EAT A HOT DOG AND REDUCE YOUR LIFE EXPECTANCY BY 36 MINUTES

As my Worldometer table has weekly been showing, COVID-19 and the Delta variant are now in worldwide decline.  

From the New York Times this morning, the USA reflects this drop:

There is a ten-day to two week lag from new cases to new deaths, as shown here:

The next worry will be the Fall and Winter, when people go indoors.  However, schools have returned, and yet we are experiencing those above declines.  Part of the reason must have to do with vaccinations.  76% of Americans have now received at least one  shot.

United States vaccinations

	At least one dose	Fully vaccinated
All ages*	65%	56%
12 and up	76%	65%
18 and up	77%	67%
65 and up	94%	83%

The latest guess is that 90% of the population needs to be fully vaccinated for herd immunity to be reached.

Said former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb and author of Uncontrolled Spread:    Covid has not only been one of the worst pandemics in modern times. It has been an unnecessarily terrible pandemic. Of the more than 700,000 Americanswho have died from it, nearly 200,000 probably could have been saved if they had chosen to take a vaccine. That is a national tragedy.

Call it what you want, but you gaze down the list of the most popular order at Major League Baseball stadiums, and the hot dog stands out as #1.  This food item has actually been around since the 9th century BC.  Today, the best  American ballpark version?  The Dodger Dog ranks as #1.  Simple ten-incher soaked in beer, grilled and topped with ketchup, mustard, onions and sweet relish.

When I last went to Yankee Stadium I had a Nathan's Famous Natural Casing Dog

What is a hot dog?  A sausage on a bun with stuff added.  Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest is a popular, but nauseating, July 4th attraction on ESPN, serving a public service, for the program surely must dissuade anyone from eating one, and as you will learn, thus extending your life.

The University of Michigan's School of Public Health reported that one hot dog can shave 36 minutes off your life.  Lead author Olivier Jolliet indicated that when Joey Chestnut ate 76 hot dogs this year, he reduced his longevity by 46 hours.  The school ranked 5800 foods by nutritional disease burden and environmental impact, and found that just substituting 10% of your daily calorie intake by an equal value of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes and select seafood can reduce your dietary carbon footprint by one-third, and add 48 minutes of healthy life to your future.

Keep in mind, thus, that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich could increase your life by 33 minutes.  As you can see in that graphic to the left, a hot dog is in the bad red zone.  The researchers...

...based our Health Nutritional Index on a large epidemiological study called the Global Burden of Disease, a comprehensive global study and database developed with the help of more than 7,000 researchers around the world. The Global Burden of Disease determines the risks and benefits associated with multiple environmental, metabolic, and behavioral factors—including 15 dietary risk factors.

Good a time as any to continue my reportage on my current quest to find what foods go well with Petite Syrahs, now my favorite wine.  For football and baseball watching, I had my first Arabiki hot dog with a Bogle Petite Syrah, priced at at $13.  I also drank a bottle of Kirin Beer because the sausage had a Japanese name.

If you're familiar with Arabiki, your first thought might be...but this is a tiny sausage from Japan.  Yes, but they copied a German wiener, and in Hawaii you can also find a larger size that is about the size of a Portuguese Sausage.  It went fine with Petite Syrah.  However, try placing this giant sausage on to a large bun topped with condiments.  It is theoretically impossible to consume it like a normal hot dog.  My mouth was too small and things kept falling back on the plate, as would be yours if you tried this.  I was tempted to say I used a fork and knife, but the reality is that I had sat down to eat my lunch it was too much of a hassle to stand up to get the right tools.  So I used my fingers.  You won't be able to do this in a ballpark because people would be watching.

I couldn't finish the entire bottle, so saved it for one of my artichoke-foie gras pate'-cheese combinations:

The meal also included chicken noodle soup and fried local octopus.   Looks like a lot of food, but this was a very small artichoke.   And yes, the Petite Syrah was perfect.

My next bottle was a Stokes' Ghost Petite Syrah, which cost $55.  Went well with spaghetti and tacos:

Sure, a $55 wine might better be paired with a rib-eye steak or rack of lamb, but I was not aware this Stoke's Ghost was that expensive until I finished it.  One more bottle of Petite Syrah left.

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THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED

Sunday is my spiritual day, and I many times post on religion.  Life and Death...God...our ultimate future.  Don McLean was recently interviewed, and while I have written about him on numerous occasions, for his American Pie is about the death of Buddy Holly (22), Richie Valens (17) and the Big Bopper (28), this article evoked sufficient emotions as to inspire me to do this one more time.

I was not aware that McLean had a premonition when he was 15 that his father was going to die.  A few days later, showing no particular symptoms, he dropped dead right in front of him.  His father was his hero.

Now 75, he talked further of his 1971 American Pie he wrote at the age of 24.  Said he cried for two years and blamed himself for his father's death.  Thus the song of the '60's from that plane crash, the day the music died.  His original handwritten lyrics sold in 2015 for $1.2 million.  A broadway show is planned to open next year, plus a children's book.  Also a film, The Day the Music Died.

Never said what the music meant before...nor during the interview.  And he has never been happy,  The song is devoid of hope.  Back in the 60's, a terrible decade for the nation, he didn't see America improving intellectually or politically.  The decline was to continue, and too the music.  He had a long marriage that lasted until divorce in 2015, to an ex-wife who he says is the worst person he ever knew.

Certainly, American Pie followed the death of that trio in 1959.  Buddy Holly was his hero, but so was his father.  While Holly was inspirational, the lyrics were more about America.  But this was also a biographical song.  The jester was Bob Dylan, but was it?

The plane was a 1947 Beechcraft Bonanza, and was NOT named American Pie.  The person who gave up his seat for J. P. Richardson, the Big Bopper, was Waylon Jennings, who was then 21 and went on to become a noted country western singer, eternally troubled by his fate:

When Holly learned that his bandmates had given up their seats on the plane and had chosen to take the bus rather than fly, a friendly banter between Holly and Jennings ensued, and it would come back to haunt Jennings for decades to follow: Holly jokingly told Jennings, "Well, I hope your ol' bus freezes up!" Jennings jokingly replied, "Well, I hope your ol' plane crashes!"^[32]

Jennings felt compelled to to write and record The Stage (Stars in Heaven), a tribute to the three, and Eddie Cochran, who died in a car crash at the age of 21 a year later on a British singing tour.  I still remember his Summertime Blues and Sittin' in the Balcony.

Dion and his Belmonts were the opening act of the Winter Dance Party.  He was offered a seat on the plane, but at a cost of $36.  Dion felt that was too much, for he remembered growing up that the rent for their apartment was $36/month, and their parents fought all the time over it.  His father did not work much.  Of course you must know them:  The Wanderer and Runaround Sue.

 “American Pie” was voted number 5 in a poll of the 365 “Songs of the Century” compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The top five were:

1. “Over the Rainbow” by Judy Garland
2. “White Christmas” by Bing Crosby
3. “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie
4. “Respect” by Aretha Franklin
5. “American Pie” by Don McLean.

About The Day the Music Died, it will be a documentary.  He indicated he would tell the the real story of American Pie (this version by Madonna 17 years later).  Release of TDtMD?  End of the year.  Possibly to be a feel good production, or better than that, which could mean anything.

Why is everything coming together now?  This is the 50th anniversary of America Pie.  Want more?  Here is short interview with Dan Rather last year.  Maybe could be too much, but there is an R-rated rockumentary made in 1977 that is entitled The Day the Music Died.  That was the whole 100-minute movie.  A more meaningful short conclusion is The Day the Music Died. 

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ANOTHER GLOBAL JOURNEY WITH A STOP FOR THE DUBAI EXPO

If you follow this blog site, you know that our global cruise on the Island Princess scheduled to depart Los Angeles in January on a 111-day global journey was cancelled by the company.  They were unable to confirm a sufficient number of port arrival sites, so just gave up.  We were disappointed.  We means my travel partner and I.  Our last three trips were exciting and monumental:  wine-tour of France, on the Diamond Princess just before the COVID-19 outbreak and Thailand when this country was #2 to China in total cases.

But life goes on, and I got enterprising, for I still want to somehow experience the Dubai World Expo, which opened yesterday, and will be available until the end of March.  Thus, my challenge is to find my way there and back to Honolulu.  However, it seems a shame to just go there and return home.

But using Kayak.com I checked anyway and was astonished to find this itinerary, all on Star Alliance:

• Honolulu to San Francisco (5h 5m) to Frankfurt (10h 50m) to Dubai (6h 50m).
• Dubai to Zurich (6h 50m) to San Francisco (11h 45m) to Honolulu (5h 28m).
• 
  Further, the return would depart at 2:20AM and arrive in Honolulu at 9:58PM on the SAME DAY.  What I thought was incredible was that the roundtrip cost in BUSINESS CLASS was ONLY $3,880, including taxes and fees.

Of course, I wouldn't want to suffer getting there and back, so what about just spending a couple of days in connecting cities, with a week in Dubai?  However, Star Alliance could not put together an itinerary with those same cities.  Using a lot of Alaska Air and Lufthansa, an itinerary could be arranged for a business class fare of $9,544.  Not bad, for a Star Alliance business class ticket for this mileage would probably run around $12,000.  Of course, this type of ticket will not allow you to backtrack, so would not work anyway.

Simplifying to include only Honolulu to San Francisco to Frankfurt to Dubai to Frankfurt to San Francisco to Honolulu, Kayak could not complete a Star Alliance itinerary.  However, by insisting that I had to travel only on Star Alliance, a price was found:  $43,720!!!

So I went back to my traditional around the global system using Star Alliance with a must stop in Dubai around mid March.  However, this time tossing in a couple of short cruises.  I did that a few years ago by including a Tauck European river cruise.   The flight portion allows for 15 stops and would probably cost around $12,000 or so.  I contacted my travel agent, who is a specialist with Crystal Cruises. 

She found a Crystal Serenity trip that could be boarded in Barcelona on March 26 with a Mediterranean itinerary, stopping in Cannes, Genoa, Naples, Santorini, Athens, Kusadasi, Mykonos, Bethlehem/Galillee, Jerusalem, Limassol, Rhodes, Istanbul, Odessa, Taormina, Sorrento, Rome and Florence, arriving in Monte Carlo on April 28   A month on any Crystal cruise gotta be expensive, and I have a review in progress by this agent.   I expect this to come in at around $500/night.

An interesting facet of Serenity's total itinerary (which begins in Miami or Los Angeles) is that on February 28, the ship was supposed to arrive in Las Palmas, which has long been on my short list as a place to stop.  Why?  You need to read my posting of September 21, for there is now a volcano erupting on that island, and I've kept a close watch on that site because it has been mentioned as a potential source of a mega tsunami capable of wiping out Florida.

So back to my adventure, I thought heck, since we would be in Europe, what about a Crystal cruise on the continent because my partner has never done that?  The travel agent found three options:

• Crystal Mahler, April 30, 7-night tulips and windmills for $7,149.
• Crystal Bach, April 30, on the Rhine from Amsterdam to Basel, $5299.
• Crystal Debussy, May 2, on the Rhine from Basel to Amsterdam, $5,549.

Kind of expensive, and maybe too much so, for the cheapest is $757/day.  We'll need to later decide whether it will be worth that cost.  If we skip, we can instead visit a few European cities.  

Interestingly enough, I found a Cunard cruise from Southhampton to New York on the Queen Mary 2, leaving on April  15, arriving in New York a week later.  And a balcony room lists for only $1899/person, or $271/night.  A typical hotel room in Europe or just about anywhere these days costs this much.

So at this early stage of thinking, here is what our next around the world fantasy trip looks like.  The number counts up the Star Alliance stops (15 flights max, and any open leg also counts as one).  I would hope that the pandemic will be mostly be under control by late February.

Mon    Feb   28       Depart Honolulu (1)

Tue      Mar   1        Arrive Tokyo

Thu               3        Depart on one week Japan Rail Pass

Thu             10         Return to Tokyo

Sat              12        Depart Tokyo to Seoul (2)

Tue             15        Depart Seoul to Singapore (3)

Fri               18       Depart Singapore to Mauritius (4)

Mon            21        Depart Mauritius to Dubai (5)

Three days in Dubai for the World Expo and other sights.  Might want to increase this by leaving earlier from Honolulu.

Fri   Mar      25        Depart Dubai for Barcelona (6)

Sat               26        Board Crystal Serenity

Thu    Apr    28        Arrive in Monte Carlo

Fri                29        Depart from Nice on Star Alliance to Basel (8)

Mon   May     2        Depart Basel on Crystal Debussy

Sun                8        Arrive Amsterdam

Mon               9       Day in Amsterdam on the ship

Thu              12       Depart Amsterdam (10) to London

Sun              15       Board Queen Mary from Southhampton 

                                   to Brooklyn, New York (balcony starts at $1899)

Sun              22       Arrive New York

Wed             25       Depart New York (12) to Las Vegas

Sun              29       Depart Las Vegas (13) to Vancouver

Thu    June     2       Depart Vancouver (14) to San Francisco

Mon                6       Depart San Francisco (15) to Honolulu

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THE DUBAI WORLD EXPO OPENED TODAY

A few items of the day:

• While South Korea and Japan were far behind the U.S. in vaccinations at the beginning, they have both now passed us in shots/person.
• Only 36% of parents support vaccinating their children.  It was 26% in July.
• 
  Daniel Craig has been James Bond longer than anyone else.  His final appearance as 007 will be No Time to Die, (Rotten Tomatoes:82/), the 25th movie of the series, to be released next week.
• At 2 hours 43 minutes, the longest Bond film ever.
• Cary Joji Fukunaga is the first American director.

• 
  Rami Malek (of Bohemian Rhapsody fame) is the villain
• Craig will reprise his role in the sequel to Knives Out.
• The next Bond?  Idris Elba, Lashana Lynch (black and female, who is in NTtD) and Tom Hardy.

I remember well my very first Bond flick, the 1963 Dr. No.  Can you believe that was almost 60 years ago?  The reviewers hated it.  I wondered why, because I thought it was fabulous. Much later came Rotten Tomatoes, and their reviewers gave it 95/82 scores.  Here is one rating that lists this film as the fifth best of the franchise.  This was the Sean Connery version.  Jack Lord was in it as a CIA partner.  Ursula Andress was Honey Rider, but both her acting and singing voices were dubbed by others.

Finally, a year late, the Dubai World Expo opened today:

• Eight years of planning and $8 billion of spending.

• 
  First World's Fair in the Middle East.
• Will run until March 31, 2022.
• 1083 acres.  New York's Central park is 843 acres.
• To enter, you will need to show a negative PCR test or proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
• One day ticket costs $27.43.

• 
  Getting to Dubai Expo 2021 is easy, convenient and mostly free.  Find a hotel close to the RTA Metro and hop on the Expo Rider on the Red Line.
• Also buses, trams, rent-a-bike or rent-a-scooter.  The bike costs $5/day.
• You can also catch a cab or rent a Tesla.  If my conversion has any accuracy I think renting a Tesla might cost $5.  But for how long???  Something sounds wrong here.

• 
  There is something called the nol Card that can be used for everything.  A Gold Card, which gives you access to the gold class cabin on the metro and tram, costs around $6.
• Don't depend on what I said. Go to this site for details.

• 
  Hopes to attract 25 million.  Considering the pandemic and location, this had to be modest.  Shanghai in 2010 drew 73 million and Osaka in 1970 had 64 million.  Way back in 1900, Paris entertained 51 million visitors.  I've been to just about every one since my first, Seattle in 1962.

• 
  190 nations have pavilions:
• The U.S. had difficulty coming up with funding, so ours was paid for by the UAE, and will be replica of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket, plus multimedia informercials for American inventions.  Say this wasn't so.  So embarrassing.  Displayed will be the Quran owned by Thomas Jefferson as an example of religious freedom in the country.  
• 
  The U.S.'s first world's fair in 1876 introduced Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, a typewriter and Heinz Ketchup. 
• Our 1939 New York Expo showed the first television set.  That was a home movie of 19 minutes.  In color.   See what people wore in those days.
• Watch the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.  Remember Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis?  Wow, Rotten Tomatoes scores of 100/87.

• 
  China's will probably be the second largest and will feature space and future inventions, including a transformer-like car by SAIC Motor to function as a submarine and helicopter.

• 
  Italy's will have a rope made from 2 million plastic bottles and a 3-D replica of 17-foot tall David by Michelangelo.  Nudity is forbidden in the UAE, so David's member can only be seen if you lean into a portion of the exhibit where an alarm sounds.

• 
  Of course the largest will be UAE's falcon-shaped pavilion, which will be a two-hour-long immersive experience through the country's 50-year history.

• 
  The heart of EXPO Dubai will be Al Wasl Plaza, the largest 360-degree laser projection surface.  Uses 252 lasers, and show can be seen from the inside and outside.  800 engineers and technicians took 14 months to plan and build this Expo jewel.

• 
  The next World Expo is Osaka in 2025, although there will be the 2023 specialized expo in Buenos Aires.  New Orleans hosted the last U.S. expo in 1984.
• A decade ago, in one of my Huffington Post articles, I proposed the Sustainable Expo of 2020 for Hawaii.
• While that went nowhere, what about the World Ocean Expo for 2050 on a floating city off Oahu?

Just another World Expo scene:

Tomorrow, as our global cruise on the Island Princess was cancelled by the company, a new around the world fantasy to include the Dubai World Expo, this one featuring perhaps two Crystal and one Cunard cruises, plus use of a business class Star Alliance around the world fare.  Now, some of our more affluent friends might feel comfortable in this ultra-luxurious option.  Maybe because the length is only three, instead of four, months, this newest opportunity has a cost not much more than the first.

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