This is September 13, and a Friday.  Some consider this to be a bad luck day.  The origin goes back to   The Bible , and more specifically, Jesus.   As such, many other countries also are stuck with this superstition.  However, in Italy, long associated with Catholicism, Friday the 17th is  unlucky .  This is because the number 17 in roman numeral is XVII, and anagram of VIXI, which means  I have lived in Latin .  Some consider this is a bad omen, as it  implies that death is soon .  Oh well, I am posting this article today because it relates to September 13, which in 1969 was a Saturday. 1969 was a heck of a year. That was 55 years ago. I was sent to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana by C. Brewer of the Hawaiian Sugar Industry to earn a master's degree in chemical engineering.   They paid my salary and LSU gave me a full fellowship, waiving tuition, so when you add the income of nurse wife, this was the only time when we actu...

I woke up to Nilsson singing  Without You , the 1973 Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.  Then I noticed on the TV screen something about Nilsson Schmilsson.  My first thought was that this was his real name.  Turns out that  Nilsson Schmilsson  ( the whole CD ) is Harry Nilsson's seventh album, which also includes  Coconut .  Sure, you've heard it, for...   featured in the films   The Addams Family ,   Reservoir Dogs ,   Practical Magic ,   Dick , and   Hey Arnold!: The Movie ; and heavily referenced on the television show   Bones . Nilsson sings and composes.  However,  Without You  was written by Peter Hamm and Tom Evans for Badfinger, their group, for release in 1970, and in addition to Nilsson, was recorded by over 180 artists.  Paul McCartney described Nilsson's version as  the killer song of all time . Harry Edward Nilsson III was born nearly 81 years ago in Brooklyn and pa...

According to the Bangkok Pos t today, two luxury nightclubs in town, Krystal and Emerald, are the epicenters of new COVID-19 outbreaks: Thailand went for months without a confirmed case of local transmission, but the epidemic has now radiated from luxury nightclubs that cater to powerful and wealthy men to the warrens of slums that hug Bangkok’s highways and railroad tracks. In these cramped quarters, social distancing is impossible. Infections have also spread to prisons, construction camps and factories. Among the newly infected from those nightclubs, an ambassador, government minister, police in the area and, of course, the women who worked there. When I traveled to Thailand in February of 2020, they were #2 to China in number of cases.  Over the next few months they fell to #120.   Yesterday, with 2817 new cases and 36 deaths, they rose to #80 in total cases. However, their deaths/million is 170, while that of the USA is 1840. Hawaii at 355 deaths/million is lowest o...