COVID-19: Around the World in 2021

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil   India   South Africa

May     27    1535     5283         1148     190         28

            28    1223     4612         1067     177         25
            29    1212     4873         1180     269         34
            30    1015     4084           890     205         32
June      1      638     3189          480      223         40
              2      730     3053          732      200         22
              3    1134    4669         1232      221         50
             4     1083    4928         1269      259         37
             5     1031    5511         1492      275         56
             6       975    4906         1008      286         60
             7       706    4253           910      297         44
             8       586    3157           813      266         82
             9     1093    4732         1185      246         82
           10       982    5163         1300      388         48
           11       904    4951         1261      394         74
           12       791    4603           843      389         70
           13       702    4229           890      309         69
           14       331    3263           598      321         57

Summary:  A great day for Humanity.

Will I go around the world in 2021?  Probably, for I would like to get to Dubai by April for the World Expo.

Who in his right mind would go on a cruise anytime soon?  Maybe me, for the Island Princess leaves Los Angeles on 17January2021, with a next stop in Honolulu, and ends up on a 57-day itinerary on March 15 in Dubai.  Balcony room costs $14,059/person today.  Perhaps a lower price will be found.  There are ways.

After that, who knows at this point, although an around the world ticket on United Airlines in business class would cost $12,000 or so, which would mean having a free trip from Honolulu to Dubai within the year.  Perhaps first Dubai to Germany to take a European river cruise to Amsterdam.  I would think the tulips would be abloom then.  After that???  Something worth dreaming about today.

Here is why I want to go back to Dubai:

This is a long way to get to two films on cruising I just saw on television.  Sure, they're disaster productions, but the endings were favorable:

                                       Rotten Tomatoes        My Grade
                                    Reviewers  Audiences

Poseidon Adventure          79               76             B+
 
Juggernaut                         80               55             B+

Poseidon Adventure was released in 1972, and like The Perfect Storm, a rogue wave gets in the way.  The ship is tossed upside-down.  This was the beginning of Irwin Allen's series of disaster movies.  The Queen Mary, still docked in Long Beach, was the location.  The cast was sterling:  Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Shelley Winters, Stella Stevens, Jack Albertson, Arthur O'Connell and Leslie Nielsen.

Won two Oscars, one for the The Morning After, sung by Lynley, using the voice of Renee Armand.  Maureen McGovern made it into a hit.  Read Wikipedia for details.  Don't bother to watch any re-makes.

Juggernaut, a British film, came out in 1974, starring Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, Anthony Hopkins, David Hemmings and Shirley Knight.  Again, if interested, you can read the details.  A Russian cruise ship, the TS Maxim Gorkiy was used, and the passengers were those who responded to an ad soliciting extras for a free lengthy cruise into the North Sea when the weather was to be terrible.  Director Richard Lester said this was not a disaster movie, for only few died.

It was in 1972 when I had returned to Honolulu after graduate school to start my academic career at the University of Hawaii.  Two years later, I completed making a Heathkit TV set from scratch.  Took me a month.  That was an ordeal.  I was planning on inserting it into the living room wall, but when I cut into it, an aluminum pole was sitting right in the middle of where the TV was supposed to be.

I then happened to see Juggernaut.  I figured if they could defuse seven bombs, I could find a way to get around that pipe.  I guessed that the wire inside was not electrical, but the TV line to the antenna on top of the building.  So I carefully cut around the pipe in two places, hoping that there was enough slack in the wire to move the pipe over a couple of feet.  I succeeded.

The #1 hits of 2014 in less than 2 minutes.  The #1 song of the year was Happy, by Pharrell Williams.  The Year 2014:

• West African Ebola epidemic kills 11,310.
• Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
• Malaysian Airlines 370, a Boeing 777, leaving Kuala Lumpur for Beijing disappears.  Still nothing found.
• Putin annexes Crimea.  Russia suspended from the G8.  Trump wants him back.

• Boko Haram in Nigeria kidnaps 276 girls.  Since then only 57 have been rescued.
• South Korean ferry Sewol capsizes, killing 304 people, mostly high school students.
• Malaysian Airlines 17, a Boeing 777, crashes in Ukraine after being shot down by a missile, killing all 298 on board.
• Michael Brown shot by police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, triggering riots.
• Tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, One World Trade Center (1776 feet) in New York City opens.

A lot happened in 2015, but the best was My Ultimate Fantasy Journey.  It was a circle Pacific grand tour ending with a Crystal Symphony cruise from Tokyo to Honolulu.  I then moved into 15 Craigside.

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