Celebrating 30 years of 'Jurassic Park'

As I telegraphed yesterday, today's Sunday entertainment feature celebrates 30 years of Jurassic Park. I begin with some corporate PR from the Jurassic World YouTube channel, Celebrating 30 Years of Jurassic Park.

Thirty years ago, the world experienced the original Jurassic Park, "the beginning of something that changed movies." Sam Neill (Dr. Alan Grant), Laura Dern (Dr. Ellie Sattler), and Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm) return in an exclusive clip to reflect on their experiences and express their gratitude to the fandom for keeping the captivating wonders of Jurassic Park alive. After all, "there's something about dinosaurs which captures the proper imagination like nothing else."

At its core, this video is a great piece of self-promotion, but it has the best preview image, the best video description, and the best capturing of the spirit of the franchise and especially the original movie of any video I found, so in featured position it goes.

News Center Maine had the next best retrospective in 'Jurassic Park' celebrates 30th anniversary.

The film debuted at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., an event that was also a fundraiser for children's charities.

The clip from 30 years ago held up really well, including the interview with Gary Hoyle of the Maine State Museum. The original movie took the science seriously, both the paleontology and the biotechnology, which has led to serious proposals for de-extinction, although not of dinosaurs from amber. That's not going to happen.

I close with KHON2 News' Kualoa Ranch celebrating 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park with LEGO and a giveaway.

It was 1993 when Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, the first one, came out and hit the screens.

On the one hand, this is local news promoting a local commercial event as a public service for locals' entertainment. This is something I see over and over again in local news coverage of holidays and I'm ambivalent about it. On the other, it really does describe the importance of the movie to Hawaii and how it has affected the intervening 30 years, including the filming of "Lost" and "Jumanji" at the ranch. Those are important not only to Hawaii, but to movies and television more broadly.  That history makes this clip worth sharing.

I might have more to write about the 30th anniversary of "Jurassic Park." Stay tuned.

Marching music for the Hawaii Democratic Primary

I was so busy writing about Trump threatening Michigan over mailing absentee ballot applications then visiting the Great Lakes State while refusing to wear a mask on camera while Michigan flooded that I missed the 2020 Hawaii Democratic primary on May 22. Oops. I guess I'm not used to voting deadlines that are on Friday. Still, since I promised I would do so in Marching music for the Oregon Primary and extended the voting deadline for the 2019 Golden Coffee Cups until tomorrow night, I'm going to follow through and make this the Sunday entertainment feature. Instead of marching music to watch and listen while waiting for the results, it will be to celebrate the successful completion of a vote-by-mail primary.

First, the news about the vote itself from the Honolulu Star-Advertiser: Joe Biden wins mail-in Hawaii Democratic presidential primary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential primary in Hawaii in the party’s first mail-in presidential primary in the islands, the Democratic Party of Hawaii announced Saturday.

Biden received 63.2% of the ranked-choice votes, or 21,214 votes, while Sen. Bernie Sanders received 36.8%, or 12,337 ranked-choice votes.

The party decided last year to hold a mail-in ballot to increase participation and also because it fulfilled a Democratic National Committee request that the state move away from a caucus election and toward a primary.

Party members were supposed to have the option of voting in-person on April 4, but that was canceled because of the virus and the mail-in voting period was extended.

Video by Craig T. Kojima

While the description does a good job of reporting the primary results, the video didn't. For that, I turn to KHON2 News' Democratic Party of Hawaii announces presidential primary results.

The Democratic Party of Hawaii released the results for the 2020 presidential primary election. Joe Biden won with 63% of the votes, while Bernie Sanders came in second with 37%.

Those were the results after voters' second and third choices were considered. In the initial round, Biden had 56.0%, Sanders 30.8%, Elizabeth Warren 4.8%, Tulsi Gabbard 3.9%, Michael Bloomberg 1.3%, and Andrew Yang 1.0% with all other candidates receiving less than one percent each. I think that was Gabbard's best showing since winning a delegate in American Samoa, not that it did her any good to come in fourth in her home state.

Enough politics — on to the marching music! Since there are no competitive drum corps in Hawaii, follow over the jump for the Hawaiian marching bands that have marched in the Rose Parade during the past five years and been recorded by Music213.

Tariffs on Chinese imports prompt Dollar Tree to raise prices

I opened Tariffs from the U.S.-China trade war are likely to accelerate the Retail Apocalypse by noting the effects of tariffs on prices at Dollar Tree, the parent company of Family Dollar.

I mentioned in Retail Archeology looks at Family Dollar, a tale of the Retail Apocalypse that "Dollar Tree could get into even more trouble because of the U.S.-China...trade war."

KHOU in Honolulu reported today that has indeed started to happen.  Watch Connect the Dots: Rising tariffs means rising prices at Dollar Tree.

Shopping at Dollar Tree may not cost you just a dollar for long. The chain is about to pass-on a price hike to shoppers. Lauren Talarico connects the dots.

I wrote that tariffs on Chinese goods will cause inflation, in particular increasing inflation by 0.25%.  The price increases at Dollar Tree are a foreseeable effect of the tariffs.

Now I'm done for May.  See you all in June, which is only a few hours away.

Celebrate National Coffee Day by contributing to Coffee Party USA

Happy National Coffee Day!

Whether getting one to go or lingering over a second cup, on September 29 be sure to observe National Coffee Day!

In addition to my readers celebrating by having a cup or two of their favorite coffee, some of which can be had at a discount or even free today (videos listing locations over the jump), they can match my $10 donation to Coffee Party USA that I made today by making a donation of $10.00 or more.  It will go to improving our website, the new version of which Coffee Party USA are currently beta testing, finding Voter Buddies to help people register and get to the polls, registering people to vote with our partners TurboVote and National Voter Registration Day, and organizing local community groups.  It's an election year, and Coffee Party USA is doing our part to get people involved and ready to vote this November.  Donate and you can help in that effort.  If that's not enough, my readers can become a member or volunteer.  Coffee Party USA needs people to help with all the projects listed above and then some, as we plan on doing even more to empowers and connects communities to reclaim our government for the people in the future.

If this appeal looks familiar, it's because I wrote similar ones for Irish Coffee Day, National Nonprofit Day, and National Coffee Ice Cream Day earlier this year.  In addition to being a director and officer of Coffee Party USA (full disclosure), I'm an environmentalist; I recycle.



Coffee Party on!
Follow over the jump for three videos to celebrate National Coffee Day, including two that list locations where one can get discounts and free coffee today.

Bees added to endangered species list

I've written a lot about bees on this blog beginning with Discovery News and PhysOrg on colony collapse disorder in 2013 and continuing through Space and sustainability news for the fifth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News.  This week, more news came out about bees, but it wasn't about honeybees and colony collapse disorder.  Instead, it was that the Rusty Patched Bumblebee Is Officially Endangered.  Wochit News reports.

This week it has been declared that the rusty patched bumblebee is endangered in the United States. It is the first bee species to ever be put on the endangered list. The rusty patched bumblebee has seen it’s population diminish significantly over the past 20 years. Tom Melius, the regional director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, stated, “Pollinators are small but might parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world. Without them, our forests, parks, meadows, and scrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand.” Environmentalists are ready to fight for the lives of rusty patched bumblebees.

While these are both the first bumblebees and mainland bees to be placed on the endangered species list, they aren't the first U.S. bees on the list.  Last September, several species of Hawaiian bees earned that dubious distinction.  KHON reports in Native bee species now protected under Endangered Species Act.

Seven yellow-faced bee species are now under protection, a first for any bees in the nation.

While these are not honeybees, this is still bad news.

Enough DOOM!  Stay tuned for two entertainment entries, one including the first celebration of the fake holiday Norther on Sunday and one celebrating Martin Luther King Day on Monday.

Hawaii's primary election continues despite Tropical Storm Iselle

Today is a primary election day in Hawaii, so it's one of the states I'm covering in tonight's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday on Daily Kos.  At the same time, the big island of Hawaii has suffered its first landfall of a named storm since statehood.  That's enough to make the event tonight's top story both here and at Daily Kos.  I'm giving my readers a special sneak preview of the stories from commercial sources, beginning with this video from KHON: State to release primary results ahead of 2 polling places.

The primary election will go on as scheduled Saturday, except for two polling places on the Big Island where Iselle caused enough damage to postpone voting for thousands of people.

Los Angeles Times: Amid Iselle cleanup, Hawaiians set to vote in today's primary election
By Maya Srikrishnan
August 9, 2014

Amid cleanup from Tropical Storm Iselle and more wind and rain expected from Hurricane Julio on Sunday, Hawaiian election officials scrambled Saturday morning for the state’s primary election to go forth as planned.

All but two polling stations in the state will open as planned.

The two closed stations are in precincts where "there are miles of roads that are obstructed" and power outages, Atty. Gen. David Louie told reporters Friday. The roughly 8,000 affected voters will be able to cast absentee ballots later.
...
Hurricane Julio, which was downgraded to a Category 2 storm on Friday, is expected to veer north of Hawaii on Sunday, bringing rain and winds to the Big Island, according to the National Weather Service. As of early Saturday morning Julio had sustained maximum winds of 100 mph. It is 495 miles east of Hilo, moving at 16 mph.

Follow over the jump for more from KHON and Vox.