July 14, 2020
Editorial comment: I am beyond being tired of people who say, “This is America! I don’t have to wear a mask if I don’t want to.” You are beyond selfish! That face mask is one of the two key things that medical personnel have determined will protect us against the coronavirus (the other is social distancing). Put your mask on! If you don’t care about your own life, have mercy on the rest of us!
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During the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic |
An unidentified 30-year-old man died Saturday at Methodist Hospital in San Antonio from coronavirus after attending a COVID Party. “This is a party held by somebody diagnosed with the COVID virus, and the thought is people get together to see if the virus is real and if anyone gets infected,” the hospital’s top doctor, Jane Appleby said.
Just before the person died he looked at the nurse and said, “I think I made a mistake. I thought it was a hoax but it's not.”
And that’s not all. Fox News reports that earlier this month, Alabama government officials were quoted as saying Tuscaloosa college students there were holding COVID parties with cash prizes being offered. Attendees put money in a pot that was awarded to the person who became infected first.
** Yesterday the Washington Redskins announced that they will change their team name and logo after about 87 years of using it, in the wake of corporate and public pressure. On July 8, I blogged that Nike had taken all Redskins merchandise off of their website, and FedEx, who owns the naming rights to the stadium asked for a name change. Since then Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Dick’s Sporting Goods have dumped the merchandise. Profit, not principle, seems to have ruled.
As of this writing, the team owner has not announced a new name. Sentiment is running high for “Redtails.” The nickname celebrates the WWII Tuskegee Airmen, who were the first African-American military aviators in the U.S. Armed Forces.
** Making homemade fries can be time consuming. You can make your own great potatoes from scratch with the help of an apple slicer. Cut off one end of a potato and stand it up on a hard surface. Position your apple slicer over the potato and push down to create perfect, even wedges. In seconds you’ll have a tray full of potato wedges that simply need to be baked or fried to crispy perfection. You are welcome.
** In case you don’t have enough things to be concerned about, your helpful blogger has one more for you: we are running out of coins. Because of the coronavirus, people are reluctant to use cash in their transactions and the coins are just not circulating like they did pre-pandemic. Also, because we are not shopping as freely as we did four months ago, coins are not circulating. The Federal Reserve began to ration its coin supply on June 15, giving banks only a portion of their requested change supply. Kroger suggests an options for cash-paying customers to help with the shortage – if you are paying with cash round up to the next nearest dollar for their Kroger Zero Hunger Zero Waste foundation which supports hunger relief efforts in the local communities.
** And another thing: they won’t be making yardsticks any longer.
And so what if I don’t know the meaning of the word apocalypse? It’s not the end of the world.
The other day I held the door open for a clown. I thought it was a nice jester.
Need an ark to save two of every animal? I Noah guy.
Alternative facts are aversion of the truth.
I used to have a fear of hurdles, but I got over it.
Thanks Brian and Elizabeth, for some great word play!
** We haven’t been to the Nickelodeon for a while, so close your eyes and listen to this song, it will take you back to early 80s – with the exception of a song or two here and there, maybe the last decade of great pop music. Imagine you are at a pizza parlor, with an old fashion music jukebox. Arcade games of Galaga, Q*bert, Punch-Out!, and Pac-Man are standing side by side. The wooden table and bench has some wear and tear and some minor random graffiti on them. A worn poster of The Empire Strikes Back on one wall and a new Rocky III poster on the opposite wall.
As the video of Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGpFcHTxjZs starts, the Twin Towers are still standing and America is a kinder, gentler place.
** One of my favorite comic strips of all time is Calvin and Hobbes, often called “the last great newspaper comic.”
Bill Watterson produced the strip from November 18, 1985 to December 31, 1995.
His characters, Calvin, the precocious, adventurous 6 year old boy, and his companion, Hobbes, a stuffed tiger who is alive only for Calvin and tries to provide a balance for his mischievous companion, are named for the great theologian John Calvin and the political philosopher Thomas Hobbes.
The strip premiered in just 35 newspapers, but the syndicate told Watterson not to quit his day job. Within a year it was in some 250 newspapers, and at the height of its popularity, Calvin and Hobbes was featured in over 2,400 newspapers worldwide.
That popularity allowed Watterson to negotiate a contract granting him legal control over his creation and all future licensing arrangements – he refused to allow his creation to appear anywhere but in the newspapers or in his books (no coffee cups, baseball caps or lunch boxes – any such item that does appear is a counterfeit).
Estimates place the value of licensing revenue passed up by Watterson at $300-$400 million. The only legitimate Calvin and Hobbes merchandise was produced during Watterson’s original contract: two 16-month calendars (1988-89 and 1989-90), a t-shirt for the Smithsonian Exhibit, Great American Comics: 100 Years of Cartoon Art (1990) and the most sought-after piece of all, a textbook Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes.
If you want it for your collection, I found one on eBay, used, condition “good” https://www.ebay.com/itm/Signed-Teaching-with-Calvin-and-Hobbes-by-Linda-Holmen/164175366766?hash=item26399d4a6e:g:3tEAAOSwU8RepaCE If you are interested, the seller has a rating of 4838 with 99.6% positive feedback. The buy it now price is $1,495.00. Shipping is not included.
More Calvin tomorrow.
** “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7).
Jesus lived in a cruel world. Whole nations were made captive without mercy. What kind of mind thought up death by crucifixion? Many a Jew believed that all pain was punishment – why try to relieve it? Romans despised mercy. Greek Stoics met pain with fortitude which forgot their neighbors. In some societies, ailing folk were simply carried into the forest to die.
What of our time? We show a measure of mercy. We have hospitals and community chests, but fanatical Islamic terrorists fly airplanes into buildings, and maniacal dictators spray poisonous gas on whole populations. And don’t forget Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Has there ever been such wholesale cruelty? But to the 21st century, an age when mercy is despised as being spineless, Jesus says, “Blessed are the merciful!”
What does it mean to be merciful? To be merciful is to have Jesus’ way of looking at people. We hear that when pray the prayer that Jesus taught us: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12 KJV). Jesus was not talking about debts like the mortgage or the car payment. The New International Readers Version makes that clear: “And forgive us our sins, just as we also have forgiven those who sin against us.” The Amplified Bible adds an important weight to that show of mercy: “And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven our debtors, letting go of both the wrong and the resentment.” (italics, mine).
“For they shall obtain mercy,” but not as a reward. Mercy is not for sale. It is not a matter of you get as good as you give. Fortunately for our failures, God does not keep books with red ink and black ink. The merciful find a hope that is firmer than doubt and stronger than all cruelty. The merciful find mercy at the cross of Jesus Christ. The merciful know what God in Jesus Christ has done!
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