Ah, a three-day weekend.  Monday is July 4th, our 246th birthday.   A Capitol Fourth  from the Mall starts at 8PM EDT on your PBS station.  I started working for the U.S. Senate in 1979 and went to the very first of this annual show, before the event was televised.  Well, actually this performance was cancelled in 2020 and 2021 because of this pandemic.  But it's back this year.  On this absolutely sparkling Honolulu day I thought I'd just toss out interesting stuff I've been accumulating.  First, Japan is just about opening up to tourists with only tours these days, but you get 136 yen to the dollar today.   Two years ago the exchange rate was at 105, or our buck can get 23% more value these days. After World War II the rate was fixed at 360 yen to the dollar to stabilize the Japanese economy. In 1995 the dollar hit a low of 80, but zoomed up to 144 in 1998, but crashed in one week from 136 to 112. So get ready to go back to Japan ...