IS CHINA CLONING BABIES?

Is China cloning babies?  Yes and no.  There are two types of cloning:

• Therapeutic:  tinkering with DNA to prevent a future ailment.
• Reproductive:  a whole new type of baby.

He Jiankui produced the world's first gene-edited baby to insure that it is born immune to HIV.  As proud as he is to accomplish this task, the government of China just stopped his research, indicating that the work was both unlawful and unethical.

I've long been following this field, for as early as my freshman year at Stanford, Joshua Lederberg won the Nobel Prize and began teaching here.  I recall over the next few years attending a few of his lectures where he specifically indicated the inevitability of human cloning.  That was 60 years ago.

More recently, one of my postings summarized the commercialization of genome engineering, and specifically detailed the technique known as CRISPR-Cas9, which was used by He to accomplish his task.  While 70 countries have banned human cloning, there are nuances in the laws that provide options.  

In the U.S., for example, no totally restrictive law has ever been passed by Congress, but the Federal government has said no to almost anything that appears to insult religious morality.  This leaves the door open to private laboratories.  To quote my 6July2016 posting:

The U.S. Congress banned human gene editing, but Bill Gates and his partners have sunk $120 million into a Cambridge, Massachusetts company, Editas Medicine.  Read this Forbes article.

Notwithstanding that opportunity, the USA will not ever become the first to do reproductive human cloning.  Our morality standards will prevent any serious effort.  A "godless" country, or one seeking a particular advantage will proceed, and ultimately, the world will follow.  In a century or millennium everyone will be smart, healthy and athletic.  Not sure if the ethical and humanitarian instincts will be reproducible.

Let me close with Orphan Black, which is a Canadian science fiction TV series starring Tatiana Maslany as five clones.  The clones are created through a scientific movement called Neolution to optimize the evolution of our species.  Of course, there is a secret religious group, Proletheans, which searches for and assassinates the clones.  The premier was more than five years ago, a fourth season is brewing.  Rotten Tomatoes and reviewers and audiences both bestow 93% ratings for the series.  Wow!

Where can you watch it?  Don't know.  I'll find it and provide this information soon.  Something tells me that BBC America will be the source.

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15 CRAIGSIDE GOES TO MERRIMAN'S

Merriman's opened this summer in the Ward Complex, and here is a quote from my first visit in July:

I remember Peter Merriman on the Big Island.  He started at Mauna Lani and in 1988 opened his first restaurant in Waimea.  He featured regional cuisine and, as much as possible, used local farm products.  In 1994 he opened Hula Grill on Maui, then in 2008 Merriman's Kapalua.  He expanded to Merriman's Fish House on Kauai, with a lower floor of pizza and burgers.  In 2011 came Monkeypod Kitchen in Wailea and Kaanapali on Maui and Ko Olina (Oahu).  

If you wondered what is Moku Kitchen in Kakaako, voted as the Best New Restaurant in the 2018 Hale-Aina Awards, that is another Merriman.  Thus, what he now has in the Ward complex is clearly not Merriman II, but to me, that is his second, with Merriman I in Kamuela still operating.

The executive chef is Jon Matsubara.  He previously headed Stage, Azure, Japengo and Forty Carrots.

So off 15 Craigside went to Merriman's.  There is a pianist at the entrance.  While he played well, unfortunately, our table was right next to him, and talking was difficult, especially as some of us are challenged as it is with our hearing.  

I noticed a sign indicating there were happy hour rates from 3PM to 6PM.  However, these rates only applied if you sat at the bar.  After some discussion they allowed our group to sit at our designated table and still enjoy those lower rates. 

Merriman's is a large restaurant, and at 4:15 PM when we showed up, there were only a few people sitting at the bar. We started with free Prosecco, with Takeo observing the pour. 

Our group, where you will note that we are the only diners.  Probably one reason why they were so accommodating, for it was the bar that began to fill up because of the cost inducements.

I guess people who reside at 15 Craigside must be reasonably wealthy, for they all ordered from the menu, where the entre's were priced from $30 to $44 and up, and some started with a salad.  Here is the happy hour menu:

I had the taco and quesadilla, with a glass of reisling:

My food bill was $14.

Harriet began with the cauliflower and walnut salad:

Takeo ordered a scallop dish:

We had a discussion on why scallops, abalone and octopus don't taste as good as when we were growing up.  I indicated that we then ate them dried.  If he slowly fried the scallops and reduced the moisture content, the scallops would begin to have that same flavor.  So he took two home to experiment.  The group:

The lamb was said to be particularly excellent.  At least they got 25% off on their glasses of wine.  There was a consensus that the food was fine. 

 I thought my "chips" were terrible, but the person sitting next to me loved them.  I guess I was expecting the British-type of French fries, but the ones served had all those rosemary, sage and thyme herbs, which I hate.  Sorry, Simon & Garfunkel.

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There are no ocean storms.

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GLOBAL WARMING: Donald Trump versus the World

In one corner we have the leader of the Free World, President Donald Trump, a skeptic on global climate warming.  In the other, the rest of the world, minus most fossil fuel companies and a few die-hard Republicans.  Our White House last week released a major combined assessment from 13 federal departments predicting the serious impact of climate change.  Mind you, this 1000+ page report came from the office run by The Donald.  This week, Trump said:  I DON'T BELIEVE IT!  Missed it?  See that here. 

Does this really matter?  Of course.  So what will happen?  Maybe nothing much, for a Pew poll earlier this year showed Dealing with Climate Change near the bottom of American priorities, and note the "other" 30% in the right column, which adds to the irrelevance factor:

States like California and Hawaii are leading the effort to overcome the Federal government by beginning to take unilateral steps to reduce the effects of climate change.  Is this smart?  Yes, in some ways, but mostly no.  

Yes because you need to begin planning now to minimize the potential effects of sea level rise, farming, whatever.  But individual entities cannot spend much money to themselves reduce fossil fuel burning or increase car mileage standards.  By doing so, they will become non-competitive economically relative to those who don't.  The bottom line is that every country will need to together commit.

Donald Trump is from his viewpoint, correct in saying, why should we take steps when China and India won't.  It's not fair.  The argument from these and other countries, however, is that the USA has profited from releasing all those greenhouse gases, and it is only appropriate for them to do also until their economies catch up.

The Paris Agreement allows for this delayed-timing factor.  That is at the root of the disagreement.  There is no right or wrong.  Trump long ago announced his intention to withdraw.  However, those who put this plan together were smart.  The earliest any country can drop out is November of 2020.  Guess what happens that month?  Donald Trump is up for re-election.  I will guarantee you that over the next 23 months global warming will become enough of an issue to help determine the winner on 3November2020.

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THE ULTIMATE EXPO: Was That Heaven?

On Sunday, when I reported on the Osaka triumph, I promised to follow up on World Expos.  I wonder if that thought actually triggered a wonderful dream I had last night.

I only very rarely have long dreams, and most of them tend to be dark and on the verge of being nightmarish.  Like being lost on a trip, usually compounded by some misplaced or stolen luggage.

This latest was evocative of one of my most memorable, Suicide Dreams, published in The Huffington Post almost seven years ago.  That title certainly sounds appalling, but the dream itself was one of my better ones, and the setting was Waikiki sometime in the future when the Sheraton is at least five times larger in a well-hued resort environment with interesting mysteries.

This Ultimate Expo seemingly occurred in what might well have been Heaven.  This dream was expansive and colorful with hordes of happy people.  In a way it reminded me of the above Waikiki, but more psychedelic, and less organized.  Take all the World Expos and Fairs and mash them together in a weird sort of way, for I've been to almost all of them since:

• 1962, when, just after graduating from Stanford, I found my way to Seattle for their Century 21 Exposition.
• Expo 67 was held in Montreal, and a year later, my wife and I were just driving around the country and decided to stop at the fair site which was still intact.

• Expo 75 was held in Okinawa, and I also came after it was over to visit Aquapolis, the floating platform that was largely responsible for my Blue Revolution to come.
• I was working in the U.S. Senate, so I drove to Knoxville for the 1982 World's Fair, with the theme:  Energy Turns the World.

• I was working with the Japanese government to form the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research, so they arranged for me to tour the 1985 World's Fair in Tsukuba.  Really nice for me, as I did not stand in any lines, the bane of these gatherings.  I most remember a giant tomato plant with thousands of tomatoes.
• In 1992 I went to the Seville Expo, which was a last minute decision, for I was already in Europe, and ended up staying at the Hotel Alfonso XIII and paid a ridiculous sum for my stay.

• The Lisbon Expo '98 was supposed to have an ocean theme.  I participated in the early planning and tried to get Portugal and Japan to tow Aquapolis to Lisbon.  You can read the full details here.  We failed, and the fair was desultory.

• Only two years later came the Hanover Expo 2000.  The USA declined to participate, and mostly because after the Seville Expo, the U.S. Congress ruled that these extravaganzas were too expensive and the private sector would need to pay for them.
• In 2005 Japan hosted the Aichi Expo.  Okay, but nothing special.

• The Shanghai 2010 World Expo was spectacular!  Leighton was able to secure VIP passes from his colleague in China, and we had a quick access to all exhibits.  The U.S. exhibit was an embarrassing joke.  We advertised a 4-D slide show.  What it was was four screens of slides.

• The Yeosu Expo 2012 was The Living Ocean and Coast.  A general disappointment, but I liked the colors.
• The Milan Expo 2015 Expo was one of the better ones.  However, this was a mere stop on a 65-day around the world trip, where I had lost a tooth and suffered from food poisoning, but had the best day ever on a trip, in Venice.  The European river cruise was memorable.

So imagine amalgamating all the above into a dream in a fluffy sort of way.  There was no actual beginning.  What I remember, and things are getting fuzzy, is that I was at what looked like a world fair as a 15 Craigside outing.  But I was mostly walking around alone and wondering where we were supposed to meet and at what time so that we could be taken home by our van.  

Therefore, this expo must have been occurring in Hawaii, which was the focus of another HuffPo published more than seven years ago entitled, The Sustainable Expo for 2020.  The theme was Visions for Blue Planet Earth, and was all about the Blue Revolution.  

If this inspiration became reality, Hawaii would have been well on our way to greatness.  Well, Dubai will be the site of Expo 2020.

I don't remember eating anything.  In fact, as I think about it, I don't seem to consume food in any of my dreams.  My anxiety level was rising when I saw my college freshman roomate, Jim.  He was with a couple of friends, perhaps Kathy (here they are more recently), and in this dream, must have also resided at 15 Craigside, for I asked him when we were supposed leave.  He never really answered, so I followed them, and we then all looked at the sky, all meaning a hundred thousand people, gazing up.  

It was getting close to sunset but there was a hole in the clouds, and the implication, I sensed, was that we were viewing Planet Earth in the far background.  Thus, we must have been in Heaven.  

I tried to take a photo, and was carrying my $85 Sony (that's the smaller one).  Wouldn't that be something if the next time I download there is this shot?

Further on I saw a translucent barber shop, but more beauty salon.  The light coming out was glaring, and the colors were psychedelic.  Imagine this scene to the left with a hundred manicuring tables.  I was tempted to enter.  Maybe not coincidentally, I need a haircut and should do something soon about my long nails.

The group then headed towards a Boston/John F. Kennedy exhibit where we thought we'd have dinner.  We bumped into Cookie (right), except this one seemed younger and had brownish hair.  In fact, the few people I recognized were all around half their present ages.  Except that I felt old, but yet, with all the walking around, was not at all exhausted.  In fact, I was exhilarant.  She once ran the programs at 15 Craigside and led us on most of our outings.  I asked her when we were gathering to return home.  She returned a strange look and suggested, what about around 10:30?  What immediately occurred to me was how she would inform the others, as no one who looked familiar was with her...when I woke up.

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THE GREEN BOOK and CREED II

My euphoria continues, for Hawaii crafted another improbably amazing win for the second straight week, beating San Diego State on Saturday, and now is officially set for the Hawaii Bowl on December 22, while the Rainbow Wahine Volleyball team, to the surprise of many, made the NCAA finals.  Went to two movies, again, this weekend:

                            Rotten Tomatoes        Box Office  My Rating
                        Reviewers  Audiences        Mojo

Green Book          82              94                 9              B+

Creed II                 82              89                 2              B

Interesting that the Kahala movie theater was packed for Green Book, but was so-so for Creed II.  

I might also add that I had lunch between those films at Gomatei, a glass of Kirin beer with an excellent truffles ramen, which I would rank right up there with the belly bowl of Lucky Belly.

The Negro Motorist Green Book was published from 1936 to 1966 for African-Americans during the Jim Crow era.  Not only the deep south, but throughout the country, blacks could not find restaurants and lodging when on travel.  In the 1920's hotels in Salt Lake City were only available for whites.  There were also sundown laws, and even at the end of the 1960's there were 10,000 of these cities where blacks had to be indoors at night, even in Glendale, California.  John A. Williams wrote in his 1964 book, This My Country Too:

...that he did not believe "white travelers have any idea of how much nerve and courage it requires for a Negro to drive coast to coast in America." He achieved it with "nerve, courage, and a great deal of luck," supplemented by "a rifle and shotgun, a road atlas, and Travelguide, a listing of places in America where Negroes can stay without being embarrassed, insulted, or worse."^[26] 

Thus, you can appreciate the title, Green Book, a mostly true story involving Dr. Don Shirley, a virtuoso African-American pianist, and Tony Vallelonga, a White Italian-American New York City bouncer, who went on to become maitre'd at the Copacabana, and whose son Nick helped write and produce this film, serving as the driver for a Black man through the South.  I remember when I first went to Baton Rouge in 1969 there were still separate black and white drinking fountains.  But I drove everywhere throughout the country and had no problems.

Don (Mahershala Ali) and Tony (Viggo Mortensen) formed an odd couple from opposite tracks of society, and the reversed positions made it all the more entertaining.  You've seen Ali, of course, for he won an Oscar for his performance in Moonlight.  Mortensen you've also seen a lot, for he has twice been nominated for Best Actor.

I can't say it any better, so let me use this quote:

Writing for The San Francisco Chronicle, Mike LaSalle praised Ali and Mortensen and said "...there's something so deeply right about this movie, so true to the time depicted and so welcome in this moment; so light in its touch, so properly respectful of its characters, and so big in its spirit, that the movie acquires a glow. It achieves that glow slowly, but by the middle and certainly by the end, it's there, the sense of something magical happening, on screen and within the audience."^[23]

There have been eight Rocky movies, the latest, Creed II.  The series has grossed more than $1.4 billion.  The first, released in 1976--that's 42 years ago--won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing.  Sylvester Stallone received nominations as Best Actor for the first and seventh.

Many of us read books and go see the movie anyway, knowing exactly what will happen.  Thus, this review tells it all.  In Creed II:

• Adonis, son (Michael B. Jordan) of Creed I (not in film), coached by Rocky (Sylvester Stallone), who previously had beaten and coached Creed I, wins the world heavyweight championship.
• Ukrainian Ivan Drago (Dolf Lundgren) had previously killed Creed I in a fight, but Rocky subsequently beats Drago.
• This latest film builds a sympathetic platform for the Dragos.

• An eager American promoter talk's Drago and his son, Viktor (Florian Munteanu), to challenge Creed II.  
• Rocky refuses to help out in this fight, and Viktor almost kills Adonis in the ring.
• Tell you what, go see the film, it's good.  I won't reveal what happens next, but consider that Sylvester Stallone helped write the screenplay, was one of the producers and co-stars, but that the Dragos also deserve some redemption.

By the way, have you noticed how many producers there are on films these days?  In 1994 the number was already up to 5.4, then 10 in 2013.  Now?  Don't know...but got to be more.  What do they do?  Read Vulture.  I show the poster for The Producers, for it was a great film.  There was a junk 2005 version, but the 1968 original earned an Oscar for Mel Brooks, not as  a producer, but for Best Original Screenplay.

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