It was a busy week, for I had a meeting to explore funding for the Blue Revolution, received my new passport, which allowed us to follow up on India/Qatar visas for our Regent Seven Seas Explorer cruise in November, complete the sign-up for our second cruise--53 days on Seabourn from Sydney to Honolulu next spring--finalized details for our outing this coming week to watch Jersey Boys, went to a campus football game,  and had a birthday party.  You say, what is so great about all that?  Well, my usual pandemic week involved nothing much more than write this blog, exercise, sometimes golf and watch Netflix. I've now been on the Manoa Campus of the University of Hawaii for 50 years.  I can still remember my first day in Keller Hall, August of 1972.  One, it's an amazing feeling to still be alive, but also, I deserve to do some celebration after all those years. Thus, to have my first tailgate party in my office was a monumental event, especially when I only learned on Friday that

 I misidentified one of my photos yesterday, indicating that I thought they were chicken feet: A friend sent me to another site which showed this photo as that of weird lemons: Makes sense because in Chinatown here they would never place chicken feet next to tomatoes.  Sorry, but I did say "I think these are chicken feet." This friend also sent me this video of the  Stanford Prison Experiment , and asked if I was familiar with this study.  My answer is no, but here are the details: In 1971 Stanford psychology professor Philip Zimbardo received a grant from the U.S. Office of Naval Research to conduct a role-play simulation of a prison on campus to determine the psychological effects of prisoners and guards. You can read the  details in  Wikipedia . Planned for a period of two weeks, Zimbardo terminated the effort after six days because of some outrage and parents' concerns. In short, for decades to follow, this controversial Stanford Prison Experiment was criticized as be

The latest info about COVID-19, the Delta variant and vaccinations: There appears to be a  decline of vaccine effectiveness , but not as bad as was shown in Israel.  Numbers like drop to 39% after six months might be closer to double that number. Further, those who are vaccinated, if so unfortunate as to get infected,  almost always get mild symptoms , and few die. The Delta variant is around  twice ( maybe 60% ) as infectious  as the Alpha original, but causes more severe illnesses, as the  hospitalization rate is double  that of the Alpha.  This is why hospitals are today overburdened 98% of the new cases are those who are unvaccinated . From the  New York Times  this morning: Those who are fully vaccinated have a one chance in 5000/day of being infected. In some of the safer states where more were vaccinated, this chance improves to 1 in 10,000/day.  Thus, in a 3-month period, the vaccinated here have a 1% chance of contracting COVID-19.  And if they do, odds are 1 in 50 that they w