HAVE A GREAT THURSDAY

   From Worldometer (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):

        DAY  USA  WORLD   Brazil    India    South Africa

June     9    1093     4732        1185        246       82

July    22     1205     7128        1293      1120      572

Aug    12     1504     6556        1242       835      130

Sept     9     1208      6222       1136      1168       82

Oct     21     1225      6849         571       703       85

Nov    25     2304    12025        620         518      118

Dec    30      3880    14748      1224        299      465

Jan     14       4142    15512         1151         189      712              

Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398

          25       2414    10578        1582        119      144

Mar     2        1989    9490        1726        110      194

          17        1289     9736         2736       171       74

          24         936   10206        3158       277       55

          31         1115    12301         3950      458      58

 April  6          906    11787         4211       631       37 

           7          873    12996         3733      684      79

Summary:   

• Better for the USA, but parts of the World still in trouble.     
• Tokyo Olympics?  Japan yesterday had 9279 new cases and 30 new deaths.
• However, Japan's deaths/million people is at 74, while the USA is at 1723.
• Lowest in the U.S. is Hawaii with 330 deaths/million.
• Hawaii is averaging around 100 new cases/day.  As Japan has nearly 100 times the population of Hawaii, that would be around an equivalent of 93 new cases yesterday for Japan.
• Hawaii and Vermont are the states with the lowest number of cases in the U.S.
• 
  China had 12 new cases and no new deaths yesterday.
• Murmurs have been growing for a boycott of their 2022 Winter Olympics (February 4-20, less than a year away).
• Why?  China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims.
• But the U.S. State Department has not endorsed any such move.

On the cruising front, let me start with the 13 worst cruise ships in the world.  Phew, the Island Princess was not on that list.  For those new to this blog, that is where we will be from January to May next year, taking us from Los Angeles west and back to Los Angeles.

For those concerned about COVID-19, cruise lines have gone way beyond current CDC requirements about boarding their ships.  Soon, they will become havens of safety for old people.  In the meantime, watch out for incredible bargains this summer when companies won't be able to fill their cruises.  This global Island Princess cruise, for example, can be cancelled by September 20.  Those somewhat interested in joining us should watch very closely that month to see how prices are affected by this deadline.

Celebrity (vaccinations required for passengers 18 and older)

Crystal (vaccinations required for all passengers)

Norwegian (vaccinations required for all passengers)

Royal Caribbean (vaccinations required for passengers 18 and older)

Viking (vaccinations required for all passengers)

American Cruise Lines (vaccinations required for all passengers only on sailings before May 1)

American Queen Steamboat Company (vaccinations required for all passengers only on sailings after July 1)

Princess has been somewhat dilatory, and only announced a vaccine requirement for its initial restart of cruising around the UK.

Ever wonder if an unlimited drinks package is limited?  For Princess cruises, they ONLY allow you up to 15 free drinks/day.  Have you ever had 15 drinks in one day?  For 111 straight days?  We have negotiated all three to the right into our cruise price.

How has COVID-19 affected sports?

• Twenty-one players on the N.H.L.’s Vancouver Canucks — nearly the whole team — have tested positive.
• The Washington Major League Baseball team missed the opening on April 4 and finally played its first game yesterday.  At least four players tested positive, and five other team/staff members were quarantined.  But that was announced on opening day.  Information has been scarce.
• The following is a compilation of what is happening across our college campuses, from Inside Higher Ed.

About that $2.3 trillion Biden infrastructure legislation, where corporate taxes are been targeted to pay for this effort, the New York Times this morning showed this graphic:

In other words, the share of corporate America has dropped by a factor of 6 since 1950, and is today half of what it was four years ago.  Also: ...at least 55 big companies paid zero federal income taxes last year, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

“Right now, the U.S. raises less corporate tax revenue as a share of economic output than almost all other advanced economies,” Alan Rappeport and Jim Tankersley of The Times write.

What about this?

What is the most blah day of the week?  

• Most people hate Mondays, because they just had the weekend.  
• Turns out that Tuesday has been shown to be the worst day of the week.  Why?  Read this.
• These two argue that Wednesday is the best day.  They are not in the majority.
• Even though I'm retired, Friday continues to be my best day.  Probably some kind of sociological hysteresis.
• College Times says Friday is #1, followed by Saturday, Sunday and Thursday.  They also say Tuesday is the worst.

Thursdays are better than MTuW because you can almost feel the weekend coming.  Today, I celebrate Thursdays.

Here is more than what you might want to know about today:

• Associated with the planet Jupiter.
• Thursday is derived from Old/Middle English derived from the Norwegian Thor's Day, which is already beginning to sound like Thursday.

• 
  Interesting that Thursday is one of the days in the week in which Muslims are encouraged to fast, and true also for Judaism.
• For Buddhists, especially in Thailand, this is Teacher's Day.  
• College graduation day in that country is almost always on Thursday.
• Thursday is associated with the color orange, worn by monks.

• 
  Finland and Sweden traditionally serve pea soup on this day.
• In Australia, cinema movies premiere on Thursday.
• In the UK, all general elections since 1935 have occurred on Thursday.
• There is no truly popular song about Thursday, although David Bowie had Thursday's Child.

Oh, I just got a new computer.  Note the end of my Honohono Orchid season to the right:

This is an iMac Retina 5K, 27 inch monitor with 3.3 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB 2667 MHz DDRH memory, AMD Radeon Pro 5300 4GB graphics and Macintosh HD startup Disk  Interesting that some things never change.  The Honda Fit I bought a couple years ago looked exactly the same as the one I bought nine years before that. My new computer looks identical to my old one:

Even the mouse and keyboard are interchangeable.  However, this new computer takes 30 seconds to turn on and get to where I want.  The old one dawdled along for several long minutes.  The screen graphics are like comparing HD to a cathode ray tube.

Here is something that you will remember (but don't read the text which follows until you watch the whole video!!!):

DON'T READ THIS UNTIL YOU SEE THE ABOVE......The boy in the clip is Emmanuel Macron.  His dancing tutor is now his wife.  He is now President of France and his wife Brigitte is 24 years older.

Well, actually, I looked further into the above and found that the real performers were 16-year old Jake Monreal with 25-year old Jenna Johnson on Season 13 of So You Think You Can Dance:  The Next Generation.

To the left, Emmanuel when he was in high school, with teacher Brigitte.  From Wikipedia.

On 22 June 1974 (three years before Macron was born), she married banker André-Louis Auzière, with whom she had three children, Sébastien Auzière, an engineer, Dr. Laurence Auzière-Jourdan, a cardiologist, and Tiphaine Auzière, a lawyer. They resided in Truchtersheim until 1991, when they moved to Amiens.^[7] She, at the age of 40, met the 15-year-old Emmanuel Macron in La Providence High School in the year 1993,^[16] where she was a teacher and he was a student and a classmate of her daughter Laurence.^[17] She divorced Auzière in January 2006 and married Macron in October 2007.^[18][19]

For the record, like President Trump, President Macron became a COVID-19 victim, and Brigitte also tested positive, but with light symptoms.  Next week she becomes 68 years old.  He is 43, a difference of 24 years and seven months.

Never thought much of George Bush the younger as president.  However, Donald Trump made him look like some kind of understated hero.  Two George W. Bushes at once is worthy of Thursday.  The guy to the right is Steve Bridges.  Eleven minutes long, but worth a watch on this day when you're probably not doing much anyway.  This performance is not one of those computer assisted videos.  It really happened.

For those who are really old, like me, this is a good day to reminisce about our youth when there was no cell phone, nor television.

Sounds of Silence in less than 2 minutes:

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