THE RETURN OF MARILYN MONROE

              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   22      2228      9326          839       279     124

Oct      6       2102      8255          543       315       59

Nov    3        1436      7830         186        458       23

Dec     1       1633      8475          266        477       28

Jan     7        2025      6729         148         285     140

Feb     2        2990   12012          946        991      175

Mar     2        1778     7756          335         173       28 

Apr     1          439      4056         290          52       12

May    5          225      2404         151            ?        64

June    2          216      1413         130          10       31

July    6          316      1627         335           35       12 

Aug    4           311       2138         258          70         ?

         11          290       1994         173          49         ?

         18          264       1950         202            ?         ?

         25          245       1909         197          68         ? 

Sep    1          272        1732        174            ?         ?

          8          287        1676          99          13         ? 

        15          249        1418          79          23       17 

        21          375        1330         87          26         ? 

        22          222        1219         69          20         ? 

        28          370        1220         48          27         ?

        29          226        1218         49          18        16

Summary:

• The USA still leads in new deaths with 226.  Germany was #2  at 140 and Japan #3 137.
• I've noticed for the past couple of months that the Wednesday (shown on Thursday) new deaths figure for the USA is near or over 400, but the Thursday (shown on Fridays) number drops into the 200's.  This has to be more than mere coincidence, but the deaths/day rate for the USA has not changed in 6 months.
• In any case, the USA is only #18 in new deaths/million population for the week at 0.7, with South Korea #15 at 0.9, Japan #11 at 1.0, five countries such as Taiwan, Australia and Germany at around 2, Chile #2 at 3, and Channel Islands #1 at 6.
• A useful statistic is weekly case change/million population, for these are locations where the outbreak is high.  That is, don't go there
• #1      St. Helena  65,392
• others near the top are all tiny, like Montserrat, Seychelles and Martinique.
• #6      Austria  2960
• #13    Germany  1730
• #16    Australia  1280
• #17    France  1129
• #23    Singapore  683
• #34    Taiwan  87
• #58    South Africa  2
• #65    China  0.3
• #105  Philippines -4
• #113  Brazil  -8
• #127  UAE  -25
• #163  USA  -311
• #166  Canada  -390
• #169  Japan  -417
• #176  New Zealand  -739
• #179  South Korea -1300
• The higher the number, new infections are increasing.
• Negative number, the new infections are decreasing.
• The larger the negative number, the quicker new infections are decreasing.

Today, I look at the sudden re-rise of Marilyn Monroe.  A little more than 60 years after her shocking death at the age of 36, Marilyn Monroe has recently resurfaced.  In May, Kim Kardashian wore to the Met Gala celebrating America:  An Anthology of Fashion, the dress Marilyn wore in 1962 to sing Happy Birthday to JFK.  She committed suicide that year and he was assassinated in 1963.

Had a tough beginning life with a mentally unstable mother, orphanage and first marriage at 16.  Paid $50 posing nude in 1949 for a calendar.  In time the photos were obtained by Hugh Hefner.  Began acting in 1950, tolerating a few sexual assaults by people who ran the business.  Began to do well and dated Elia Kazan, Yul Brynner and Peter Lawford.  Her Joe DiMaggio romance began in 1952.  In December of 1953 came the first Playboy, featuring her and those photos she had taken in 1949.  Can't use her centerfold in this blog, but you can see it all at this site.  She was never paid by Hefner, but they became close friends.  So much so that when he passed away in 2017, he was buried in a plot next Marilyn's in Los Angeles's Westwood Village Cemetery.

A bit unclear as to exactly how many, but she is today credited with 29 films, the breakthrough being Niagara in 1953.  Perhaps, her top ten films, which grossed the equivalent of $2 billion today.  She was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.  The American Film Institute ranked her as the sixth greatest film actress in 1999. 

So this week, Blonde was recently made available by Netflix as it's first film with an NC-17 rating.  The consensus seems to be that the production is too vulgar, miserable and exploitative.  There is a view from inside her vagina.  

The movie is based on the 700+-page novel written by Joyce Carol Oates in 2000, and is 2 hours and 47 minutes long.  Australian Andrew Dominik directed, and while distinguished, is known as a trickster.  Ana de Armas is hailed for her Monroe performance.  

Rotten Tomatoes panned it, with  47/37 ratings.  Three review statements:

It’s a towering achievement, just not a pleasant one -- a maelstrom of emotions and effects, like trying to look through a kaleidoscope while being thrown about in a dodgem car.

Andrew Dominik’s pseudo-biography is one long slog into sadness and more-than-predictable tragedy, despite a touching portrayal by Ana de Armas and the deliberately artful and often startling filmmaking of Mr. Dominik.

So was Raging Bull, a film with which it 

bears comparison. Where Scorsese 

embraced violence as a metaphor for 

America, Dominik replaces it with

sexual dystopia.

Bobby Cannavale plays one of her husbands, Joe DiMaggio, and Adrien Brodie (above, is playwright Arthur Miller), another.  Then there was that encounter with President JFK, followed by her birthday ballad to JFK when she was 36 and he was soon to turn 45.  Below is supposedly the only photo taken of them, during the evening of her birthday salute.

Yet another recent Monroe exposure was the selling of Andy Warhol's Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for an American art record of $195 million, also in May.  This was only one of the five versions in different color schemes Warhol painted in 1964, two years after her death.  The buyer was not identified.  An orange version was sold earlier to Ken Griffin for over $200 million.  The portraits were based on a photo of Marilyn from the film Niagara.  This clip showed her singing Kiss.

Don't know that song, but here are songs I do:

• River of No Return
• A Fine Romance
• My Heart Belongs to Daddy
• Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend
• I Wanna Be Love By You

Here is something you might not have known, or forgot.  You are familiar with Candle in the Wind as Elton John's homage to Princess Diana in 1997.  But did you know the song was originally written in 1973 about Marilyn Monroe, thus the original Goodbye Norma Jean was changed to Goodbye England's Rose.  Monroe was born Norma Jean Baker.

There are other songs involving Marilyn.  Madonna's Vogue has as a bridge:  ...Greta Garbo and Monroe/ Dietrich and DiMaggio/ Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean/ On the cover of a magazine/ Grace Kelly, Harlow, Jean/ Picture of a beauty queen/ Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire/ Ginger Rogers, dance on air...

Below, her 26-foot statue from the 1955 film, The Seven Year Itch, unveiled in Chicago in 2011.  It moves around, and has been to Australia.  Eventually, Forever Marilyn will be permanently located at the Palm Springs Art Museum, for she was born in Southern California.  In 2011 her white dress from the film was sold for $4.6 million.

As I write this posting, Hurricane Ian made landfall over South Carolina as a Category 1.  At this time 2 million Floridians are without electricity and 21 have perished.

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WHAT ABOUT HURRICANE IAN?

              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   22      2228      9326          839       279     124

Oct      6       2102      8255          543       315       59

Nov    3        1436      7830         186        458       23

Dec     1       1633      8475          266        477       28

Jan     7        2025      6729         148         285     140

Feb     2        2990   12012          946        991      175

Mar     2        1778     7756          335         173       28 

Apr     1          439      4056         290          52       12

May    5          225      2404         151            ?        64

June    2          216      1413         130          10       31

July    6          316      1627         335           35       12 

Aug    4           311       2138         258          70         ?

         11          290       1994         173          49         ?

         18          264       1950         202            ?         ?

         25          245       1909         197          68         ? 

Sep    1          272        1732        174            ?         ?

          8          287        1676          99          13         ? 

        15          249        1418          79          23       17 

        21          375        1330         87          26         ? 

        22          222        1219         69          20         ? 

        28          370        1220         48          27         ?

Summary:

• After leading the world in new deaths/day for years, then be replaced a couple of months ago by Japan, the USA was yesterday #7 with 36,714 new cases.
• #1 was Germany with 78,863, #2 France 53,410, #3 Japan 49,979, #4 Taiwan 48,553, #5 Russia 40,017 and #6 Italy 36,795.  South Korea was #8 with 36,126.
• If you are soon to vacation in Europe, watch out.  However, at last check, it was 0.97 Euro to the U.S. Dollar, which is good, for it was 1.23 at the end of last year and 1.59 in 2008.  Yet, it was down to 0.84 in 2000.
• Japan announced that overseas visitors will be allowed starting October 11.  It's today 145 yen to the U.S. dollar, which is terrific for travelers.  It was 75 yen to the dollar 11 years ago.

So what about Hurricane Ian?

• He is in the Atlantic and not a hurricane anymore.
• However, there will be strengthening back to a hurricane tonight, and an expected landfall as a Category 1 over Charleston, South Carolina Friday afternoon, but only at half (75 MPH) the speed compared to the l50 MPH over Western Florida.  Next, north with a lot of rain and some wind through Charlotte, North Carolina.

• 
  It's too early to say much about deaths and damage, but President Biden this morning did say the casualties will be substantial.  
• One disaster modeller estimated that the economic damage would be $67 billion, and that orange juice prices will surge.
• 60% of Florida residents don't have flood insurance.
• In 2005, Hurricane Katrina over New Orleans was responsible for 1,833 fatalities and $125 million in economic damages.
• Predictive models when Ian was just becoming a hurricane:

• Future track of Ian:

So is global warming responsible for the quick strengthening of Hurricane Ian?  Of course debatable, but the New York Times this morning hinted as so, and provided this graphic.

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THE $325 MILLION CRASH

That is my view from where I sit writing my blog this morning.  I will shortly be at the Ala Wai Golf Course, and a perfect day is predicted.  The weather, that is.  Hawaii has this year been spared of serious hurricanes.  There are two ocean disturbances in the East Pacific, but neither one should threaten us.

Today, people in Florida, specifically just north of Fort Meyers, will suffer the worst day of their lives, for Hurricane Ian, at 155 MPH, will any moment now as I write this make landfall over those islands facing Port Charlotte.  Much of them won't be the same in a short while because of the storm surge, of perhaps up to 20 feet.  Ian became a hurricane only Monday, and could well still attain Category 5 strength, which begins at 157 MPH. 

Gusts are up to 190 MPH.  Here is something I learned from my time involved with wind power.  The energy of wind increases by the cube of the velocity.  Thus, image standing in winds of 45 MPH.  You can be blown over.  Now, compare the effect on your body at 180 MPH, which is not quite, 190 MPH, but good enough for this comparison.  180 MPH is 4 times more than at 45 MPH.  Cube that number and you get 4x4x4 or 64.  Gusts of wind destroy houses and blow down trees.  Imagine a 180 MPH gust of wind hitting a large tree or apartment with 64 times the energy of one at 45 MPH.  You can't really, but then increase that to 190 MPH, and that is what will be the effect of anything on land.

The dangerous quadrant is #1, where storm surge and winds are maximal.  However, the fourth quadrant is where the rainfall might be more severe, into the third.  Even the east side of Florida will be threatened...by tornadoes.

Ian officially made landfall at 150 MPH and will still be a hurricane tonight, passing by Disney world and tracking east of Orlando.  The eye should pass south of Daytona Beach and into the Atlantic Ocean, making landfall over South Carolina Friday night.  You can expect a few Saturday and Sunday football and baseball game cancellations.  But that's nothing compared to the wake of devastation to be wreaked across west and central Florida.  

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 caused $179 billion in damages.  Last year Hurricane Ida was said to be responsible for $75 billion, the fifth highest.  What will Hurricane Ian do?  What could a Category 5 do?  Global warming will only increase the potential.

So to the subject of today, valued at 1/1000th the cost of serious hurricane damages, a topic I've followed for decades.  Many years ago I met with Edward Lu, who was involved with founding of the B612 Foundation, an organization established in 2002 for asteroid deflection.  B612 is in tribute to the home asteroid of The Little Prince.  Lu is a former astronaut with a PhD in applied physics from Stanford.  We discussed the matter of finding hundreds of million dollars to fund a project.  Two decades into his dedication, he remains actively involved in the effort.  No doubt that the B612 Foundation can be credited for stimulating the DART project.  They are well on their way to keeping Planet Earth safe from incoming asteroids.  To the right is Lu with Apollo astronaut, Rusty Schweickart, also one of co-founders of the foundation.

A lead-in to what happened this week when NASA crashed a $325 million spacecraft called Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), weighing in at 1260 pounds, 55 feet from the center of 11 billion pound asteroid Dimorphos (520 feet long) at 14,000 MPH about 7 million miles from Earth.  There was a shoebox-size camera which showed the encounter.  Don't watch from the beginning.  Go to about 1 hour and 43 minutes.  Dimorphos is a minor-planet moon circling asteroid Didymos.

Was this expensive $325 million encounter worth it?  Heck yes!  What is the value of life on Planet Earth?  Priceless.  I once worked for NASA and I'm getting to think that all that is doing is providing inspiration and romance about outer space.  Except for one potential benefit.  If a major asteroid is indeed steering towards our planet, we need a solution to ward off extinction.  We won't know the impact of DART, which will come in time, but it is the beginning of determining an answer.  Clearly, priceless is worth a lot more than the nearly $200 billion of damages caused by Hurricane Katrina.

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MY GLOBAL JOURNEY IN THE FALL OF 2010

Before I begin nostalgia Tuesday, first, updates for the now postponed House Special January 6 Committee next hearing originally scheduled for noon tomorrow (Wednesday):

• As I reported yesterday, there will be something related to the TV exposure and just released book of Denver Riggleman, The Breach:  The Untold Story of the Investigation into January 6th.

• 
  The feature personality, however, will be Roger Stone (here with the Proud Boys) and a documentary where he is shown to predict political violence before the 3November2020 presidential election.
• When will this hearing be held?  Not sure, but Hurricane Ian was responsible.
• Will this be the final hearing?  Certainly not, for yet to come should be Ginnie Thomas, and what about those 24 Secret Service cellphones confiscated by the Department of Homeland Security?  Then there has to be a preliminary final summary in late October to appropriately influence the 8November2022 mid-term elections.

Which leads me to Hurricane Ian, which rolled over western Cuba at 125 MPH, dropped to 115 MPH, strengthened to 120 MPH, and is expected to reach Category 4 at 130 MPH.  Most importantly, Ian is now predicted to track slightly east, making landfall on Wednesday between Tampa and Fort Meyer, which is further south, as a Category 3.  The eye will move northward between Tampa and Orlando.  Finally, New Orleanians can rest comfortably.  

AccuWeather has provided some useful information.

But there is more, for in the West Pacific is once Super Typhoon Noru, who crashed through the Philippines, weakened, but has today strengthen to 145 MPH in the South China, should weaken a bit, and make landfall over Danang in Vietnam tonight.

Tropical Storm Kulap formed near Guam and seemed headed for Japan.  Fortunately, it made a right turn, will become a typhoon tomorrow but miss Japan by a good distance while tracking northeast.

So to my posting for the day, there was a time in my life when I took frequent around the world trips.  For nostalgia Tuesday, I go back almost exactly 12 years ago to my 2010 World Odyssey, when I began with:

My Fall 2010 World Odyssey begins this morning from Honolulu.  I will visit:

  Japan

  South Korea

  China

  Switzerland

  Kenya

  Tanzania

  Qatar

  Norway

  Netherlands

  Italy

  USA

    DC

    Austin

    Las Vegas

For any burglars reading this blog, someone will be taking care of my apartment.  

This was  one of those trips inspired by my recently departed wife, who wanted to see those sights, but mostly because of my reluctance, did not.  So I went to drop her ashes at those locations.  My first one earlier in 2010 included a visit to the Taj Mahal.

Among the highlights was a talk on the Blue Revolution to the Japan Marine Technology Society at the headquarters of the Japan Agency for Marine Science and Technology (JAMSTEC).  I show my photo with their president, Toshitsugu Sakou, a good friend, for I was dressed rather informally.  Read that link for details, but in short, I forgot to bring cufflinks, so couldn't use my dress shirt with a brand new Blue Revolution tie, so got by with a black undershirt.

This was a trip where I attempted to trace the travel of my grandfather Kenjiro (who I was named after), whose parents caught a ship to from Akita to Otaru 150 years ago, where he was born, and they in time moved to Sapporo, then Utashinai.  The photo is the ship I took.  From there in the 1880's he was sent to the USA for training, stopped by Kauai on his way home, and supervised the building of the Wainiha hydroelectric facility, which is still operating today, more than a century after it was first built.

From Japan I went to South Korea, then Shanghai for the World Expo.  Through colleagues I was able to gain VIP passes to key exhibits.

Dropped Pearl's ashes at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro and took a photo safari through Tanzania.

One of my stops was Qatar to participate in an energy conference.  This particular posting, entitled The Wonder of Qatar, has long been my highest-watched blog article of all.

Another stop was Amsterdam, where I posted on MARY JANE AND MAGIC MUSHROOMS.   I wrote:

The Netherlands has become an interesting test case.  First of all, the smoking and drinking age begins at 16.  However, both the coffee shops (which sell marijuana, and you usually smoke it there) and smart shops (for magic mushrooms, which you usually take elsewhere) are illegal.  It is just that they are tolerated, with exceptions now and then. 

I had a Roman holiday, where I also enjoyed my best lunch ever.  My favorite dish was risotto with white truffles.

Spent a few days in Austin with John (Stanford classmate) and his family, then Thanksgiving in Las Vegas with my brother and his family.  John and Marie got married as Peace Corps volunteers in the Philippines, and they adopted two children, here grown up.  And this was a dozen years ago.

Here are photos from my 2-month around the world trip.

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WHO IS DENVER RIGGLEMAN?

On 60 Minutes last night Bill Whitaker interviewed Denver Riggleman, who was a technical adviser for the House Select Committee investigating the 6January2021 attack on the Capitol.  He was in charge of making sense of digital clues, and using more than 2,000 text messages provided to the committee by President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, he deciphered a roadmap to an attempted coup.  Said Riggleman:

The "a-ha" moment for him came when his team discovered the White House switchboard connected a call to a Capitol rioter's phone on January 6, 2021.

Riggleman is not your ordinary staff member, for he served one term representing Virginia in the U.S. House, and is a Republican, or maybe today was. 

• He was a member of the House Freedom Caucus.
•  He lost his bid for re-election in 2020, even though he was endorsed by Trump.  
• Previously he served in the U.S. Air Force for 15 years, and was an intelligence officer.  
• While he has been called a Big Foot scholar, he said that no one is dumb enough to think this is real.  
• When he was in the House, he was the only member of the Republican party to speak on the floor against QAnon.  
• He thinks the Republican party in Virginia is broken.

With all that background and baggage, he was hired on 6August2021 to serve as a senior staffer for the House January 6 committee.  He left that position in April of 2022 to help the people of Ukraine in their war against Russia.

He was interviewed by CNN's Anderson Cooper on 2June2022, and was criticized for discussing the work of this House special committee.  Notwithstanding, he went on 60 Minutes with what Riggleman said was irrefutable proof of a plot to overturn the November 2020 presidential election.  Not sure why this second appearance has made such an impact, for he essentially said the same thing nearly four months ago.  Ginni Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was intimately involved in these text messages.  One line of fear was that the Supreme Court was thus also a partner in the coup.  In short, Riggleman's initial bemusement about what was happening turned to horror.

In any case, the Select Committee staff since the departure of Riggleman ran down more leads, and this whole story will be presented at Noon EDT on Wednesday.  Ginni Thomas will not be interviewed for this hearing, but that link will in time be an important part of the attempt.  She was in the crowd surrounding the Capitol on January 6, but left before the attack.  The Committee has email correspondence involving G. Thomas with Donald Trump, John Eastman and Mark Meadows in the planning and promotion of that event.

Well, Ian is finally a hurricane, and will rapidly intensify into a Category 3, strike western Cuba early Tuesday morning, strengthen further to a Category 4, and weaken a bit to now strike the Florida panhandle.

However, for the past week I've been hinting that there could be a fork in the road as shown here:

However, at this time there is no hint of a leftish turn towards New Orleans.  Ian is a large storm, with a diameter of around 500 miles.

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