PASTICHE 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

          31         1115   12301          3950       458      58

April   6         906   11787           4211         631      37

          20         883   13905         3481      2020    120

          21         876   14088          3157      2102      53

          28         885  14837          3120      3285      51      

          29         954  15301          3019      3647      48

Summary:  

• If anything, the pandemic is getting worse.
• So here we are today in the U.S.:

As this is pastiche day, here is what I saw this morning when I sat down for the usual morning constitution:

I thought, this certainly looked familiar.  Here is the full scene:

Amazingly, just the shadow cast by the hanging bath towel created that graph of the pandemic in the USA today.

On Sunday I featured Pfizer.  Here is a video of how they make their vaccine.  Another (click below to watch) of why even the 72% Johnson & Johnson vaccine is just about as good as the 95% Pfizer version.  The pause that occurred was, I think, a tactical mistake, for it forever cast this vaccine into third-class status.  With a less than one in a million chance of a clot, this kind of decision just shows that this Administration is just too namby-pamby, another way of saying too much abundance of caution.  

Oh, by the way, it was only yesterday that I indicated the $2.3 billion infrastructure bi-partisan bill was now the $3 trillion Biden Build Back Better budget.  Well, he surprised me in his speech from Congress last night with what apparently is now a $4 trillion dollar total, one where he has at least one more budget reconciliation path to passage without any Republican help.

I should add that the NFL draft will begin today with only round one.  Want to guess how many Alabama players will be selected?  The other six rounds occur Friday and Saturday.  One of the latest rumor blurbs is that the San Francisco 49ers might be inquiring with the Green Bay Packers about a trade for QB Aaron Rogers.  His comment  was that his future is a beautiful mystery.  Did you catch him on Jeopardy the other week?  Did a great job.

I'd like to end my blog today with a reference to Pat Saiki, who this month at the age of 91, launched her new book, A Woman in the House.  Interestingly enough, you can get it from Watermark Publishing, but not yet from Amazon.com.  Read this article by Denby Fawcett, who was a fifth grade student of Saiki's at Punahou, who, fresh out of the University of Hawaii, in 1952 was hired as the first non-Caucasian full-time teacher at that school.

I never had the pleasure of interacting with her at any level, but that might have been because she was a Republican in Hawaii.  She was, though, a liberal Republican, and a leader I've long admired.  She and Patsy Mink were the early female politicians in Hawaii who made a real difference for society, at both the local and national levels.

Let me finish with a short clip that makes some mathematical sense, but is yet surprising:

Further, this is Pastiche Thursday, so we need something more comical.  What about that re-run of maybe the funniest TV sketch ever...Tim Conway playing a new dentist:

It starts slowly, but towards the end, if you're breathing normally, something is wrong with you.

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