GRETA THUNBERG: Humanity Has No Clothes

According to the New York Times this morning:

More than 100 U.S. colleges will require in-person students to be vaccinated. As far as I know, the University of Hawaii is still thinking about it.

The Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to clean up drinking water, a moment of bipartisan cooperation. This is a test of how infrastructure can serve as the foundation for President Joe Biden's next $4 trillion Build Back Better plan. You know how much money this is? See graphic.
Amazon reported over $8 billion in profit in the first three months of 2021, more than triple the figure a year ago. No wonder Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, now worth $171 billion.

The Jacksonville Jaguars selected Trevor Lawrence, a quarterback from Clemson, first in the N.F.L. draft. Here’s the rest of the first round. Alabama had six players selected, tying the University of Miami for most ever. Jalen Waddle rejoins Tua Tagovailoa at Miami, the pro team.
Three ways to increase vaccinations:

The government should pay Americans to get vaccinated, Slate’s Ben Mathis-Lilley argues.
The bioethicist Nancy Jecker disagrees, writing that persuasion campaigns can have a more lasting impact.
I think the best way is for government to work with companies and other organizations (like churches) to only allow those who have completed the vaccination program enter any transport device, sports arena, enclosed restaurant and other related activities.

Hans Christian Anderson published The Emperor's New Clothes in 1837. Swindlers were able to convince the Emperor's advisor that the invisible wear they had tailored were beautiful beyond belief, so that the Emperor himself also was so duped. Parading through town with his new garbs, the people too thought well, lest they be arrested. However:

“But he hasn’t got anything on,” a little child said.

Or even earlier, from The Bible:

Isaiah 11:6
“The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.”

These animals, of course, effectively represent society today.

Today the parable is about global warming. Politicians and company executives mouth supportive statements about why we need to do something about the Greenhouse Effect, but never quite get around to establishing enforceable requirements. That is, until Greta Thunberg, then a 15-year old student who skipped school to protest outside the Swedish Riksdag with a simple sign, appeared. Her efforts will soon lead to actual action.

Sometimes that child needs to be special to engender real change. Greta suffers from Asperger's Syndrome on the autism spectrum, providing a unique ability to think, react and act differently from most.

Watch her Ted Talk on growing up wondering what was wrong with her and how her obsessive-compulsive disorder sent her into depression about the unreality of global warming. You just can't be a normal person to react as she did, and in the process become the youngest TIME Person of the Year.

PBS and Hulu for Earth Day played part 1 of a 3-part series entitled: Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World. If you don't livestream Hulu, just scan through your PBS schedule and find it, for Part 1 will play again some time this coming week. Then, of course Parts 2/3, which will be shown at 8PM on Wednesday, May 5 and 12.

Avio Focolari made the finals of Italia's Got Talent by throat whistling:

She would be 127 years old if still alive today, but here is Mae West around a century ago:

Of course, who can forget her with WC Fields.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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