On Sunday, I indicated that my life had three 27-year periods after the age of 5, and provided details of the first trio, but only got through high school. Today, I will complete this initial educational cycle with Stanford University, an important learning experience in the Hawaiian sugar industry, then graduate school. So in 1958 I left Hawaii for the first time. My brother by then was working at the Naval Civil Engineering Center in Port Hueneme, California. I stayed with his family that summer, for he secured for me a summer job at this center. Stanford was a challenge, for I was below average, again, in all facets of life, sociologically, economically and intellectually. There were no Black students, Hispanics were not yet even identified and I was the only student of Japanese ethnicity. Actually, there was one Black in 1891, the year the school opened, Ernest Houston Johnson. He graduated in 1895 in economics, but sadly died of tuberculosis in 1898 at the age of ...
This is Monday, 1June2026. For the record today, the USA/Israel vs Iran War peace talk seems be fraying . Maybe the U.S. can't convince Israel to pull back from Lebanon. Plus, we again bombed Iran and stopped missiles fired at American troops in Kuwait. The Strait of Hormuz is not totally closed, for 2 ships/day passed through this past week, a trickle compared to the average of 130 ships/day before the war began. Gas prices are high and fertilizer shortages are occurring. Even worse, Iran might work with its proxies in Yeman to close the Strait of Bab el-Mandeb , totally cutting off oil shipments from Saudi Arabia. Sure, there is the Suez, but that significantly adds shipping cost. Last month was an amazing one for this blog. This original site began in April of 2008, and will be 18 years old at the end of the month. I do this daily, though I had to skip a few while in China (they've long had a feud with Google, which produces this ...