QUARANTINE BLOG # 149

August 26, 2020

Fried chicken chain KFC is pausing one of fast food’s most popular slogans.  The restaurant chain will suspend use of “It’s Finger Lickin’ Good” after 64 years.  KFC said during an unprecedented year during which the COVID-19 pandemic has upended businesses and lives around the globe, use of the slogan “doesn’t feel quite right.”

“We find ourselves in a unique situation – having an iconic slogan that doesn’t quite fit in the current environment,” said Catherine Tan-Gillespie, global chief marketing officer at KFC.  According to the CDC, one of the steps people can take to protect themselves from spreading COVID-19 is washing hands often, and keeping hands away from your mouth, nose, and eyes.  KFC said the slogan will not go away forever.  The chain said they will bring it back “when the time is right.”

👉  British cruise line Cunard, a subsidiary of Carnival Corp., has extended its pause in operations until spring 2021.  “After very careful consideration and reviewing the latest guidance, we simply do not feel it would be sensible to start sailing again with our current schedule so we have reviewed future itineraries,” said Simon Palethorpe, president of Cunard.

Cunard’s three ships, the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Victoria, all have different restart dates.  The Queen Mary 2 is scheduled to sail again on April 18 and the Queen Victoria won’t sail until May 16.  The Queen Elizabeth won’t sail any of its scheduled itineraries in and around Australia, Japan and Alaska thru December 31.   New schedules for all three ships will be announced.

👉  Northern California is being ravaged by historic wildfires, but the giant redwoods are standing tall.  The fires have burned park buildings and campground infrastructure, but the redwoods remain.  Scientists say this seemingly amazing feat – surviving as a wildfire, ignited by a string of lightning strikes, that is burning some 78,000 acres around Santa Cruz and San Mateo Counties – is expected for the redwoods.  Redwoods have thick bark that can survive intense blazes.  Tannin in the trees’ bark and heartwood give the redwoods their color and also act as a flame retardant.

“These trees are amazing,” Mark Finney, a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service in Montana told the San Jose Mercury News.  “Redwoods are an ancient lineage.  There are fossils of them from tens of millions of years ago.  They have lived through a lot.”

👉  One Dallas Cowboys football player said he plans to kneel during the national anthem.   Before a 2017 game owner Jerry Jones joined Cowboys players in kneeling before the anthem and then standing for the playing of the song.  “As a team, we all knelt together before the anthem and then we stood for the anthem to recognize what its symbol is to America.  I thought that was good.  That’s the kind of thing that we’ll be looking to see if we can implement, Jones said.”  Jones has not announced any plans for 2020.

Cowboys defensive tackle Dontari Poe said he planned on kneeling during the anthem.  “Not saying that anybody else is wrong for not doing it or whatever their cause is,” Poe said.  “But I just felt like I just wanted to do it for me and the statement I wanted to make.”

Editorial comment: Kneeling – showing disrespect – during the anthem of the nation that allows him to make $4,250,000 a year playing a game.  That’s some statement!

👉  Back to Bond.  My favorite James Bond, after Sean Connery, is Pierce Brosnan (and he is a very close second), who played 007 from 1995 to 2002 in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day.

Brosnan first met producer Cubby Broccoli on the set of Roger Moore’s For Your Eyes Only, when Brosnan’s wife, Cassandra Harris, was appearing in the film as Countess Lisl von Schlaf.  Before Timothy Dalton was hired to replace Roger Moore, Brosnan was considered for the roll of 007, but his contract for the TV show Remington Steele kept him from accepting.  In his portrayal of Steele, Brosnan captured some of the traits of previous Bonds in playing the role: the suave, elegance, charm and wit of Roger Moore, and the masculinity and grittiness Sean Connery.

Brosnan’s first entry into the Bond franchise was in GoldenEye – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGPBFvDz_HM the name was a tribute to Ian Fleming’s home in Jamaica.  The story features an attack on an illicit Soviet chemical weapons facility, 006 turning rogue, and a satellite called “GoldenEye.”  The Bond girl was Natalya Simonova, and in addition to 006 (Alec Trevelyan), James Bond had to contend with a female agent called Xenia Onatopp.  James must stop the evildoers from stealing money from the Bank of England, erasing all of its financial records with the GoldenEye, concealing the theft, and destroying Britain’s economy.  All in a day’s work.

In this scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxe_run_cIU Bond steals a Russian tank and wreaks havoc on the streets of St. Petersburg.

Bond has a pen that will explode if the plunger is pushed in the proper sequence.  Boris Grishenko, Trevelyan’s henchman, nervously plays with the pen, not knowing it’s potential: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C09knP1SAyA.

In 2004, Pierce Brosnan was gearing up to do a fifth movie in the 007 franchise when he received a shocking phone call.  He was told by producers the role was being recast.  “There’s no regret,” he said.  “I do not let regret come into my world.  It just leads to more misery and more regrets.”  Daniel Craig was the one to replace Brosnan’s Bond.  The producers felt the franchise needed a reboot to stay relevant in “a post-9/11 world.”

“Bond is the gift that keeps giving and has allowed me to have a wonderful career,” Brosnan explained.  “Once you’re branded as a Bond, it’s with you forever, so you better make peace with it and you’d better understand that when you walk through those doors and pick up the mantle of playing James Bond.”

Brosnan kept busy before the coronavirus pandemic put Hollywood on pause.  He has four films in production and a fifth awaiting release.  “I would like to think that the vaccine will come soon for the disease of corona,” he said.  “And I would like to think, also, a vaccine will come for the disease of racism and that we can really come together as communities to respect each other’s religions and beliefs and not to be so judgmental.”

👉  Today’s close is from Christ Beside Me, Christ Within Me, by Beth A. Richardson.

TOO MUCH

Some days
It seems like
Too much to bear.

Too much sickness,
Too much dying,
Too many stories of terror and sadness.

How can I bear it?
These people I love
Are crazy with grief and fear.
This world I love
Has lost all sense and reason.

I watch, I weep, I wait.
I wait for you to show up
With your healing,
Your comfort,
Your wisdom.

Come quickly.
Please,
Be present.

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