COVID-19 DEATH RATES: Some Surprising Comparisons

About the Omicron variant, it is becoming crystal clear that no one is safe until everyone is safe.  The whole world needs to attain herd immunity to diminish this virus to flu status.  While Omicron could mean that those vaccinated could be infected (and we really don't know if this is true at this early stage), the consensus sense is that vaccinations will prevent a serious illness and death.  So get vaccinated.  Looks like my trip to Dubai for the World Expo in March is now in serious jeopardy.

About Dubai, Lindsay Lohan, who now lives there, announced her engagement to Bader Shammas, a financier in the country.  In the post she called her betrothed:  My love. My  life. My family. My future.  She is co-starring in a Netflix holiday rom-com as a spoiled hotel heiress with amnesia opposite Glee star Chord Overstreet.

On the college football sports front, Oklahoma's Coach Lincoln Riley is moving to the USC.  Almost shockingly, Notre Dame's Brian Kelly is going to LSU.  One good reason why LSU won the national championship a couple of years ago was the defensive coaching of David Aranda, who moved to Baylor as head coach.  The team this year is 10-2 and playing 11-1 Oklahoma State for the Big 12 championship this Saturday.  Oklahoma State last week beat Oklahoma.  Aranda once coached at the University of Hawaii and was considered to be weirdly super-competent.

Remember Sweden's first female prime minister who last week resigned after only holding that role for a few hours?  Well, Magdalena Andersson became prime minister again when the Swedish Parliament yesterday appointed her anyway.  How much longer? Who knows, but her Social Democrats hold only 100 seats in the 349-member Parliament.

Sweden is that Scandinavian country choosing not to lock down, a policy that led to a lot more deaths (per 1 million inhabitants) compared to their neighbors:

• Sweden  1484
• Denmark  495
• Norway  192
• Finland  240
• Iceland  102
• World  670
• USA  2401
• New York 2983
• Florida  2865
• Arizona  3054
• New Jersey  3192
• Louisiana 3182
• Mississippi  3449
• Hawaii  719
• Vermont  657
• Veterans Affairs  43,600
• Navajo Nation  39,225
• Federal Prisons  4827
• U.S. Military  1458
• India  335
• Germany 1208
• Russia  1876
• Boznia/Herzegovina  3861
• Peru  5983
• Japan  146
• Australia  77
• New Zealand  9
• South Korea  70
• Israel  879
• Morocco  394
• Botswana  1000
• South Africa 1488
• China  3
• Taiwan  36
• Diamond Princess  3772

A few interesting comparisons:

• Sweden and the U.S. Military have similar death rates.
• The Diamond Princess had a death rate similar to many former Soviet countries.
• About the U.S., where some states would rank in the world top ten for death rate:
• Veterans Affairs and Navajo Nation had ten times the death rate of the worst countries.
• Our Federal Prison would rank #2 to Peru for having the highest death rate.
• That Veterans Affairs rate is so because they are older, but mostly because this rate is based on those veterans in VA hospitals, numbering 384,958.  There are 19 million total veterans, so if you divide by this number, the death rate for veterans would be 812.  But then, you need to add veteran deaths outside of VA hospitals, so this becomes complicated.
• Throughout the world, Indigenous peoples suffer from higher death rates.
• Countries of the Orient and Oceania did something right.
• Certainly quick government reaction and masks made a difference.
• Also, their previous experience with SARS and MERS epidemics helped.
• However, are there other factors such as weather, culture, genetics, different immune system, obesity, etc.
• It's possible that some strain of a coronavirus previously swept through the region to increase immunity.  Could have been a cold virus.
• Japan practices good hygiene, has long worn masks (because of air pollution from China and their culture about wearing one to prevent passing on colds, etc.) and bowing instead of shaking hands.
• Nobel laureate Tasuku Honjo, a Japanese physician-scientist and immunologist, said people with Asian and European ancestry have enormous differences in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) haplotype, genes that control the immune system’s response to a virus.
• Obesity?

Well, enough of that.  I'm ending with something cute:

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Here it is almost December and ocean storm Nyatoh has formed east of the Philippines and is expected to attain Category 3 status.  However, all signs point to this typhoon going north then west to avoid major landfall.

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THE LATEST OMICRON CLUES

This Monday finds the world without any major war, natural disaster or particularly newsworthy item, except maybe Omicron, the latest COVID-19 virus of concern:

• It is the 13th variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
• Thus we should be up to the 13th Greek letter to name this strain.
• But the World Health Organization skipped #13 Nu and #14 Xi...why?
• Nu sounds like new, which could confuse people, they say.  But it is new, so why not?
• Xi sounds like Xi Jinping, and the UN is afraid of the Chinese president.  
• Or maybe it was to not stigmatize a region.
• 
  If you're wondering why you never read or heard about Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda and Mu, they were definitely variants, but never reached the level of concern.  Actually, though, Lambda (Peru) and Mu (Columbia) remain variants of interest.
• Best as I can tell, you can pronounce OMICRON any way you want.  However, if you had to pick one, say oh-MY-cron:
• Oh-muh-cron.
• “The correct pronunciation is “oh-my-cron”, with the emphasis on the second syllable.”
• Cambridge Dictionary offers two different English pronunciations of the letter, suggesting “oh-MY-cron” for British English, and “OH-mi-cron” for American English.
• Om-mee-cron.
• Omicron can be pronounced both ä-mə-ˌkrän or ō-ˈmī-(ˌ)krän, according to Merriam-Webster.
• 
  I said yesterday that South Africa was where the first case appeared. 
• Today, I read that Botswana is said to be the first.  I have always wanted to visit this country because it is Hawaii's antipode.  That is, if I dig down from where I live through Planet Earth, I would re-appear in Botswana.  Think I'll skip this bucket list item.
• Then I learned that South Africa first reported this Omicron variant of November 24, while Botswana collected the first positive sample on November 11.  
• But, that November 24 case from South Africa was a result of sampling on November 9.
• So WHO later today just lists multiple countries in South Africa.
• 
  But pronunciation and original source are the least of your concerns:
• The Beta variant also was traced to South Africa, and spread to 117 countries.  
• The worry was that this microorganism appeared to be resistant to vaccines.  
• But Malaysia had one case last month, so forget this one.
• The Gamma variant was detected in Brazil in January and was said to be from 40% to 160% more transmissible, and was like Beta, more resistant to vaccines.  
• Ninety countries got this variant, but this now outbreakl dropped to only South America this past month.
• The Delta variant appeared in India in October of 2020, became of international interest only in April, and upgraded to a concern in May.  
• It was 40% to 60% more transmissible than Alpha, caused more severe illnesses and had a high viral load.
• Delta is now in 179 countries and responsible for 99% of all cases today, and also now said to be twice as contagious as previous variants.
• Some countries are taking drastic action this time:
• Morocco is suspending ALL incoming flights for two weeks.
• Japan today announced a ban on ALL incoming foreign travelers for one month.  All means even students and business travelers...FROM EVERY COUNTRY IN THE WORLD.
• Israel is excluding foreign entry and making quarantine mandatory for all Israelis arriving from abroad.
• 
  The U.S. is only banning visitors from eight African countries.  President Joe Biden said Omicron is a cause for concern, not a cause for panic.
• Biden is right, and it will take a week or two to better understand what is happening.  

A Quora entry sent to me by a colleague featuring Dr Jo, a clinician from New Zealand;

• South Africa today:

• Further:

Here are the things we haven’t learnt:

1. That this is an international plague, so we need a solid international effort. Not lip service.
2. That we should have put particular effort into getting vaccines into other countries—especially in developing nations, which otherwise become variant-developing nations.
3. That trying to ‘live with the virus’ may be more than a bit silly.[8] With every new wave—sometimes even before every new wave—we have convinced ourselves that we can happily let a few people die, often those at the margins, so we can “keep our economies open”.
4. That there is no ‘normal’ to ‘go back to’. The old gluttony must go. We need to re-fashion our entire world economy, to support those who are crushed by pandemics like this. Otherwise, they will rise up and crush us in turn. Together with the new variants grown in their bosom.
5. That this is not a war. The virus is not a military power, to be fought on the battlefield. Our real enemy is ourselves—and the virus is simply exposing our weaknesses.

About the U.S. and other rich nations helping out the developing world with more free vaccinations:

• Cost of each dose of vaccine:

• Arbitrarily, we need 10 billion more dosages:
• At the $4 cost of the Oxford vaccine:  $80 billion.  Seems affordable.
• At the $37 cost of the Moderna vaccine;  $370 billion.

• There are 7.8 billion people in the world.  Interestingly enough, as of today, 7.8 billion dosages had been given, and 3.33 billion are fully vaccinated, or 43% of the global population.
• % of population fully vaccinated:
• Gibraltar  99%
• UAE  89%
• Singapore  88%
• Portugal  87%
• Cambodia  79%
• Spain  79%
• South Korea  79%
• Japan  77%
• Germany 69%
• UK  69%
• U.S. 59%
• Russia 39%
• South Africa  24%
• Botswana  20%
• Egypt  14%
• Uganda  2%
• Nigeria 1.7%
• Sudan  1.3%
• Ethiopia  1.2%
• Chad  0.4%
• Congo  0.1%

I'll close with some modern art:

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HANUKKAH BEGINS AT SUNDOWN TONIGHT

Hanukkah is a joyous Jewish festival.  Don't worry too much about the spelling, for there must be half a dozen ways to do that.  This 8-day festival of lights starts at sundown tonight (always on Sunday) and runs through December 6 this year.  The start date can vary from around Thanksgiving to after Christmas.

Each night one more candle is lit on a candelebrum called a chanukiah, placed at a window to the left of the door, if possible.  But you ask, why are there 9 lights/candles?  Especially as there are 8 days of lighting and the seal of the State of Israel has 7, which is the standard menorah.  

The middle one, the shamash (means attendant, and is always higher or lower than the other candles), is the helper candle that is used to light the others.  There is an order beginning with one the first night, plus the samash, lighted after sunset, except for that Friday (because of the Sabbat, so the lighting should begin before sunset) with one more each night.  Each candle must last for at least half an hour, and allowed to burn out, but can be extinguished and thrown away after that 30-minute period, if you are leaving the scene, for safety purposes.  The candle color is left to your choice.   

Oil lamps can be used instead of candles.  An electric chanukiah is only for decorative purposes and doesn't officially qualify to fulfill the ceremony.  There are also right to left lighting rules, prayers, blessings, and singing, but when all is done, 44 candles will be lit by the eighth night.

There is a lot of history to why Hanukkah, dating back to the second century BC, which you can read if you wish. There is something about the miracle oil, which evolved into the practice today.

• Yummy fried and oily treats:  latkes (potato pancakes), sulfayiyot (jelly-filled doughnuts) gelt (chocolate coins) and sfinj (fried sweed doughy donuts), although more recently, they now come in smaller sizes to reduce caloric intake.

• 
  Games, like spinning tops or dreidels.
• Gift-giving, where the term gelt is also used for gold coins.  
• Songs:
• here is one top ten.

• 
  Another, with Adam Sandler's The Chanukah Song is #4.
• Also sung by Neil Diamond at #11.
• #21 is Rock of Ages by Def Leppard.  

• 
  Wait a minute, that doesn't sound like the Rock of Ages more traditionally sung during Hanukkah, and also called Maoz Tzur.
• I grew up attending a Christian church and sang yet another Rock of Ages.

While I'm at this, there is another celebration called Kwanzaa.  This is of African-American culture and always held from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a communal feast called Karamu.  You would think that the roots would be from the African continent brought over by slaves.  Nope, it was created by Maulana Karenga in 1966 following the Los Angeles Watts riots.  

Seven candles symbolize the seven principles of Kwanzaa:

Actually, Kwanzaa celebrations have declined, and in 2015 only 2% of the population honored the period.  Maya Angelou narrated a 2012 documentary called The Black Candle.

I should add that there are a few Hanukkah films, including one by Adam Sandler in 2002, Eight Crazy Nights (Rotten Tomatoes: 12/49), said to be a raunchy animated flick.  Seth Rogan has two, and some of you might seen another animated, An American Tail (RT: 72/71), from where came Somewhere Out There, recorded by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram, about a mouse family, and not realized that cats are anti-semitic here.  Others have surely watched the 2010 Little Fockers (RT:9/34), the third and final film in the Meet the Parents series, with Ben Stiller, Robert De Niro, Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Owen Wilson and Jessica Alba.

Want to relax for 10 hours?  Listen to Weightless by Marconi Union.  Marconi Union is a UK band that has been around for almost two decades.

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OMICRON

I usually don't show this table on Saturdays, but the U.S. number was so low on Friday that I just had to follow-up today:

                             From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

2020

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14      4142    15512       1151        189     712              

2021

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194

April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 

June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95

 July   7          251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532     423 

Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235

          8        1700      9836          250        339     253

        14        1934      9001          709        281      300

        22       2228      9326          839        279      124

        29        2190      8859         643        309      108

Oct    6        2102       8255         543        315       59

Nov   3        1436       7830        186        458        23

        10        1493      8366         264        362        48

        17        1416      8440         374        470        11

        24        1594      8270         176        396        22 

        25          306      7154         281        488      114

        26          337      6863         303        465        12

Summary:

• Well, two days in a row of such low new deaths for the USA.  Maybe something good is happening.  I don't know what is happening.
• We had 37,686 new cases yesterday, #3 in the world next to Germany with 72,159 and the UK with 50,091.  Europe (including Russia and Turkey) had 9 countries with at least 20,000 new cases.
• A surprise is South Africa with only 12 new deaths.

South Africa did have 2,828 new cases yesterday, showing that deaths will return to more than 100 soon.  But what is the deep concern about Omicron in South Africa?

First, Omicron is the 15th letter in the Greek alphabet, the newest COVID-19 variant, which was first detected in South Africa.  Citing World Bank Data:

• 
  South Africa had 26,485 new cases on 2July2021 when the 7-day average was 18,921.
• Then the 7-day average dipped to 277 new cases on November 18.
• Suddenly, 18,586 new cases on November 23, 1,275 on November 24, 2465 on November 25 and 2828 on November 26, with a current 7-day average of 3459 new cases.

In the most populous province in South Africa, Gauteng, something new sparked this jumped.  This variant was so obviously dangerous that the World Health Organization virtually immediately gave it a name, Omicron.  Unfortunately cases also just appeared in the UK, Belgium, Botswana, Hong Kong and Israel, meaning all over the world.  In addition to fears of higher transmission and vaccine inefficiency, a key factor is that Omicron has a high number of mutations, around 30, in the coronavirus' spike protein, which is related to how easily it can spread.

Europe, which has regained epicenter status for this pandemic, has itself taken special precautions:

As of noon Friday, travelers arriving in the U.K. from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini and Zimbabwe will have to self-isolate for 10 days. European Union nations also moved quickly on Friday to ban air travel from southern Africa, and the U.S. also said it would ban travel from South Africa and seven other African nations by non-US citizens beginning Monday.

Germany just confirmed two Omicron cases in travelers from Cape Town, and the U.S. will bar entry to most travelers from eight southern African countries starting Monday.  Both Delta and United, which fly to South Africa, experienced an 8% drop in their stock value yesterday.  That after we on November 8 lifted travel curbs on 33 countries, including South Africa.  Further, President Joe Biden is taking the heat for not moving quicker to get vaccines to African countries.  As of this writing, no Omicron cases in the U.S.

In any case, much of this concern could be an overreaction.  It will take weeks to sort out the data.  The Beta variant initially caused a stir, but nothing happened.  Then came Delta, and it today accounts for more than 99% of the cases.  As I keep saying, this pandemic just won't go away.

I'll end with something off the wall.  So called Baddest Man on the Planet Mike Tyson owns over 1000 pigeons.  His first fight was when an older boy violently killed one of his pigeons.  Now his monthly maintenance on their maintenance could get as high as $400,000 per month.  He is said to have spent $2 million for his birds.  He once had a pet tiger weighing in at 550 pounds, which he slept with, and kept for 16 years.  Had to get rid of her when she bit off a neighbor's arm.  He now has a dog, Mars, who is his sparring mate.

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TEN TIMES MORE PEOPLE DIE FROM SUICIDE THAN COVID-19

 I usually don't show this table on Fridays, but I do today for I can't explain these numbers:

                             From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14      4142    15512       1151        189     712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194

April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 

June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95

 July   7          251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532     423 

Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235

          8        1700      9836          250        339     253

        14        1934      9001          709        281      300

        22       2228      9326          839        279      124

        29        2190      8859         643        309      108

Oct    5        1811       7495          686        285     103

          6        2102       8255         543        315       59

        12        1819       7544         201        249       37 

        19        2005      7528         401        160        80 

        26        1451       7535         409        584       53

        27       1594       8671         433        734        62 

Nov   3        1436       7830        186        458        23

        10        1493      8366         264        362        48

        17        1416      8440         374        470        11

        24        1594      8270         176        396        22 

        25          306      7154         281        488      114

Summary:

• How can the U.S. possibly drop from 1594 new deaths/day to 306 in one day?  If this is true, we would now be #4 to #1 Russia with 1238, #2 India with 488 and #3 Germany with 315.
• Even more amazing, in new cases at 27,187 yesterday, we would be #6 behind:
• #1  Germany  76,132
• #2  UK  46,991
• #3  Russia  33,796
• #4  France  33,464
• #5  Poland  28,187
• #7  Turkey  24,467
• #8  Belgium  23,350
• #9  Netherlands 22,184
• The particularly worrisome development is the appearance of a new strain, known as B.1.1.529, in South Africa, soon to get a Greek-letter by the World Health Organization.
• Stock markets around the world sunk with this bit of bad news.
• Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Namibia have also been affected.
• If this strain spreads throughout Africa, that would prolong the pandemic for a very long time, for this region has very low vaccination rates, minimal hospitalization capability and a large population capable of being infected.
• That matter of richer nations getting boosted versus expanding vaccinations to developing nations becomes all too real.
• The early analysis is that this new variation is more transmissible than Delta, and that vaccines might be compromised.
• So far, the World has suffered from more than a quarter billion (260,276,570) cases and more than five million (5,199,130) deaths.  
• The odds of your dying from COVID-10 so far are around 1 in 1500.
• The odds of your dying this year are 1 in 105.  
• Of course, as in COVID, the younger you are, the less chance of your death.
• In other words, if you are 21 years old, these odds of your living improve to 1 in 823.
• If you are 80 years old, the odds are 1 in 18.
• If 100 years old, the odds are around 1 in 3.
• Each year 1.35 million die from traffic accidents, which means one chance in 5763 for you/year.
• Comparing this number with COVID means you need to divide that 1500 by around 1.75 to bring this figure to an annual basis.
• Thus, on an annual average, your chances of dying from COVID are around one in 857.
• Here are your odds of dying from:
• Heart disease  1 in 6
• Cancer  1 in 7
• Chronic respiratory disease  1 in 27
• Suicide  1 in 88
• Opioid overdose  1 in 92
• Fall  1 in 106
• Motor-vehicle crash  1 in 107
• COVID-19  1 in 857
• Drowning  1 in 1,128
• Choking on food  1 in 2,535
• Bicyclist  1 in 3,825
• Gun discharge  1 in 8,248
• Bee/insect sting  1 in 60,000
• Dog attack  1 in 86,781
• Lightning  1 in 138,849
• Passenger on train or plane:  too low to calculate.

In short, feel safe on a train or plane, but consider that ten times more people die annually from suicide than from COVID-19 (on an annual pandemic basis).  Eight times more people die from traffic accidents than COVID-19.

We are a little more than two weeks away from our Hawaii TEDx event on Saturday, December 11 at 9AM (Hawaii time).  For information on how to access our talks, go to:

TEDx Blue Revolution Hawaii

     https://tedxbluerevolutionhawaii.com

Blue Revolution Hawaii

     https://tedxbluerevolutionhawaii.com/#abouttedx

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TURKEYS ARE THE DINOSAURS OF TODAY

                             From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732         1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85

Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748       1224       299      465

Jan     14      4142    15512       1151        189     712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

Mar     2        1989      9490        1726       110      194

April   6          906     11787         4211       631       37

May    4         853     13667         3025     3786      59 

June   1         287    10637         2346      3205       95

 July   7          251      8440        1595        817      411

Aug    4          656    10120        1118         532     423 

Sept   1        1480    10470          703        505      235

          8        1700      9836          250        339     253

        14        1934      9001          709        281      300

        22       2228      9326          839        279      124

        29        2190      8859         643        309      108

Oct    5        1811       7495          686        285     103

          6        2102       8255         543        315       59

        12        1819       7544         201        249       37 

        19        2005      7528         401        160        80 

        26        1451       7535         409        584       53

        27       1594       8671         433        734        62 

Nov   3        1436       7830        186        458        23

        10        1493      8366         264        362        48

        17        1416      8440         374        470        11

        23        1594      8270         176        396        22 

Summary:  

• This pandemic is just not going away anytime soon.  
• The USA remains #1 in new cases with 104,819, which means that two weeks from now we still could be having four digit deaths/day.
• Russia #2 with 1240 new deaths and Ukraine #3 with 595.
• Michigan, California and Oklahoma had more than 100 new deaths.
• Taiwan had 5 new cases and no new deaths, and China had 22 new cases and no new deaths.
• Michigan was the only state with five digit new cases, with 10,020.
• For those having a family and friends Thanksgiving dinner, be careful.

The following was sent to me today:

Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is truly a special day. It was first celebrated in 1621 when the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians shared a fall harvest. In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of thanksgiving to be held each year in November. In the United States, Thanksgiving is held on the fourth Thursday in November. Thanksgiving Day is more than a day of fond memories, parades, football, and special dinners. It is also a day of thanks.

Sounds about right, except for one new truth.  Here is one telling from Michelle McCaulley, of the Pyramid Lake Pauite Tribe, that is more and more becoming the reality:

According to the New York Times, in 1621, the pilgrims did celebrate a successful harvest with a three-day gathering that was attended by members of the Wampanoag tribe. At least 90 men from the Wampanoag tribe were present, according to TIME magazine.

The deadly conflicts that came after, however, are practically erased from school textbooks, McCaulley pointed out.

In fact, many scholars argue Massachusetts Colony Gov. John Winthrop proclaimed the first official “Day of Thanksgiving” in 1637 to celebrate the safe return of a group of heavily armed colonial volunteers. The men returned from what is now Mystic, Connecticut, where they had massacred 700 Pequot Indians — men, women and children.

“The real meaning of why it became a holiday is just atrocious and it’s sickening,” McCaulley said. “They’re giving kids false stories of what was actually a really horrific experience and changing (the story).”

This classical fairy tale is repeated by other stories now becoming known.  Another.

There are reports of thanksgiving celebrations before 1621, and many more throughout our history.  Whatever, President George Washington honored a Congressional request to declare Thanksgiving Day in 1789.  In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed this national day of Thanksgiving as the last Thursday in November.  President Ulysses Grant made it a federal holiday in 1870.

You also did not learn in grade school about the origin of turkeys.

• All of life originated from a common ancestor that lived a 3 billion years ago.  Eventually, dinosaurs appeared.

• 
  A turkey is a dinosaur.  There appears to be an early relation with a velociraptor or Tyrannosaurus REX 190 million years ago.  
• According to Wikipedia, the earliest turkeys evolved in North American over 20 million years ago, which was domesticated 2000 years ago.  
• One theory of why a turkey is called a turkey had to do with exporting of this American bird to the Middle East by merchants having nothing to do with turkeys.  They were known as Turkey Coqs.

About the future of turkey and food in general, from Ozy:

Disney’s The Lion King foretold our food future. Don’t believe me? Remember when Pumbaa and Timon take Simba on a culinary tour of their world, slurping on bugs? “Tastes like chicken,” Timon says. “Slimy yet satisfying,” Pumbaa chimes in. We might all be saying the same in the decades to come. Edible insects — already popular in large parts of the non-Western world — are rich in protein yet are more sustainable to produce than beef or pork. All of which is driving an explosion in demand for these creepy crawlies, which are expected to have a global market worth $4.6 billion by 2027. One country that could really benefit economically is Mexico, home to 29% of the world's edible insects species.

However, for now, it's safe to say that no insect will ever replace a turkey for your Thanksgiving meal.  For one, the largest is a Giant Weta, which weighs in at 2.5 ounces.

New York City's Macy's Parade came to life:

What is the #1 Thanksgiving song?  Don't know any Thanksgiving music.  I was curious from this announcement in the elevator of 15 Craigside.  Music Choice has a channel for seasonal music, and I tuned in today for they featured Thanksgiving.  The songs were a mix of sacred, religious, thankful and Christmas music, mostly by current artists.  Did not recognize any, except for those Christmasy ones.

So I guess that those are the songs reminiscent of Thanksgiving.  Halloween has Monster Mash.  I don't have a favorite one for this day, so I checked.  Esquire had the Best Thanksgiving Songs of All Time to Keep Dinner Humming.  Too many songs to list, but here were a few I recognized:

• Candyman by Jim James and Friends.  Nope, never heard this cowboy song before.  I thought this was The Candy Man by Sammy Davis, which is more Thanksgiving-like to me.
• 
  We are Family, Sister Sledge.
• American Pie, Don McLean.  Not only did they misspell his name as McLeon, but I also wonder why they included this song because it is one of tragedy.
• Do the Mashed Potatoes, James Brown.  Not my kind of mashed potatoes.  I liked Dee Dee Sharp's Mashed Potato Time.

• 
  Autumn in New York, Billie Holiday.
• The Thanksgiving Song, Adam Sandler.  Interestingly enough, I heard it this morning on that Music Choice Thanksgiving channel, and wondered if this was that Adam Sandler.  It is.

Town&Country ranked a Turkey Day playlist:

• #1  What a Wonderful World, Louis Armstrong.
• #2  We are Family, Sister Sledge.
• #3  Where You Lead, Carole King.
• #4  Take Me Home, Country Roads, John Denver.  He died in a plane crash he was piloting not long after his concert in Hawaii which I attended.  I was at that time thinking of taking flying lessons.
• #5  Thanksgiving Prayer, Johnny Cash/
• #8  Autumn in New York, Billie Holiday.
• #20  American Pie, Don McLean.  Also misspelled his hame McLeon.

On the basis of the above, I guess I'll begin to include What A Wonderful World as my Thanksgiving favorite, but by Iz.  However, I'm open to something more emotionally meaningful and truly evocative about Thanksgiving

The following was also sent to me by a working woman:

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