QUARANTINE BLOG # 128

August 5, 2020

As promised, the origin of “making light of” – to treat something as if it isn't important – from yesterday’s blog.  One of the first recorded uses of the phrase can be traced back to William Tyndale’s 1526 Bible translation – and beyond that to when Matthew recorded “The Parable of the Wedding Feast.”  The ones who were invited initially rejected the invitation, and Matthew says, “They made light of it and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his business.”  The invitation from the Lord God Almighty was just not that important to them.

👉  While looking for the videos for yesterday’s blog, YouTube brought up a great old piece that was labeled, “The Beginning of the Rat Pack” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvY8o1UYw6s.  It is a great clip of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Johnny Carson (yes, heeere’s Johnny).  They are having a great time doing more goofing around than singing, and I laughed with tears running down my cheeks.

👉  NASA launched the Mars 2020 mission on July 30 with touchdown set for February 18, 2021 (the 17th, my birthday, would have been nice).  This mission, with the “Perseverance” Rover, will do what every other successful Mars mission has done – take soil samples.

This mission will then do something no other Mars mission has ever done – send those soil samples back to Earth.  In 2026, NASA and the European Space Agency will launch the Mars Ascent Vehicle lander and rocket carrying the Sample Fetch Rover.  “Perseverance” will witness and share images of the landing of this spacecraft on Mars when it occurs in 2028 – also a first.  The lander will release the fetch rover onto the Martian surface. This small rover will collect the samples from “Perseverance” and carry them back to the lander. 

The ascent vehicle will rendezvous with an ESA spacecraft orbiting Mars and shoot out a football-size container holding the samples. The ESA orbiter will capture the container and head back toward Earth.  Close to Earth, a NASA payload on the orbiter will put the container of samples in an entry vehicle that can be deployed from the orbiter and land the samples on Earth in 2031.

NASA news releases say the samples will land in Utah and be transported to a facility usually associated with the handling of biohazards.  This is a space spectacular I want to watch, and there is a Martian hazard they may want to be on the lookout for.

👉  “We’re in for a bad and rocky ride,” says the Ex-WHO doctor who helped eradicate smallpox.  He predicts COVID-19 turmoil for years to come.  People will need a small yellow card at airports to show immunization against the COVID-19 virus.  Schools, restaurants and sports stadiums will be equipped with quick, inexpensive testing stations for students and customers.  The world will be fighting coronavirus for the next three to four years as virus hot spots skip from nation to nation, and the pandemic’s toll will linger for decades, said Dr. Larry Brilliant, a California epidemiologist who was part of a World Health Organization team in the 1970s that helped eradicate smallpox.

“But it’s not all doom and gloom.  We will still be chasing the virus four years from now, but it won’t be like today.  It will be like the smallpox eradication program. The polio eradication program.”  The immediate challenges are Labor Day get-togethers, the return of schools, flu season in the fall and winter and long election lines in November, said Brilliant.

👉  Yesterday was an important 5th anniversary, and I apologize for letting it slip.  It was 5 years ago on August 4, 2015 that Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy (the Pig) announced the official end of their relationship that began in 1976.  For your scrapbook, here is a reprint of that historic Tweet:

As to things that happened on this day, August 5, in 1861, President Lincoln imposed the first federal income tax by signing the Revenue Act.  Strapped for cash with which to pursue the Civil War, Lincoln and Congress agreed to impose a 3 percent tax on annual incomes over $800.

On August 5, 1957, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand went national, beaming images of clean-cut, average teenagers dancing to the not-so-clean-cut Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” to 67 ABC affiliates across the nation.

And today you can celebrate National Underwear Day.  Freshpair, an online underwear retailer, founded NUD because they believe underwear is the most important thing that people wear, and because they believe it can make people feel confident and good.  Also they want to sell more of the stuff.  In 2013, Freshpair tried to set the Guinness World Record for most people gathered together wearing underwear.  They didn't reach their goal, but they did gather together more than 800 people (it’s hard to believe that two organizations would try to gather that many people together, clad on their skivvies – the people, not the organizations).  Celebrate NUD by wearing underwear (and don’t notice if you added an appropriate vowel to the end of my abbreviation you could be underwearless and not properly prepared to celebrate NUD).

👉  As if it wasn’t ugly already, this thing is about to get even uglier.  The moratorium on evicting people who can’t pay their rent because the coronavirus has forced them out of their jobs, has expired, and the jobless still can’t pay, and many are being tossed onto the street.  Feeling for the people who own the property that aren’t receiving rent money, and feeling for the people who can’t pay the rent, we take a look into Washington, DC (where the largest home on public housing roles is located  – hint: it is a white house) where we see our “leaders” (not putting the quotation marks would be a disservice to real leaders everywhere) posing for the cameras, spouting personal politics, and refusing to cooperate across the aisle, instead of leading!  You elected people – who are continuously on the public dole – can figure something out if you stop this “Me Too!” junk (I almost said “Me Too!” crap, but I didn’t want to offend).

👉  Let’s end on a positive note.  As promised yesterday, here are 5 more of God’s Promises in the Bible to meditate on in times of uncertainty, when life feels overwhelming and out of control.

And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed,
A refuge in times of trouble (Psalm 9:9).

Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. (Matthew 11:28-29).

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?  As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39).

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. (John 14:27).

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