QUARANTINE BLOG # 227

November 12, 2020

Let’s return to Veterans Day for a moment or two.  I subscribe to two services that feature comic strips (since we no longer have a daily newspaper thrown under the car in the driveway).  Yesterday there were 4 “Veterans Day strips.”  You saw “Family Circus.”  Here are the other 3.

Snuff Smith makes a half-hearted pass at honoring our soldiers.  Snoopy makes reference to Bill Mauldin, who did incredible cartoons from the battlefields and camps of World War II.  And a “T/S” is the rank of Tech Sargent (a technical sergeant is a noncommissioned officer).

Side Bar Your Honor: During his enlistment in World War II, Skinny Pappy was a T/C, a “tech corporal.”  Technicians possessed specialized skills that were rewarded with a higher pay grade, but had no command authority.  Dad said that he did have command authority over a supply depot in New Zealand, with the number of soldiers approaching 100.  He said he should have been a 2nd Lieutenant to do that job, but that was the army.

Back to where I was heading with the above rant.  Of the 23 strips in the 2 services  that I subscribe to, 13 of those 23 had a Halloween strip.  Evidently begging candy from strangers is more important than honoring the members of our military.

👉  There was a distressing article in yesterday’s Atlanta Journal Constitution (not surprising since they lean so far to the left that they are liable to fall over).  Georgia has reentered the coronavirus red zone for the first time since mid-September. The report warned of asymptomatic spread, particularly in social gatherings, as cool weather pushes people indoors and friends and families plan holiday events.

Forty-two states now sit in the COVID-19 red zone for cases as the virus surges to new daily case highs and hospitalizations and deaths climb across the nation. The seven-day average of new confirmed cases in Georgia has climbed about 45% since bottoming out Oct. 2, and current hospitalizations have started to climb after weeks of improvement.

Georgia started this latest surge in confirmed cases at nearly double the level that preceded the summer wave. And health experts have said the cooler months ahead could be bleak in Georgia if residents do not heed warnings to wear masks, practice social distancing, wash hands, get a flu shot and avoid gatherings, particularly in poorly ventilated spaces.

👉  In our “Good News Department” (not reported by AJC) Netflix’s great series, “The Crown” returns with Season 4 on Sunday.  The time line has caught up to the era of Margaret Thatcher and Princess Diana.  The new season picks up in 1979 and covers the 1980s, including the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, the Falklands War, Charles and Diana’s wedding, Apartheid and more.  Thatcher’s rise to power and subsequent conflicts with the Queen, and Diana’s ascendancy to “People’s Princess”  are the two narratives on which the season is built, with brief standalone episodes that cover Princess Margaret’s mental health struggles and the Queen’s relationship with her four grown children.  Here is the official trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiXEpminPms.

Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher

Emma Corrin as Lady Diana Spencer

👉  Before our close let’s chuckle with some signs posted outside of a Mexican restaurant in Austin, Texas.  If their food is as good as their sign messages, we may need to take a road trip.  Or not – it’s 1,091 miles away; that’s 15 hours 55 minutes without potty breaks.

👉  Today’s close is from “Wisdom from the Psalms.”

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord of lords!  For His mercy endures forever.  To Him who alone does great wonders, For His mercy endures forever; To Him who divided the Red Sea in two, For His mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136:3-4, 13 NKJV).

Doubt is a killer.  It kills faith.  Our God is the God who freed the Hebrew people from captivity in Egypt.  He parted the waters and let the chosen people through before washing away the Egyptian army.  If God could handle the trials of an entire people, then He can handle what we lift up to Him.  Give thanks to the Lord, and trust Him with your every thought.  His mercy does endure forever.

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