MY BEST PIZZA EVER

I'll get  to the pizza part later, but will begin with this pandemic, using a few graphics from the morning New York Times:

If you've forgotten how to read graphs, the results are clear.  Those states voting for Donald Trump are killing themselves by avoiding being vaccinated.  How serious is this?  Almost a factor of 5.

Further from the NYT:

Since Delta began circulating widely in the U.S., Covid has exacted a horrific death toll on red America: In counties where Donald Trump received at least 70 percent of the vote, the virus has killed about 47 out of every 100,000 people since the end of June, according to Charles Gaba, a health care analyst. In counties where Trump won less than 32 percent of the vote, the number is about 10 out of 100,000. How do these numbers compare with the world in deaths/100,000 population? U.S.  21 Hawaii  and Vermont  5  (lowest in  nation--yet, Hawaii's governor still refuses to allow spectators at football games) Mississippi  31  (highest in nation) California 17 Republican states  47 Democratic states  10 World  6 Russia  14 France  18 Argentina 25 Italy  21 Germany 11 South Africa  14 Japan  1  (yet they remain sort of still in lockdown) Canada 7 Thailand  2 Israel  8 Sweden  14 (this is the country that chose not to shut down) India  3 (but they underreport)  Brazil  27 Peru  59 South Korea  5 China  .03 Taiwan  .3 Diamond Princess  0.5 (are cruises actually this safe??) Next to Peru, Republican states rank #2 in the world for deaths/100,000 population!!!  Clearly, countries of the Orient did something right.

Which leads to the Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming, daughter of former Veep Dick Cheney) vs Donald Trump battle.  She will inadvertently create a split in the Republican party to insure what almost never happens:  reverse the outcome of mid-term elections.  Usually the party out of power gains an edge.

• Cheney will cause sufficient turmoil in Republican ranks that many incumbents won't run in the general election because Trump-supported candidates will either scare them off from competing at all, or beat them in the primary.

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  Then, in the November 2022 general election, Democrats will win seats that normally would go to Republicans because:
• There will be fewer Republican incumbents running.
• This is the key factor:  a good number of staunch classic Republicans will not bother to vote in the general election because they will either be upset that their non-Trump candidate lost in the primary, or otherwise out of principle.  A few might actually vote for the Democrat.
• In many other voting districts, solid Republicans will also avoid going to the polls because of their distaste for the Trump ethics and tolerance by their candidates running for office.  
• If this figure is, here and there, only 5-10%, that would insure for a Democratic Party win.

The scary part of all this is that TWO-THIRDS OF REPUBLICANS STILL THINK TRUMP REALLY WON THE ELECTION.  Last week, the tainted group the Republican-led Arizona legislature appointed to recount their presidential election results actually reported that, not only did Biden beat Trump, but Biden got a few more votes than officially reported.  Then yesterday, in a public speech, Trump went on to lie, again, that this audit showed he won Arizona.  AND MOST REPUBLICANS PROBABLY BELIEVED HIM, for this was widely covered by Fox news!!!

While Petite Syrahs are now grown through much of California, aficionados salivate on the best from Paso Robles, which now has more than 200 wineries.  I hope to take my Amtrak trip next year to include this town, Santa Barbara and San Diego.  The first two for wine-tasting, and the latter for their zoo.

Petite Syrah is grown from San Diego to Mendocino County.  However, right in mid-California near the coastline is where this grape grows best.

Earlier this month I featured Petite Syrah, a red wine that was virtually unknown until more recently, and now is the hottest wine grown in California.  While you can find Petite Syrahs from Paso Robles priced below $10, try to find the better ones for less than $40/bottle.  I went to Tamura's to purchase four of them all around $10, but there wasn't even one from Paso Robles.

So this weekend I embarked on a mission to see what cuisine went best with this wine.  The first bottle I opened was a 2018 Sixth Sense from Lodi, 14.5% ethanol.

Can't see the details, so here:

The first experiment was with a simple ravioli from 15 Craigside:

Of course, you don't expect me to just be satisfied with the above.  I enhanced it by frying some garlic slices in wagyu beef fat and Portuguese sausage, into which I lightly fried the ravioli.

My meal with that wine, beer and salad.  Terrific.

Next, grilled salmon, salad, Romano cheese and croissant:

Clearly, Petite Syrah goes well with Italian and seafood.  Finally, the pie'ce de r'esistance, Japanese wagyu beef pizza.  15 Craigside supplied the pizza plus salad.

I enhanced with wagyu beef fat, butter and Miyazaki wagyu beef:

First I fried the pizza crust in butter:

Then placed the pizza in an oven, topped with a the remnants of the wagyu fat.

I added some basil,which I grow:

Oh my.  Without a doubt, my best pizza ever.  The Petite Syrah helped.

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ALLIGATORS, MONARCH BUTTERFLIES, WHALE SHARKS AND BLUE WHALES

To start, a tidbit from OZY Sunday Magazine:

If the problem is the U.S. border with Mexico, is the solution an alligator-filled moat? In 2019, former President Donald Trump reportedly asked aides to explore that idea. In a response worthy of Jonathan Swift, defense strategist and author Peter W. Singer worked out the costs of replacing border fences with a moat filled with alligators and snakes. Spoiler alert: It’s surprisingly doable, costing $2.5 billion to acquire the reptiles and $1.8 billion a year to maintain them as a “border force.”

The Rio Grande is 1255 miles of the 1954-mile long U.S.-Mexico border.  If Donald Trump had succeeded in totally building a wall at a projected cost of $20 million/mile, the cost would eventually have been $39 billion.  He was planning, though, to only construct 576 miles at a cost of $11 billion, using the Rio Grande as part of his barrier, and some previous walls to suffice.  Gobal warming has made it easier to cross the Rio now, so this gap is more and more becoming a viable entry.  Maybe alligators might have been a good part of his more complete solution.  Then again, that would be un-Biden-like today.

The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico has declined by around 90% since a quarter century or so ago: 

Here, a robot spy hummingbird filming half a billion monarch butterflies.  Or, listen to the sound of millions of butterflies.  Well, what did you expect?  They mostly go to the Sierra Madre Mountains at an elevation of almost two miles high, near Mexico City.  The temperature varies from freezing to 59F, so they need to bunch up at night to preserve heat.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) sponsors in collaboration tours to the site.  They are now exactly 50 years old.  The panda was modeled after Chi Chi of the London Zoo.  You can also view a congregation of whale sharks off the Yucatan Peninsula or Baja for blue whales.

There are 119,000-238,000 whale sharks in our oceans, and their locations look similar to where the Blue Revolution will place future ocean cities, which of course will protect them and provide benefits.  While many object to caging or keeping any animals, there are seven aquaria exhibiting whale sharks.  My most recent stop in Okinawa included a tour to the Churaumi Aquarium, which hosts two of them.

At one time there were a quarter million blue whales, and their numbers have declined to from 19,000 to 25,000.  They are the largest animals who have lived.  While the largest dinosaur and largest blue whale were in the range of 110 feet (this remains contentious), the BLUE WHALE WEIGHED THREE TIMES MORE!  A blue whale, which actually is grayish, can only be seen in the wild.

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Hurricane Sam in the Atlantic is getting close to super hurricane strength.  However, projections show gradual weakening and avoidance of landfall over the U.S.  In any case, too early to tell for sure.

A more dangerous storm at this time is almost Super Typhoon Mindulle, now at close to 150 MPH, headed towards Japan:

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THE HUMAN CONDITION

I happened to read an article on the 10 greatest film directors from Japan.  Of course on the list were Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu and Kon Ichikawa.  I thought Masaki Kobayashi deserved to be there.  So I went to another ranking and he was #8.  His memorable films are highly rated:

• Harakiri (1962), Rotten Tomatoes 100/97.
• The Human Condition (1959), RT /94...but only for Part 2.
• Kwaidan (1964), RT 91/90.

I am focusing on The Human Condition because I am into the first hour of Part 1 of this trilogy:

• Part 1:  No Greater Love.
• Part 2:  Road to Eternity.
• Part 3:  A Soldier's Prayer.

Let me quote Wikipedia:

The Human Condition (人間の條件, Ningen no jōken) is a Japanese epic film trilogy made between 1959 and 1961, based on the six-volume novel published from 1956 to 1958 by Junpei Gomikawa.^[3] It was directed by Masaki Kobayashi and stars Tatsuya Nakadai. The trilogy follows the life of Kaji, a Japanese pacifist and socialist, as he tries to survive in the totalitarian and oppressive world of World War II-era Japan. Altogether, as a single film it is 9 hours, 39 minutes long, not including intermissions, making it one of the longest narrative films ever made.^[4]

I can further add:  brutal, bleak, black-and-white, and a struggle to watch.  So why am I bothering to post on this movie?  Maybe because it is an epic.  Further, TCM on three Sundays will show this trilogy.  Sorry, you already missed Part 1.  On TCM tomorrow (Sunday) night at 8PM for Part 2.  Then Part 3 comes on at 10:45PM on Sunday, October 3.  If through a search I find where you can view Part 1, I'll later so inform you.  Remember, though, that you will spend 9 hours and 39 minutes of your life.

I won't do any reviewing and send you to that Wikipedia article for details.  I can further discourage you by saying that naive and pacifist Kaji goes to war, killing out of necessity and dies at the end without returning to his wife.  If you think you have a tough life, you will now have someone to compare who subsists at the worst end of any scale.  I will record Parts 2 and 3, but wonder if I will bother to watch.  However, I'll enter another quote from Wikipedia:

The British film critic David Shipman described the trilogy in his 1983 book, The Story of Cinema, as "unequivocally the greatest film ever made."^[12] In his review for The New York Times in 2008, A. O. Scott declared, "Kobayashi's monumental film can clarify and enrich your understanding of what it is to be alive."^[13] Critic Philip Kemp, in his essay written for The Criterion Collection's release of the trilogy, argues that while "the film suffers from its sheer magnitude [and] from the almost unrelieved somberness of its prevailing mood ... The Human Condition stands as an achievement of extraordinary power and emotional resonance: at once a celebration of the resilience of the individual conscience and a purging of forced complicity in guilt (of a nation and, as the title implies, of the whole human race)."^[6]

About Masaki Kobayashi, he was born in Otaru in 1916, the city of birth for my grandfather Kenjiro.  Kobayashi went to Waseda University and regarded himself as a pacifist and socialist.  He served in the Imperial Japanese Army in Manchuria.  He refused any promotion, and was taken prisoner, serving in a detention camp in Okinawa for a year.  You get the impression that this film was a story of his life.  His filmography.

A different kind of human condition to give some hope for Humanity:

Got to add one more, for, yes, there is hope:

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STATUS OF PEACE ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA

Earlier this week, I saw a half-page ad on page A5 of the Honolulu Star Advertiser, indicating that the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act was alluring but dangerous.

My initial reaction was, why would any organization deprecate an attempt at peace?  Never heard of One Korean Network (OKN) or the Korean Conservative Political Action Conference (KCPAC).  The ad was coincidental to South Korea President Moon Jae-in meeting at Pearl Harbor with Admiral Aquilino, U.S. Commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.

One Korea Network:  Our mission is to awaken and inform the powerful cohorts of American politicians and also thought leaders worldwide of the little known demise of South Korea. And how the dominance of China poses the real threat to freedom and democracy in the North East Region of Asia.  President is Andrew Crilly, and as I'm today featuring humdrum videos, here is a half an hour statement from him.  So I'm still a bit confused.

I searched further, and the previous day these two organizations showed a digital advertisement in New York City's Times Square, knowing that Moon would be attending the 76th UN General Assembly, accompanied by BTS.  That must have been even more expensive.  Sounds like some kind of conspiracy.

There was a sense that Republicans were involved, and, it turned out, more specifically conservatives.  Apparently, One Korean Network is relatively new and headquartered in Hawaii, or, at least with an office in Honolulu.  But the Conservative Political Action Conference has been around since 1974.  In fact, even earlier to William Buckley and the American Conservative Union. Donald Trump made several appearances with CPAC, including earlier this year.  They were wildly supportive of his efforts to make peace with Kim Jung-un.  Today, seems like they fear any kind of peace.

So I checked even further, and first found H.R. 3446, the Peace on the Korean Peninsula Act, introduced by Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks, California).  He appears to be credible politically, being chairman of a Financial Services subcommittee, and graduated from Harvard Law School.  There were several Democrats who also co-sponsored.  No Republicans.  Four years ago he introduced an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump for firing FBI head James Comey.

Most of you reading this posting, if you got this far, probably couldn't care less about this topic.  If on Saturday morning, 13January2018, you were awakened by an intercom alarm which warned that a missile from North Korea was headed for Hawaii, you too might find interest.

At 8:10 or so the 15C emergency intercom blared (it is so loud that you would take notice even if you were in an alcoholically induced stupor--nothing I've experienced, of course):  actually, I've already forgotten the exact message, but it was something like, "stay indoors, take immediate precautions, THIS IS NOT A DRILL."  That was it.  Nothing about what was the problem.

Actually, I was only a tad worried, for that is my general nature about anything.  For example, about this COVID-19 pandemic, I actually went on a trip to Thailand in February of 2020 because I thought, here we  go again.  In 2009 I wrote an article for the Huffington Post entitled, A Pandemic Worse than the Swine Flu.  I don't take things seriously enough and blamed the media for the pandemic.  Maybe I should have looked closer into it, for it was the H1N1 virus that caused the Swine Flu Pandemic, the same H1N1 that was responsible for the the Spanish Flu of a century ago.

But on that issue I was right, so back to that fateful day three years ago:

In any case, the only potential catastrophe I could imagine was that North Korea had launched a missile to Hawaii and I had by that point no time to react because that would only take 20 minutes  to reach me, and about as many minutes had already elapsed.   I began to reflect on my life, which has been a series of one in a million events of amazing luck, so it could well be about time that some balance was swiftly coming. 

I of course turned on the TV, and soon thereafter, CNN said this was a false alert:

So, anyway, there are competing forces regarding peace on the Korean Peninsula.  However today some unexpected good news, for Kim Yo Jong, Jong Un's sister, expressed openness to peace talks with South Korea.  She said Moon Jae-in's overture was admirable.  Yo Jong will become 34 years old on Sunday, although our fed government thinks she is two years younger.  She spent four years in Switzerland and has a computer science degree from Kim Il-sung University, a school named after her grandfather.  That is where she met her husband and it is rumored they have a six-year old child.  There are hints that if something happens to Jong Un, she would replace him.

Let me repeat my mention of President Moon and BTS at the UN General Assembly earlier this week.  A truly boring speech by Moon at the beginning, following by something similar from BTS about world peace and such from around 7.5 minutes into this video, and their finale' song from the 14:35 mark.

What screwy and tedious posting.  I'll close with something a lot more entertaining from Russia:

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Hurricane Sam, the 18th Atlantic ocean storm, at this time is not expected to be a threat to populated areas:

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