Worldometer:
New deaths:
Summary:
Hard to believe it was nine days ago when I reported on scotch that I promised my next posting would be on wines. Well, here it is, finally. Let me start colorfully, the image from an article about wine colors from Paso Robles, my next stop for wine tasting, when I get released from solitary confinement, the subject of my posting tomorrow, I think.
The coronavirus COVID-19 is affecting 210 countries and territories around the world and 2 international conveyances. The day is reset after midnight GMT+0. Sources are provided under "Latest Updates"
New deaths:
DAY China Italy USA Spain Germany S. Korea WORLD
Mar 23 9 601 85 435 24 7 1631
24 7 743 100 489 33 9 1983
25 4 683 129 454 47 6 1987
26 6 712 73 498 33 5 1801
27 5 919 182 569 71 8 2782
28 3 889 241 674 52 5 2609
29 5 756 169 624 49 8 2706
30 4 812 271 537 19 6 2849
31 5 837 439 553 37 4 3661
Apr 1 7 727 589 463 83 3 3239
2 6 760 522 709 158 4 4183
29 5 756 169 624 49 8 2706
30 4 812 271 537 19 6 2849
31 5 837 439 553 37 4 3661
Apr 1 7 727 589 463 83 3 3239
2 6 760 522 709 158 4 4183
3 4 766 716 587 123 5 3822
4 4 681 769 546 55 3 4755
5 3 525 909 471 106 6 3595
6 2 636 874 528 78 3 4414
7 ? 604 1371 556 95 6 6291
8 2 542 1400 628 176 8 5431
9 2 610 1286 446 82 4 3779
10 1 570 1739 523 121 4 6506
5 3 525 909 471 106 6 3595
6 2 636 874 528 78 3 4414
7 ? 604 1371 556 95 6 6291
8 2 542 1400 628 176 8 5431
9 2 610 1286 446 82 4 3779
10 1 570 1739 523 121 4 6506
11 3 619 1476 399 ? 3 5358
Summary:
- Maybe not Good Saturday, but not a bad day for Planet Earth, as the World new deaths dropped from 6506 to 5358, while the USA declined from 1739 to 1476.
- I wonder why Japan has not really been reporting, now for three straight days.
- Not sure if this is good or bad, but the World, with 108,042 deaths, has had 400,708 recoveries.
- With 226 cases/million people and 13.9 deaths/million, that means, at this point, of all the cases, 6% have died. That in itself doesn't mean much because these cases still have 10 to 14 days to increase the death number. But all statistics I've seen indicate that this percentage should eventually drop to around 1%. So why is it so high today, only to get higher yet? I would surmise it has everything to do with testing. If everyone in the world got tested, chances are there really are a lot more actual cases, mostly staying home and not knowing it. This also means that there are a lot more asymptomatic individuals than we currently think.
- Similarly, the fact that only a little more than three-fourths of people have recovered, relative to those who died, does not mean that at the end, nearly 25% of those who got infected will die. Again, this figure will eventually decline to around 1%. But from 25% down to 1%? Something is not right with these statistics.
People send me these, so let me start with them:
Segueing into history, why not highlight Moutai when Nixon first visited China nearly half a century ago:
- President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao Tse-tung were well aware that they were making history. Both understood that Nixon’s February 1972 visit to China was important for its symbolism. It was the first visit of an American president to that country—an end to the long standoff where neither nation had recognized the other.
- At the Great Hall, the Americans—from the President and Mrs. Nixon to the crew of their aircraft—walked into an enormous lobby, where Chou En-lai and his colleagues waited to greet them. Chairman Mao did not come out to such occasions.
- The Americans had been briefed on how to behave at Chinese banquets. Everyone had been issued chopsticks and urged to practice ahead of time. Nixon had become reasonably adept, but national-security adviser Henry Kissinger remained hopelessly clumsy. CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite shot an olive into the air.
- Chou En-lai, who was smoking Chinese cigarettes, turned to Mrs. Nixon and gestured to the picture of two pandas on the package. “We will give you two,” he said. According to Chinese sources, Mrs. Nixon screamed with joy. Although the Americans had dropped hints, the Chinese had been noncommittal on the pandas. The exchange of presents has always been important in diplomacy, and giving the right gifts—not too lavish, not too simple—has been an art the Chinese excelled at. Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing were now destined for the National Zoo in Washington.
- Each person at the banquet had three glasses: one for water or orange juice, one for wine, one for China’s famous mao-tai—“white lightning” to American journalists or, as CBS’s Dan Rather put it, “liquid razor blades.”
At their table, Chou En-lai said proudly to Nixon that mao-tai, with its alcohol level of more than 50 percent, had been famous since the San Francisco World’s Fair of 1915. Chou took a match to his cup, saying, “Mr. Nixon, please take a look. It can indeed catch fire.” “During the Long March, mao-tai was used by us to cure all kinds of diseases and wounds,” Chou answered. Kissinger aide Alexander Haig, who had tried mao-tai on his advance trip to Beijing in January, had worried about its effect on Nixon. Under no repeat no circumstances,Haig had cabled, should the president actually drink from his glass in response to banquet toasts. “Aided only in part by the mao-tai,” Holdridge remembered, “the atmosphere in the Great Hall was electric. Surely everyone there, and every TV watcher, must have sensed that something new and great was being created in the US–China relationship.”
Nixon despised most journalists as “clowns” who were liberal in their bias. He was convinced they hated him “because I have beaten them so often.” Early in his presidency, Nixon ordered senior staff to prepare lists of friends and foes among the press; the list of foes was much longer. He intended to circumvent what he saw as the liberal establishment in the media and reach out directly to Middle America. With the powers of the presidency he could make news, whether by creating photo opportunities or going on the networks with major policy statements. He could also—and did—place wiretaps on reporters to see where they were getting their stories. He took pleasure in refusing places to papers like the New York Times. {Sound familiar today?}
The Chinese had never seen a Xerox copier and were fascinated by the one the advance party brought. When the Americans realized that the Chinese were copying all their documents out by hand, they arranged to leave their copier behind.- Beijing was cold in the winter, they were warned; many journalists rushed off to buy fur coats and long underwear. They should look after their health; if they went into a Chinese hospital, they might never come out.
Chou concluded: “We hope that, through a frank exchange of views between our two sides to gain a clearer notion of our differences and make efforts to find common ground, a new start can be made in the relations between our two countries.” He lifted his glass to the Americans and Chinese in the room and to friendship between the two peoples. Coming down from the stage, Chou circled the tables of the official party, toasting each person in turn. One of the Americans noticed that he only touched his lips to his glass each time.
“It was really quite spectacular,” Haldeman thought, watching Nixon. “He moved very forcefully, took a firm stand in front of the individual, looked him squarely in the eye, raised his glass and clinked the other person’s, took a quick sip, then he raised his glass again and gave a little staccato bow to the individual, and then he turned, marched to the next individual, and repeated the performance.” Not everyone shared Haldeman’s pleasure. “The effect,” William F. Buckley wrote, “was as if Sir Hartley Shawcross had suddenly risen from the prosecutor’s stand at Nuremberg and descended to embrace Goering and Goebbels and Doenitz and Hess, begging them to join with him in the making of a better world.”
John Burns, a Canadian journalist, took Nixon’s chopsticks as a souvenir. Although a New York dealer sent a cable with an offer of $10,000, Burns kept them.
Well, enough of history, returning to WINE, next came Georgia (not that state with Atlanta as a city, but the former Soviet country) around 8,000 years ago, with Iran a millennium later. In the Western world, mead (from honey) probably came before grape wines. However, cave people probably noticed that certain animals acted strangely from eating fermenting berries, and determined that there was something in this rotting fruit, leading to the production of alcohol (always ethanol--don't drink methanol unless you wish to go blind and die).
It is reported that rose' was the first grape wine drunk. Religion played an important role in bringing Europe to a leading position.In 1867 a team excavated a Roman couple's tomb near Speyer, Germany, and found one bottle of probably Bourdeaux, now known as the Speyer Wine. It is 1700 years old, and probably still drinkable. A museum in Speyer exhibits this bottle. Something about wax and olive oil preserving this potion.
More recently, last year, a bottle of 1945 red Burgundy sold for $558,000, and another for $496,000. The title was held by $233,000 for a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild sold in Hong Kong in 2010. You might have read about that $1.1 million 60-year old Macallan scotch, but what do you know about the $3.5 million Ley Diamante pasion Azteca Platinum Tequila? And it's only 6 years old.
About rose' the poor cousin of the above, according to BuzzFeed, there is no shame in drinking pink wine:
- They don't make rose' by mixing red and white wine.
- You can make rose' from almost any grape.
- Drink it fresh, they don't age.
I love a rose' with an elegant French lunch.
Which glass goes with what?
Here is a handy comparison graphic showing the volume equivalence of various drinks:
- May benefit mental health. An occasional glass of wine may reduce the risk of depression. However, excessive drinking can have the opposite effect, putting you at a higher risk of this condition (
17 , 18). - May promote longevity. Studies have found that drinking moderate amounts of wine as part of a healthy diet may increase longevity thanks to wine’s high antioxidant content (
19 ,20 ,21 ). - May promote healthy gut bacteria. Recent studies have even suggested that red wine may promote the growth of beneficial gut bacteria, which may improve metabolic syndrome markers in people with obesity (
21 ,22 ).
Is the recommended quantity two 5-ounce glasses or what? Generally for men, but one for women. Yet, maybe any alcoholic beverage might work:
The American Heart Association recommends alcohol in moderation — less than or equal to one to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women. Here, one drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, four ounces of wine, 1.5 ounces of 80-proof spirits or one ounce of 100-proof spirits.
The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969)--RT 67%/82%
In 1943, the German army occupies the Italian hillside town of Santa Vittoria. The troops want to confiscate the region’s prized wine, but the wily, oft-inebriated mayor (Anthony Quinn) and townspeople hide one million bottles in a cave.
Year of the Comet (1992)--RT 0%/48%
Instead of vineyards, the setting is the Scottish Highlands for this caper, in which a prim young woman uncovers the most expensive bottle of wine in the world. Can she and her boorish bodyguard fend off thieves and the temptations of unlikely love?
A Walk in the Clouds (1995)--RT 44%/75%
“My family has a vineyard in Napa,” a beautiful, unmarried—and pregnant—woman tells a soldier (Keanu Reeves) returning home from World War II. He offers to pose as her husband, but soon falls in love with her, except her tyrannical father blocks their happiness.
Sideways (2004)--RT 97%/78%
“Its flavors… they’re just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet.” That’s how Miles (Paul Giamatti) describes Pinot Noir in this on-the-road ode to life, friendship and uncorking the perfect bottle, filmed in Santa Barbara County.
A Good Year (2006)--RT 25%/65%
Channeling rom-com aplomb, Russell Crowe plays a cutthroat investment banker who inherits his uncle’s chateau in Provence. The lush, tranquil vineyards do not pair with his hard-driving life—or must he change his life to save it? An alluring café owner (Marion Cotillard) adds amour.
Bottle Shock (2008)--RT 48%/58%
Oozing connoisseurship and comedic timing, Alan Rickman portrays Stephen Spurrier, English wine merchant who set up the Judgment of Paris, the famed 1976 blind tasting that pit American wines against France’s best. The film also chronicles a tumultuous father-son relationship that grows into trust.
A Heavenly Vintage (2009)--RT 67%/82%
This is a tale of a 19th-century French peasant who longs to make great wine. In his quest, he’s inspired by his beautiful wife and a proud baroness, as well as Xas, a male angel who tempts with tantalizing secrets.
You Will Be My Son (2011)--RT 89%/69%
A despotic vineyard owner in Saint-Émilion scorns his unassuming son, doubting his ability to take over the business. Instead, he favors his son’s charismatic childhood friend, and family tensions build (French with English subtitles).
Somm (2012)--RT 79%/81%
During nearly 40 years, only 220 professionals worldwide have passed the Master Sommelier exam, which is considered one of the crowning achievements of wine knowledge. This documentary follows four candidates as they swirl, sip and study for the test.
Red Obsession (2013)--86%/70%
Demand hugely exceeds supply for the Premiers Crus of Bordeaux. This lavish documentary looks at how China’s relentless pursuit of prestige bottlings affects these chateaus.
Nothing special. Okay film.
My face shield from Amazon has still not arrived, limiting my ability to shop for essential enhancement ingredients. However, here is a photo from Bangkok showing a newborn baby with it:
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