QUARANTINE BLOG # 129

August 6, 2020

A bit of space news, and another first for SpaceX, to start today.  Yesterday SpaceX flew a full-size prototype of its Starship Mars-colonizing spacecraft for the first time ever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcW8kKICBWI.  The Starship SN5 test vehicle took to the skies for about 40 seconds at SpaceX’s Texas facilities, reaching an altitude of 500 feet, performing a small hop that Elon Musk and company hope could end up being a big step toward human exploration of the Red Planet.

For yesterday’s “hop test” SN5 flew only one “Raptor” engine.  The final version will have 6 Raptors and when launched into space – the moon first, then Mars – it will sit atop a gigantic rocket called Super Heavy, which will have 31 Raptors of its own. Both vehicles will be fully and rapidly reusable, potentially slashing the cost of spaceflight enough to make crewed trips to and from the moon, Mars and other deep-space destinations economically feasible.  I doubt that it means anything, but watching SN5 fly, I thought it looked like a stainless steel can of aerosol spray.

👉  Plans are being worked as schools open: every other day, every day, virtual learning, but there is another problem – school buses.  School districts nationwide are puzzling over how to safely transport children during the pandemic.  Should bus seats be assigned?  Should buses be loaded from the back?  With reduced capacity, how many trips will the buses make each day and how will that affect classroom time?

Steve Simmons, president of the National Association for Pupil Transportation, warned that a 6-foot social distancing regulation “is not financially nor operationally feasible,” and that “current thinking” is that a 72-student capacity bus can only  accommodate 24 students, or more if family members sit together.  Add to the problem the fact that most bus drivers are old enough to be at heightened risk for catching the virus.

👉  In other school news, one day after school started here in Columbia County, letters were sent home to parents of Harlem and Lakeside high school students informing them of cases of COVID-19.  The letters alerted parents that their child may have be in the proximity of, though not in direct contact with someone who tested positive for COVID-19.  The unidentified person is now under quarantine, but the district office asked parents to keep an eye on their children for any possible COVID-19 symptoms.  The letter below is blurry because it is a screen capture, the best image I could find.

👉  Showing enormous good sense, the University of Connecticut football team has canceled its 2020 season, the school announced yesterday.  Director of Athletics David Benedict said, “The safety challenges created by COVID-19 place our football student-athletes at an unacceptable level of risk.”  Head coach Randy Edsall said, “We engaged and listened to the concerns of our football student-athletes and feel this is the best decision for their health, safety, and well-being.”

The players also released a joint statement through the school: “As a team we are in full support of the decision to not compete in 2020.  We have many health concerns and not enough is known about the potential long term effects of contracting COVID-19.”  Players will still remain on scholarship and continue to receive the support services set aside for athletes.

👉  Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats is a collection of light poetry about cats that T. S. Eliot wrote for his godchildren in the 1930s.  The poems were about feline psychology and sociology.

In 1954, English composer Alan Rawsthorne set six of the poems in a work for speaker and orchestra entitled Practical Cats.  At about the same time another English composer, Humphrey Searle, composed another narrated piece, Two Practical Cats, about Macavity and Growltiger..

The best-known musical adaptation of the poems, of course, is Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats, which premiered in the West End of London in 1981 and on Broadway in 1982. 

The London production ran for 21 years and 8,949 performances, while the Broadway production ran for 18 years and 7,485 performances.  On September 29, 1983 Cats took over the number one Broadway spot from A Chorus Line, and was topped on January 9, 2006 by another Andrew Lloyd Webber production, Phantom of the Opera. 

Cats, my all-time favorite Broadway musical – I’ve seen it in the theater 14 times, and own both movie versions – is about a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make the “Jellicle choice,” deciding which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new Jellicle life.  Fourteen of Eliot’s 15 original Old Possum poems, and “Memory” –  adapted from Eliot’s poem “Rhapsody on a Windy Night” – make up the musical which is more about the music and the dancing than it is about telling a story, a fact which caused one reviewer to call it – in a positive review – “much ado about nothing.”

Here is “The Song of the Jellicle Cats” from Alan Rawsthorne’s Practical Cats https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUjyqdl_PFM and then Andrew Lloyd Webber’s version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3pAfc75myg&list=RDCwAldIBJUdE&index=12.

And from Humphrey Searle, Two Practical Cats is “Macavity” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCmNZa3Pv3o and then Lloyd Webber’s version https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny-Lko5lO-0.

Tomorrow my other number one all-time favorite musical – Mamma Mia.

👉  Today’s close is by Oswald Chambers in his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest.

In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16:33 NKJV).

The typical view of the Christian life is that it means being delivered from all adversity.  But it actually means being delivered in adversity, which is something very different.  “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty (Psalm 91:1 NKJV) – the place where you are at one with God.

If you are a child of God, you will certainly encounter adversities, but Jesus says you should not be surprised when they come.  “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

God does not give us overcoming life – He gives us life as we overcome.  The strain of life is what builds our strength.  If there is no strain, there will be no strength.  Are you asking God to give you life, liberty, and joy?  He cannot, unless you are willing to accept the strain.  And once you face the strain, you will immediately get the strength.  Overcome your own timidity and take the first step. Then God will give you nourishment – “To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life…” (Revelation 2:7 NKJV).  God never gives us strength for tomorrow, or for the next hour, but only for the strain of the moment.  Our temptation is to face adversities from the standpoint of our own common sense.  But a saint can “be of good cheer” even when seemingly defeated by adversities, because victory is absurdly impossible to everyone, except God.

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