QUARANTINE BLOG # 148

August 25, 2020

Back to Bond.  With the retirement of Roger Moore in 1985, a search for a new actor to play Bond took place that saw a number of actors, including Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton, audition.  Brosnan was eventually ruled out by his contract for the  Remington Steele television show, and Dalton was hired.  When he was 25 years old Dalton had discussed playing Bond with producer Cubby Broccoli, but he decided he was too young for the role, thinking Bond should be played between 35 and 40 years old.  His first portrayal of 007 was 1987’s The Living Daylights.

Dalton’s Bond was a serious one: dark, cold, emotional, stern, ruthless, showing little humor, and focused as a killer with little time for fun and indulgence.  His interpretation of the character came from his “desire to see a darker Bond,” closer to the darker character Ian Fleming wrote about.  That portrayal garnered him many negative reviews.

The Living Daylights was critically successful, grossing more than either of the previous two Bond films with Moore, as well as contemporary box-office rivals Die Hard and Lethal Weapon.  His second film, Licence to Kill, did not perform as well at the box office, being up against Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Tim Burton’s Batman, and Lethal Weapon 2, during the summer blockbuster season.  As a result, future Bond films have all been released between October 31 and mid-December, in order to avoid the risk of a summer failure.

Dalton was supposed to make one more, but it was cancelled because MGM and the film’s producers got into a lawsuit which lasted for five years.  After that, Dalton said, “I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

👉  After more than four years of Nazi occupation, Paris was liberated on this day in 1944 by the French 2nd Armored Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division.   General Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison, defied an order by Adolf Hitler to blow up Paris’ landmarks and burn the city to the ground before its liberation.  Free French General Charles de Gaulle led a joyous liberation march down the Champs d’Elysees.

There are two classic, and moving, photographs of Paris during World War II: the one above showing the liberation, and the one below showing the day Paris fell to the Nazis.

👉  On this day in 1875, Matthew Webb, a 27-year-old merchant navy captain, became the first known person to successfully swim the English Channel.  Captain Webb accomplished the grueling 21-mile crossing, which really entailed 39 miles of swimming because of tidal currents, in 21 hours and 45 minutes.  During the overnight crossing from Dover, England, to Calais, France, Captain Webb drank brandy, coffee, and beef tea to keep his strength and heat up.  He was hailed as a national hero upon his return to England.

👉  One more, even further back in time.  On this day in 325, the First Council of Nicaea met to resolve the Arian heresy which said that Christ was not divine, but a created being.  The council declared that Jesus was homoousios  – “of one substance” – with the Father, declaring the absolute equality of the Son with the Father.  The same term was later also applied to the Holy Spirit in order to designate Him as being “same in essence” with the Father and the Son.  Those ideas represent one of the most important theological concepts within the doctrine of the Trinity.

👉  The following strip featuring Calvin and Hobbes has nothing to do with anything previous in this edition of the blog.  And after the sweep this past weekend of the hated Milwaukee Brewers, nor does it make specific reference to the record of the Pittsburgh Pirates this year (I think).

👉  In all my travels, I’ve only been to a few places that I would trade Woodland Drive for (assuming that everyone connected to 233 moved too).  Venice, Italy, Samara, Russia, and Bermuda (what a trio) would head the list.  One place would not be on the list: Villas Las Estrellas – “The Stars Village” – in the Chilean Antarctic Territory.  That’s a settlement in Antarctica which requires that people moving there have their appendix removed as a safety precaution.  The nearest major hospital is more than 625 miles away.  There are only a few doctors on base, and none are specialist surgeons.

👉  Today’s close is by Paul David Tripp.

You and I are on a constant quest for hope.  We all want a reason to get up in the morning and motivation to continue.

Hope is not a situation.  Hope is not a location.  Hope is not a possession.  Hope is not an experience.  Hope is more than an insight or a truism.  Hope is a person, and His name is Jesus!

He comes to you and makes a commitment of hope: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).  Now, there’s hope.  You have something profoundly deeper to hold on to than the hope that people will be nice to you, that your job will work out, that you will make good choices when tempted, that you’ll be smart enough to make good decisions, that you’ll be able to avoid poverty or sickness, or that you’ll have a good place to live and enough to eat.

This is an eternal and deeply personal hope.  It rests in the truth that Jesus has wrapped His powerful arms around you and He will never, ever let you go.  If nothing you envisioned ever works out and all the bad things that you’ve dreaded come your way, you still have hope, because He is with you in power and grace.

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