LOUISIANA SEAFOOD BOIL, LUAU AND LAS VEGAS

I leave this morning for Las Vegas and will stay at the downtown Circa Casino.  Took me 40 minutes from home to the United Club, which is unbelievably quick, considering that I walked almost 2500 steps (I have a pedometer).  My first Cup O Noodles in a decade.  I added two halves of boiled egg.  With a Bloody Mary, my best breakfast in a long time.

15 Craigside featured this week a Louisiana Seafood Boil and a luau.

Then last night a luau.  With the more traditional lau lau, fish, lomi salmon, chicken long rice, mock bird nest soup, poi and haupia,  I bought the squid luau and the ingredients for my enhanced ahi poke, adding ogo, kazunoko, ikura, hot sauce, onion and sea asparagus.

The wines were both Cabernet Sauvignon, from Chateau Buena Vista in Napa and Oblivion in Paso Robles, pus Kirin Beer.

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WHAT TO WATCH

It's been months since I focused on film and series programs.  We must have watched at least 25 flicks on the Seabourn Odyssey.  We've been home now for more than a month, and I have still avoided movie theaters.   Here are a few noteworthy productions worthy of your interest.

On Netflix is Missing, a gripping, high tech effort with wild twists that made me envious.  Why?  The teenage girl seeks to find her "missing" mother and boyfriend on a trip to Cartegena, Columbia.  This youngster is a whiz on the computer, something I just cannot do.  A 2023 film, Rotten Tomatoes gave it 87/90 scores.

I loved Good Night Oppy, an inspirational documentary about Opportunity, a rover that was sent to Mars for a 3 month mission, but survived for 15 years.  Released late last year, the film shows how a robot and humans can bond from distances that varied from 36 million to 250 miles away.  Did he find life on Mars?  Not really, but Oppy had perseverance.  As one critic said, It's a wonderful film.  You can find it on Amazon Prime.

Watched, and finished The Diplomat on Netflix, a new American series that just got renewed for season 2.  You don't really know the actors, but they all do well.  8 episodes of around 50 minutes each.  Got good 84/83 scores from Rotten Tomatoes.  

It's all about love, politics and diplomacy, occurring mostly in London.  Was this spring Netflix's most popular program.  Various real ambassadors have been quoted to say the script was unrealistic and wrong.  But, go see it, and you'll look forward to season 2.

A film I'm looking forward to seeing is Monster, a Japanese effort with a 97% Rotten Tomatoes reviewers' rating.  Here is one critic's view:

Monster is cleverly engineered, subtle and supple. It’s a film that hides its true intentions until the very last.

May 22, 2023 | Rating: 4/5 | Full Review…

Director Hirokazu Kore-eda's previous movie was Shoplifters, which won the Palme d'Or at the 2018 Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Foreign Film Oscar.

Then, there will be the final one by Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.  Rotten Tomatoes reviewers did not like like, giving it 50%.  Of course a Nazi is involved, who now works for NASA.

RT reviewers like Killers of the Flower Moon, giving it 97%.  Directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro and John Lithgow.  A 3-hour movie set in 1920's Oklahoma involving a serial killer and the birth of the FBI.

Time magazine has the 30 most anticipated movies of Summer 2023.  Rotten Tomatoes lists the Best Shows from June 2023.  Here are a few:

• Katla, 100/79, 8 episodes.
• Beef, 98/86.
• The Order, 100/71, series of 10 episodes.
• Mo, 100/89.
• Red Rose, 100/57, British teenage horror drama.
• The Baby-Sitters Club, 100/79, 2 seasons of 10 and 8 episodes.

• 
  Unbelievable, 98/89.
• Arcane, 100/96 (animated).
• Heartstopper, 100/96.
• Blood of Zeus, 100/83 (animated).
• Chimp Empire, 100/98.

And what to avoid:

• Sex/Life, 21/46.
• Queen Cleopatra, 20/3.
• Muted, 33/39.
• Children of the Corn, RT:  11/38.
• Life Upside Down.  Bob Odendirk is great as Saul, but here?  RT:  5/65.

On Tuesday I alerted you to the next Tiger Woods.  It was about 27 years ago that as a 20-year sophomore at Stanford, he turned pro.  Only came in at 60th place, but did get a hole in one.

This week another 20-year old Stanford sophomore turned pro at the Mizuho Americas LPGA Open, and after three rounds, Rose Zhang leads by 2 strokes.  Watch her Sunday on the Golf Channel, 5PM EDT.

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MORE OF THE SAME

 

I'll start with what you by now already knew.  The debt ceiling crisis is over, President Joe Biden will at 7PM EDT give a speech and sign the legislation.  The U.S. economy is now even better than thought, and Republicans will have problems on 5 November 2024.

What makes it especially difficult for the Grand Old Party is Donald Trump.  Democrats are doing everything possible to keep him out jail before the middle of next summer, but sum of all his criminal acts is making this difficult:

• 
  Trump is the only president who has been shown to be guilty of a crime.  Lost $5 million to E. Jean Carroll, and is being re-sued for a lot more.
• His defense of those Mar-a-Lago classified documents is weakening as investigators uncover more evidence.  But when will he be formally charged?

• 
  Georgia's Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis, is anticipating multiple indictments by the special grand jury in September.  Court?  Has to do with trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.  That phone call he made is particularly condemning.
• The big one is Merrick Garland's investigation of Trump coup attempt on January 6.  Trump was the lead, and there is a pile of evidence, where previous court decisions are paving the way.

There is so much anticipation of his culpability that pundits are now talking about whether he can still run while in the process of multiple convictions.  Or, more so, his running for the presidency, as socialist candidate Eugene Debs did in 1920 when he was already jail...or, if incarcerated, how to manage the country.  Debs, incidentally, was serving a 10-year sentence and still got 3.4% of the votes.

The burgeoning list of GOP hopefuls is complicating their picture, for most don't think Trump will be available by the Republican convention in July of 2024.  Near the top are Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, and behind them are at least 11 others.  Thus, if Democrats can keep Trump viable until then, that will totally screw up their nomination process.

By the way, did you know that the USA is way above herd immunity regarding that COVID-19 virus?  We are up to 96% immunity.

• CDC scientists tapped blood-donation centers to analyze data from 143,000 samples, and found that 96% contained antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 (or COVID-19).

• 
  When they did this between April and June of 2021, this figure was 68%.
• The Mayo Clinic says that herd immunity for covid is 94%.
• This is the percentage that needs to be immune to stop the spread of a disease.  The number depends on disease contagiousness.  Here are some herd immunity thresholds:
• Measles  93%
• Chickenpox 91%
• Mumps  91%
• Polio  83%
• Smallpox  77%
• HIV/AIDS  65%
• COVID-19  65% (note that the Mayo Clinic said 94%)
• Common Cold  58%
• Seasonal Flu  23% (only 23%???...I thought the flu was really contagious)
• 
  Rochelle Walensky steps down as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (so the more accurate acronym should be CDCP) at the end of the month.
• Mandy Cohen (right) has been nominated by President Biden.  She was a candidate for the Health and Human Services Secretary job that went to Xavier Becerra.

14-year old Dev Shah from Florida won the 2023 Scripps National Spelling Bee last night, correctly spelling PSAMMOPHILE (which is an organism that prefers or thrives in sandy soils or areas) to win $50,000.  He is the 22nd of the past 24 winners with East Asian (India) roots.  This was his third time in this competition.  Watch his victory.  11 million entered, and 231 made it to National Harbor, Maryland this year.  Age range of 9 to 14.  Charlotte Walsh from Virginia was #2, and won $25,000.  To do that she had to spell akuammine, collembolous and Jhangar.  For some reason my recording on the Ion Channel did not work.  I saw this last year, also on this station.

There was an Iam Tongi special on KITV in Hawaii last night.  This morning, we congratulated him in the Star-Advertiser.  The show repeats Saturday night, but you need to live Hawaii.

Once Super Typhoon Mawar, known as Betty in the Philippines, is now down to 45 MPH, and impacted Okinawa before trundling on towards Japan.  Will, however, move past the country sufficiently offshore to cause any real problems.  Lot of rain, though.

Our first of the year, Tropical Storm Arlene formed in the Gulf Mexico, is at 40 MPH, and will not strengthen much more as she heads for Cuba.

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A NEW CHINA COVID CRISIS?

Before China's covid crisis, some more interesting news of the day:

• The national debt ceiling drama gains sanity.
• McCarthy and Biden pulled it off.
• Ironically, more Democrats (165) than Republicans (149) supported McCarthy's bill in the House.  Passage was 314-117.
• The Senate will act tonight.
• Biden will sign on Friday.  I thought the deadline was June 8, today?

• 
  The Women's NCAA Softball World Series begins with four games.
• I've been watching game #2, Oklahoma vs Stanford.
• Oklahoma, for the whole year has a team batting average of .372, and is on a 48-game winning streak.  Never heard of anything close to that kind of batting average.  

• 
  During these playoff games this year they have had 18 home runs.  The rest of the 7 teams at Oklahoma City had 25.  Oklahoma is highly favored to win their third straight championship.
• Stanford has a freshman pitcher, NiJaree Canady (right).  Should be an Oklahoma blowout.  I just saw her pitch a 75 MPH fastball.  74 MPH is equivalent to a 100 MPH baseball. But into the fifth inning (I'm watching now), the score is 0-0.
• Oh, well, Oklahoma just scored 2 runs, so this will become their first of other victories to come.

• 
  The National Stanley Cup Finals has game #1 on Saturday:  Vegas Golden Knights vs Florida Panthers.  I don't watch ice hockey.

• 
  Never saw an NBA game on TV all year...until the end of Boston's victory over Miami and a bit more of Miami over Boston to make the finals.
• Tonight at 8:30 EDT, Miami at Denver on ABC.  I'm planning to watch.
• A #8 semi-finals team has never won the championship.  That is the Miami Heat.
• Boston was #1, but Denver is #2 and a 79% favorite to beat Miami.
• In their 47th year, this is the first time Denver has reached the finals.
• Denver has the most un-athletic-looking basketball player you'll ever see in the NBA.  
• 
  His name is Nikola Jokic...but he is not a joke.
• Hate to be racist, but he is a white player from Serbia.
• Was the 41st pick by Denver in the 2014 draft.
• He is now the league's most valuable player.
• Does everything, and you need five players to guard him.
• 28 years old, 6'll" tall, with a wingspan of 7'3", weighing 284 pounds.
• In one game, had a triple double in 14 minutes and 33 seconds of court time...fastest ever in NBA history.
• But a selfless  team player.
• Made 38.3% of 3-pointers, 83% of foul shots and 63.2% of all shots this year, and gets  a whole lot of rebounds and assists.  NBA average is 39% and 46% for all shots, while the NCAA 35% for 3 pointers and 45% of all shots.
• Read these articles to prep you for the NBA finals.
• 
  Tonight, the finals of the Scripps Spelling Bee championship.  Go to your Ion Channel.  In Hawaii, we see it after it's all over, at 7PM on Channel 1027 or 27.  Your home channel?  Good luck finding it.  Not on ESPN anymore.  Here are the 11 finalists, and note the dominance of those with roots in India.  Can you believe that the smallest person below, 12-year old Tarini Nandakumar, is only a sixth grader, and this is already her third time in this competition.  The oldest person here is 15.

I searched and searched and could not find more confirming info on the latest China covid crisis.  So let me start with the New York Times this morning of Covid’s lasting damage in these 3-D reconstructions of lung scans.

The latest People's Daily Online from China said more than a dozen things, including their lunar rover, U.S. strip club shooting, International Children's Day in Budapest something about global warming, a sideline article about current COVID-19 infections showing low prevalence, and that reinfected people only have a mild sore throat.Also Kissinger razor-sharp on China-US relations, with a photo.

Yesterday, Time magazine said:  China Might Have 65 Million Cases a Week by June.  How Worried Should the World Be?  They mentioned Eric Feigl-Ding, who was born in Shanghai, but moved the U.S. with his family at the age of 5, and is now Chief of COVID Task Force at the New England Complex Systems Institute:

Worrisome—New XBB-driven #COVID wave in Chinawith ~40 million infections per week by late May and ~65 million infections/week by June… all while state-media downplayed outbreak last week. Bad sign—40% cases are already **reinfections** and rising as immunity from previous illness wanes. But China rolling out #XBB-targeting strain vaccines soon, while US/Europe still has… none.

This same Omicron subvariant (XBB.1.5) is also responsible for most of the U.S. cases today.  While it's true that the U.S. does not have a specific vaccine for this virus, the lates Omicron booster is around 50% effective for the XBB, but only about a third for those 65 and older.  There will be no next booster until the coming Fall.

According to Zhong Nanshan (president of the China Medical Association from 2005-2009 and a recipient of the Medal of the Republic, the highest honor in the country):

• By January of this year, almost 80% of China's 1.4 billion population had been infected.
• Then came this second and current wave, where his modeling shows the infection rate rising to 65 million/week in June.
• Boosting his projection is data from Beijing, where the number of new infections grew four times in four weeks in that city.  Most of those are re-infections.
• Said that a specific vaccine for the XBB.1.5 will soon be available.

Yanzhong Huang, from China, but now at Seton Hall, said We shouldn't worry if China doesn't worry.  China will learn to co-exist with this disease.  Symptoms are mild.  Catherine Bennett of Australia's Deakin University adds that the likelihood of another dangerous sub-variant emerging is much smaller now.

As of March this year, The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center provides some mortality rate numbers.  They vary so widely, and the best I can figure out is that the Peru rate is so high because most of their cases came early.  Those of the Orient/Oceania are low because their populations were vaccinated when the wave arrived.  However, Germany and France were among the first countries to be hit before vaccination, and they are also much lower.

• Peru  4.9%
• Mexico  4.5%
• Ukraine  2.1%
• Iran  1.9%
• USA  1.1%
• Germany  0.4%
• France  0.4%
• Japan 0.2%
• Australia  0.2%
• Iceland 0.1%
• New Zealand  0.1%
• Singapore 0.1%
• Qatar 0.1%
• S. Korea  0.1%

South Korea recently has had the most new cases per week, and this past week had 105,688 new cases with 79 new deaths, or a mortality of 0.07%.  The USA had 23,968 new cases with 218 new deaths, or a mortality rate of 0.09%, more than ten times higher than South Korea.  I noticed that, after their first wave in 2020, the number of new cases in the country dropped to ZERO on 1 March 2020.  More than three years later, they today are consistently #1 in new covid cases.

There is only a rough rule of thumb regarding world seasonal flu cases because it is difficult to pin down the true data.  The past three years have been much lower, but the previous numbers are said to have had around one billion annual cases.  There were from 300,000 to 500,000 deaths, giving a mortality rate of around 0.04%, or relatively close to the covid mortality rate of 0.07% for South Korea.

Finally, global death toll from past influenza pandemics.  Not shown are the 6.9 million deaths from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

America's Got Talent premiered last night, and the Mzansi Youth Choir getting a golden buzzer.  Simon cried.  They are from South Africa.  My favorite was 11-year old D'Corey Johnson, who sang Journey's Open Arms.

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