Scientists have developed a vaccine that essentially uses a person’s immune cells to target cancer. The results are “remarkably promising.” Some survivors have gone on to live for more than 7 years, far longer than the average 15-17 months.
This is the cancer that Senator John McCain is currently battling, and the same cancer that took the lives of Senator Ted Kennedy, Lit drummer Allen Shellenberger, and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, among others.
Hopefully, this vaccine is really as successful as the preliminary trials suggest. As the BBC reported, the results give “new hope to the patients and clinicians battling with this terrible disease.”
So in my last post on this website, I wrote how the US Geological Survey predicted in 1992 that the Pu’o ‘O’o eruption appeared to be winding down…and how wrong that prediction was, since the eruption continued on for another twenty-five years and didn’t look like it would stop anytime soon.
A few months after I wrote that post, the situation at Kilauea changed completely. Pu’u ‘O’o now appears, for most intents and purposes, to be a dead vent, and the focus of activity has moved several miles downrift.
In any case, I wanted to formally apologize to Pu’u ‘O’o if I somehow jinxed its existence as an active volcanic vent.
Even that will not mark the end of the eruption, as other episodic fissure eruptions will probably occur near Pu`u `O`o as long as the pond remains active inside the cone. After the Pu`u `O`o pond is gone, we anticipate that the eruption will migrate farther uprift. In the long term, the nine-year long eruption is winding down, but the next few years will most likely continue to be marked by episodic activity. [Emphasis added]
Episode 51, like episodes 49 and 50, will probably not be long-lived. We expect the new vent to stop within a few weeks. Activity probably will continue to be episodic and will eventually migrate uprift toward the summit. The long-term prognosis is still that the nine-year eruption is waning, as seen in significantly lower emission of sulfur dioxide gas from the summit than was measured a few years ago.
Again, this was published in 1992, during the eruption’s ninth year. At the time, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory apparently thought the nine-year old eruption was “winding down.” Fast forward twenty-six years and the eruption is still ongoing and the venerable Pu’u ‘O’o still hosts a lava pond.
Given that prior to the Pu’u ‘O’o eruption, the longest recorded historical rift eruption (Mauna Ulu) lasted only four years, it’s not a surprise that geologists thought that after nine years, the eruption was beginning to wane. If we could go back to the point in time when this column was published and tell the writers that the eruption would go on for at least another quarter century, I wonder how they would react?
California Screamin’ is my favorite roller coaster at California Adventure Park! (OK, it’s really the only roller coaster at California Adventure park.) But I’m sad to see it go, even though the infrastructure will probably be entirely recycled in its new iteration as the Incredicoaster.
Hawaii Public Radio had a very interesting story yesterday about a monarchist from Russia who is taking extraordinary steps to reestablish the Romanov Dynasty of the Russian Empire (which was overthrown in 1917). In essence, Anton Bakov, a Russian businessman and former Member of Parliament, is purchasing up islands around the Pacific and promulgating them to be part of a new sovereign state called “Imperial Throne,” or “Romanov Empire,” which purports to be the successor to the Russian Empire. Bakov in turn got a claimant to the Russian throne, Prince Karl Emich of Leiningen, to become the Emperor of the new state (ascending the throne as “Nicholas III”).
Ankov is now purportedly in talks with Kiribati to purchase three uninhabited islands in the tiny Republic, one of which is slated to become the capital of the revived Russian Empire.
The concept of revived monarchy is a very interesting one; however, this particular idea does not seem well thought out. The revival of the great Russian Empire may well be short-lived due to the effects of climate change: these uninhabited atolls are very low-lying islands that will probably be swallowed by the ocean in the not-too-distant future.
Retired Master Sgt. Richard Fiske (left) at Pearl Harbor, 2002. US Navy Photo. (Credit: Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell)
Note: This entry is edited from a blog entry I originally posted on my xanga on April 6, 2004, right after MSgt. Fiske passed away.
MSgt. Richard “Dick” Fiske (born 1922) passed away on Friday, April 2, 2004 at the age of 82.
Mr. Fiske was a veteran of World War II, having enlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1940. He was present during the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, aboard the ship USS West Virginia (BB-48). During the attack, the commanding officer of the ship, Captain Mervyn S. Bennion, died before his eyes. Captain Bennion’s dying orders was to abandon ship, so Fiske jumped off the West Virginia and swam to Ford Island.
After Pearl Harbor, he fought in the battle for Iwo Jima, which he described as “36 straight days of Pearl Harbor.” After World War II, he served in the newly created U.S. Air Force during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. From 1982 until his death, he served as a volunteer at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitor’s Center.
Just a couple of years before his death, I had the honor of meeting this man at the USS Arizona Memorial, just a few weeks after the 60th anniversary of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. We talked for a long while, during which he told me the story of how he met the very man who had bombed the USS West Virginia, Zenji Abe (that’s surname Abe, first name Zenji). After placing immense hatred towards the Japanese for decades following the attack, he reconciled with the very man who bombed his ship. He told me that upon meeting Abe, he understood finally that, “we were both in the military, we were both just doing our jobs.” He showed me a picture of Mr. Abe and showed me pictures of a tree that he and Mr. Abe had planted in Japan several years before, with the hope that the tree would grow with their friendship.
Following their meeting, Abe would send Fiske $500 annually, and each month Fiske would use the money to lay two roses (one for Abe, one for Fiske) on the Arizona Memorial and play taps. This tradition continued until earlier this year when cancer began to take a toll on this great man’s strength.
Mr. Fiske also showed me pictures and other memorabilia he had saved from the 1940s. I found the pictures to be especially extraordinary, second only to his sense of humor (at one point, he began bragging to me about how the USS West Virginia had bigger guns than the USS Arizona did!).
Fiske reminded me to never hold hatred towards enemies. This was definitely something he practiced as wholeheartedly as he preached. In his narrations at the Memorial, he often emphasized the strong relationship between the United States and Japan, something that was unthinkable while the two were sworn enemies during the 1940s.
Fiske’s showing of friendship between the U.S. and Japan drew accolades at home and abroad. In 1996 he received the Order of the Rising Sun with Silver Rays from His Imperial Majesty, Emperor Akihito of Japan. This was well deserved, as his friendship with Mr. Zenji Abe was an amazing symbol of the virtues of forgiveness and friendship. (I should note that Mr. Abe died in 2007).
I am glad that I had the opportunity to meet this great man–it was an experience that I will never forget.
