QUARANTINE BLOG # 103

July 11, 2020

Earlier this week Israel reimposed a series of restrictions to fight a spike in coronavirus infections.  In addition to the immediate shuttering of bars, night clubs, gyms, event halls and cultural events, the number of diners in restaurants will be limited to 20 indoors and 30 outdoors.  Attendance at synagogues was capped at 19 worshipers, and buses can carry up to 20 passengers.

“The pandemic is spreading.  That’s as clear as day.  It is rising steeply daily and it is dragging with it, contrary to what we had been told, a trail of critically ill patients,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

After largely containing the coronavirus in May and reopening schools, beaches and businesses, Israel has been hit by a sharp rise in infections.

Epidemiologist Hagai Levine said Israel did not prepare well for the day after lockdown: “Israel’s experience should be a lesson to all countries.  You cannot move from one extreme to another, from total lockdown to a quick, sweeping removal of restrictions without proper planning.  The coronavirus will be with us for a long while.  This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

👉  Royal Caribbean on Thursday said it will start sailing again on Sept. 16, a few days ahead of Carnival and Norwegian, who announced September 30 as the relaunch date.  As one who hopes to get back to cruising – as soon as it is safe – I think that is wishful thinking.  It all depends on the course of the virus which has spiked again in record numbers in Florida, the launching pad for many cruises.

👉  From our “People Have More Fun Than Anybody Department,” with a thanks to Linda Birchall, comes this cartoon:

👉  Three of my favorite comic strips are story strips, not merely a 4-panel joke.  For years I had a collection of Prince Valiant, The Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician.  But then Mom gave them to Merlin Trickett, who was homebound for the summer with mononucleosis (no, sorry, that was my collection of Golden Books – it’s an old story: I used to be a millionaire, and then my mother gave away my fill-in-the-blank).

Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur or simply Prince Valiant, was created by Hal Foster in 1937.  It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 4,000 Sunday strips.

Early in the story Valiant (Val) arrives at Camelot where he earns the respect of King Arthur and Merlin, and becomes a Knight of the Round Table.  On a Mediterranean island he meets Aleta, Queen of the Misty Isles, whom he later marries.  Shortly after Val marries Aleta, she is kidnaped by the Viking raider Ulfran.  Val’s pursuit takes him past the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland and the Saint Lawrence River, arriving at Niagara Falls 1,000 years before Columbus stumbled into the Bahamas.  Defeating Ulfran, Val is reunited with Aleta, and the couple spend that winter with friendly First Nation Americans.

👉  The Phantom was first published by Lee Falk in February 1936.  The current Phantom is 21st in a line of crime-fighters which began in 1536, when the father of British sailor, Christopher Walker, was killed during a pirate attack.  Christopher was the sole survivor and was washed ashore on a beach in the fictional African country of Bangalla.  He was found by pygmies of the Bandar tribe, who nursed him back to health.  He vowed revenge on “the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms!”  Christopher began a legacy of the Phantom which would pass from father to son.

The first Phantom married Christina, the daughter of a Scandinavian sea captain, Eric the Rover.  The second Phantom married Marabella, the granddaughter of Christopher Columbus.  There has been one woman who took up the role: Julie Walker, twin sister of the 17th Phantom.  While her brother was injured, Julie donned the Phantom costume and defeated a band of pirates.

The Phantom has no superpowers.  He totally relies on his strength, intelligence and the myth of his immortality to take action against the forces of evil.  The 21st Phantom is married to Diana Palmer.  They met while he studied in the United States and they have two children, Kit and Heloise.  He is sometimes called “The Ghost Who Walks” or  “The Man Who Cannot Die” because other than the Bandar tribe, no knows of the Phantom’s lineage.

👉  Lee Falk created Mandrake the Magician before he created The Phantom.  Some comic historians say Mandrake, introduced in 1934, was the first super hero of comics.

Mandrake’s work is based on an unusually fast hypnotic technique.  As noted in captions, when Mandrake “gestures hypnotically,” his subjects see illusions, and Mandrake has used this technique against a variety of villains including gangsters, mad scientists, extraterrestrials, and characters from other dimensions (these latter villains are featured in the current story line).  At various times, Mandrake also demonstrates other powers, including becoming invisible, shape shifting, levitation, and teleporting.

Lothar is Mandrake’s best friend and crime fighting companion, whom Mandrake met during his travels in Africa.  Lothar, one of the first African crime fighting heroes ever to appear in comics, was the Prince of the Seven Nations, a mighty federation of jungle tribes, but instead of becoming king chose to followed Mandrake on his world travels.

Narda is Princess of the European nation Cockaigne.  She made her first appearance in the second Mandrake story.  Even though she and Mandrake initially “cast eyes upon each other,” they did not marry until 1997.

👉  “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

This beatitude is not popular.  Meekness is regarded as a liability.  The idea of the survival of the fittest says that to survive in a world like ours, it is the aggressive, heavy-handed, hard-fisted, self-assertive who inherit the earth – and that by force.  In the 21st century, the meek person is generally seen as a spineless creature, with a sweet temper, quick to bow before every breeze, who never takes a stand on any question, nor ever dares to get in anybody’s way.  What chance do the meek have in a world where it seems so evident that the race is always to the swift, and the battle to the strong, contrary to Ecclesiastes 9:11?

William Barclay gives a picture that is very different from the way the world thinks:

“O the bliss of the man who is always angry at the right time and never angry at the wrong time, who has every instinct, and impulse, and passion under control because he himself is God-controlled, who has the humility to realize his own ignorance and his own weakness, for such a man is a king among men!”

Max Lucado says:

“Blessed are those who are in trouble and have enough sense to admit it.

The message is clear.  As long as Jesus is one of many options, he is no option.  As long as you can carry your burdens alone, you don’t need a burden bearer.  As long as your situation brings you no grief, you will receive no comfort.  And as long as you can take him or leave him, you might as well leave him, because he won’t be taken half-heartedly.

“But when you mourn, when you get to the point of sorrow for your sins, when you admit that you have no other option but to cast all your cares on him, and when there is truly no other name that you can call, then cast all your cares on him, for he is waiting in the midst of the storm.”

-30-