fail almost every day.  Today, for example, was Craft Fair time for 15 Craigside.  Residents were asked to display and sell their cookies, artwork, whatever, where just about everything was donated back to the residency.  I had an ideal location, the entrance.  Next to me was Gene Kaneshiro selling his boiled peanuts, called Gene's Nuts.

He sold $450 worth of nuts.  Not one person bought my photos, which were offered for $2.  Sometimes, though, failure can be beneficial.  If I sold, say $450 worth, I would need to find 225 originals in my computer, load them onto a flash drive, send them to Leilyn for copies, where she would then inform the purchaser to come into her office to pick up the photo and pay $2 to her.  What a relief for her, and me, to now have to do nothing.

Thus, has my life been a total failure?  Well, yes and no.  I will not be able to overcome much anymore, but you can.  Or you can refer someone to me.  As a start, just one imaginative billionaire desiring a legacy for the Blue Revolution would be a great next step towards success.

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Hurricane Rosa is now at Category 4 and could find its way to Arizona and other states, after Baha:

The truly dangerous one is Typhoon Trami.  There will be serious devastation:

The eye will be at Category 3 strength between Miyakojima and Naha, and continue on at more 100 MPH when when crashing into Kansai, then passing over Nagoya and Sendai.

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BRETT KAVANAUGH IS DOOMED! IF NOT, THEN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ON NOVEMBER 6.

Day 148 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and nothing new.

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It was on September 11, 2001 when I spent six hours in bed, from 3am to 9am, in horror watching the terroristic attack on the USA.  This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh also kept me in bed for six hours.  However, I wasn't about to wake up at 4AM, so I recorded the whole CNN proceedings, and began watching at 5:30AM or so.

Christine Blazey Ford was first to testify and was convincing.  Something terrible happened when she was 15 years old, and Brett Kavanaugh, with Michael Judge, were accused.  She is 100% certain it was Kavanaugh who personally attempted to remove her clothing in a locked room with Judge serving as laughing partner.

One problem was the process.  The Republican leadership decided that a seasoned Arizona presecutor would confront Ford.  So this is how it went:  opening statements, Rachel Mitchell using the next five minutes interacts with Ford, then a Democrat praising Ford for five minutes, then back to Mitchell, then the next Democrat, etc.  There was no continuity for the prosecutor, but all the activity just made Ford a lot more credible.  After this was over, Mitchell walked up to shake Ford's hand and did nothing to strengthen the Republican point of view.  Mitchell could just as well have been Ford's best friend in glossing over everything seeking some character flaw, Democratic strategizing or whatever.  The four hours went quickly.  Surely, a few Republicans will now not vote with President Trump if a final vote is held this weekend.

Brett Kavanaugh then came on and with vigor and almost anger, reiterating all his previous statements.  If anything, and he continues on, he has hurt his chances by being so dogmatic, and primarily citing personal trivia extolling his excellence.  Emotional, yes, and fighting for his future, but he was facing a female who was emotionally hurt and came forward as a civic duty with nothing to gain.

He must have been convinced by Trump to take a defiant role.  Too bad.  I might further add that Rachel Mitchell did not particularly help Kavanaugh, and, in fact, hurt his case, because her tepid comments were interspersed every five minutes by furious Democrats belittling him.  However, now and then Republicans realized this was not working, so Senator Lindsey Graham took his turn and went overboard with his anger about how Kavanaugh was being treated.  But, after all, he is from South Carolina, a Trump state.  The process was adjusted after Graham.

Then, of course, what about the four other accusers who haven't yet had a chance to face him?  What would Mark Judge (left) do when subpoenaed under oath?

Brett Kavanaugh will not now be voted into this lifetime job, and worse, could lose his present judgeship because of perjury.  His life would hereby be ruined.  If, somehow, he perchance is voted into the Supreme Court under these circumstances, Republicans will be decimated on November 6 and he will now be the second justice with a record of lying.

If they truly reflect on the long term, Donald Trump and Republicans now have a larger problem.  How soon can they shift gears with another candidate for the Supreme Court?  Can they reconvene late in December to vote on someone in a lame duck session if Democrats gain control of the Senate on November 6?  

Who might they be?  Thomas Hardiman:

Amy Coney Barrett:

Raymond Kethledge:

Amul Thapur (Mitch McConnell's favorite):

If mid-term voters keep Republicans in power, then they will have two years to still approve of their desired conservative judge.  One of the above will most likely be next.

So what is my assessment of the situation?  Much of what is happening has to do with politics.  But those are the facts of life.  Brett Kavanaugh might have been a bit reckless while a student and soon thereafter, but he matured and became an exemplary citizen and excellent judge.  In a way, this is unfair because he is a fine citizen today.  The problem is that there is more than one female who has accused him of sexual predation when he was much younger, and especially when drunk.  But he lied by saying no, no.....  This is, morally, perjury.  It might be impossible to legally determine how truthful these women were.

But circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.  If this were a year ago, when the #Me Too movement had not yet gained momentum, it is possible that Ford would not have taken that first step, and others following.  Today, women have gained a new kind of voice dealing with sexuality.  Unfortunate for Kavanaugh, but timing could well be the difference.  He should not be confirmed as the next Supreme Court justice, for there are candidates with equally imposing records who have not been accused of anything serious.

I might mention that President Trump did not today meet with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.  Thus, he still remains to protect investigator Bob Mueller.

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Typhoon Trami is down to 120 MPH, with the eye passing between Miyakojima and Naha.  If landfall occurs over Kyushu, Trami will still be at Category 2 strength on Sunday afternoon.  However, models show the eye passing east and rolling over either Shikoku or Honshu:

Typhoon Trami is expected to remain mostly at hurricane strength over Honshu.

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