QUARANTINE BLOG # 142

August 19, 2020

Credit Karma says home-schooling is playing havoc with budgets, largely because of the price of feeding children at home.  With students staying at home and schools not  providing breakfasts and lunches for free or reduced prices, and with grocery store prices going up, and with youngsters constantly grazing, the extra expense has been hard to swallow.

Even though school districts across the nation have provided free meals to families through pick-up locations during the pandemic, a majority of districts witnessed a drop of 50% or more in the number of meals they served, according to Diane Pratt-Heavner, director of media relations for the School Nutrition Association.

👉  Pizza sales have exploded during the pandemic.  Domino’s last month reported a 30% spike in quarterly profits. On Monday it said that it was hiring more than 20,000 people to handle surging orders.  The bad news is, up to 300 Pizza Hut restaurants will be closed, most of them dine-in locations not well suited for carry-out and delivery at a time when millions of people are sheltering and eating at home.  Pizza Hut filed for bankruptcy protection last month.  Oh, and to make matters worse, there is a growing shortage of pepperoni, and prices of this most requested topping are up 50 percent.

👉  I don’t remember what I was looking for, but I found a list of remarkable historical coincidences.  Here’s the first one.  More in future days.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died hours apart on the same day: July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of American independence.

When the Continental Congress convened in 1775 in Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams became fast friends.  Their relationship frayed over political ideas after Jefferson succeeded Adams as president in 1801.  The two men remained estranged until 1812, when Adams sent Jefferson a New Year’s greeting.  On July 4, 1826, as the country celebrated 50 years since declaring its independence from Great Britain, the 83-year-old Jefferson passed away at his Virginia estate, Monticello. The 90-year-old Adams, on his own deathbed in Quincy, Massachusetts, and unaware of his friend’s death, whispered a few last, and sadly mistaken, words: “Thomas Jefferson survives.”

History added a postscript to this remarkable coincidence in 1831, when James Monroe became the third of the first five U.S. presidents to die on Independence Day.

👉  Bond.  James Bond .  We heard that for the first time in Dr. No https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6MLCEKPQSw.  It’s become one of the trademarks of the film series.

Bond’s code number 007 comes from one of British naval intelligence’s key achievements of World War I – the breaking of the German diplomatic code.  One of the German documents cracked and read by the British was the Zimmermann Telegram, which was coded 0075, and which was one of the factors that led to the U.S. entering the war as an ally against the Central Powers.  Subsequently, if material was graded 00 it meant it was highly classified.  Ian Fleming later told a journalist: “When I was at the Admiralty ... all the top-secret signals had the double-0 prefix ... and I decided to borrow it for Bond.”

Sidebar: The Zimmermann Telegram was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 about a proposed military alliance between Germany and Mexico.  If the United States entered World War I against Germany, and Mexico came in on Germany’s side, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico.

Barry Nelson, an American, was the first actor to portray Bond on screen, in a 1954 television adaptation, Casino Royale (David Niven played Bond in the motion picture version of the same Fleming novel).  This was considered a pilot for a possible James Bond television series.  Nelson played James Bond as an American agent whom some in the program call “Jimmy.”  Nelson later said, “At that time, no one had ever heard of James Bond.  007 did not become well known in the U.S. until President John F. Kennedy listed From Russia, with Love among his 10 favorite books in a March 17, 1961, Life article.”

When Sean Connery was hired to portray the British spy, producer Cubby Broccoli said, “Put a bit of veneer over that tough Scottish hide and you’ve got Fleming’s Bond instead of all the mincing poofs we had applying for the job.”  Fleming was appalled at the selection of the uncouth 31-year-old Scottish actor, considering him the antithesis of his character.  However, Connery’s physical prowess and sexual magnetism became closely identified with the character, and Fleming ultimately changed his view on Connery.

Connery was paid $154,000 for Dr. No.  His paycheck went up substantially with each film, reaching $3 million ($8 million today), plus a percentage of the profits, as well as casting, director and script approval when he starred in Never Say Never Again.

Roger Moore, the third Bond, once said, “Sean was Bond.  He created Bond.  He embodied Bond and because of Sean, Bond became an instantly recognizable character the world over – he was rough, tough, mean and witty ... he was a bloody good 007.”

In 2003, Bond, as portrayed by Connery, was selected as the third-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.  Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, was number 1, and Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark, was number 2.  Rick Blaine, played Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, was number 4 – if I had been asked, I would have switched Finch and Blaine.  If you are interested, the top 4 villains are: Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs; Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins, Psycho; Darth Vader, David Prowse (voiced by James Earl Jones), The Empire Strikes Back; and The Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, The Wizard of Oz.

👉  Disney Channel’s “The Owl House” is featuring the first bisexual character on a Disney TV series, 14-year-old Luz Noceda.  “The Owl House,” which premiered in January and returned in July after a few months’ break, has been renewed for a second season.  Disney Channel, part of the Walt Disney Co. empire, didn’t respond to a request by USAToday for comment.

But I will comment: a preacher whom I respect said a couple of years ago that it would not be long until Christianity would be outlawed in America.  Every step away from the directions of God’s Word is another step towards an outcome that will be worse than the coronavirus pandemic.  And the majority of the population will never notice.

👉  In response to the paragraph above, I turn today’s close over to a tent maker and a tax collector.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NKJV).

“Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.  But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.  Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:42-44 NKJV).

Even so, come Lord Jesus!

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