QUARANTINE BLOG # 649

January 12, 2022

The United States reported 1.35 million new coronavirus infections on Monday, the highest daily total for any country in the world as the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant showed no signs of slowing.  The previous record was 1.03 million cases on January 3.  The New York Times reports that the state with the fastest growing number of cases is South Carolina.

More than half of people in Europe could be infected with the coronavirus in the next six to eight weeks, the World Health Organization warned on yesterday, amid “a new west-to-east tidal wave sweeping across the region.  The region saw over seven million cases of Covid-19 in the first week of 2022, Hans Kluge, the agency’s regional director for Europe, said.  Despite the widespread level of infection, Dr. Kluge said that coronavirus vaccines remained remarkably effective at preventing severe illness and death.  He cited data from Denmark showing that the number of unvaccinated people who needed hospital care in the latest wave was six-fold higher than among vaccinated people.

👉  One of our readers has discovered an award with which I was not familiar.  It is the “International Husband of the Year Award.”  Here are two runners up and the winner.

Second Runner Up from Greece

First Runner Up from England

And the Winner from Ireland.  He’s even holding her hand.

👉  “Street Noise,” is an exhibition in Seoul that features about 130 artworks by an international group of more than a dozen graffiti artists.  A couple viewing the exhibit saw brushes and paint cans in front of a paint-splattered canvas and added a few brush strokes, assuming it was a participatory mural.

Unfortunately, the painting is a finished work (titled “Untitled”) worth more than $400,000, according to the organizers of the exhibition that featured the painting.  One of the exhibition’s organizers, Kang Wook, said, “There were guidelines and a notice, but the couple did not pay attention.”  The couple were arrested but released after the police determined that the vandalism was accidental (Excuse me.  You pick up a brush, you pick up a paint can, and you smear paint on a painting.  How can that be accidental?  I trip, my foot hits a can, paint splotches onto the painting – that is accidental).

Anyway.  I usually don’t like abstract art, but the colors and the motion in this piece I do like.  And so that you can see the damage, below is the original work, and then the vandalized version with three dark green paint smears circled in red.

Can you spot the damage in the picture immediately above?

👉  Some new chuckles:

Apparently, this person needed to run speel check :-)

👉  Nine-year-old Joey was asked by his mother what he had learned in Sunday School.  “Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.  When he got to the Red Sea, he had his army build a pontoon bridge and all the people walked across safely.  Then he radioed headquarters for reinforcements.  They sent bombers to blow up the bridge and all the Israelites were saved.” 

“Now, Joey, is that really what your teacher taught you?” his Mother asked. 

“Well, no, Mom.  But, if I told it the way the teacher told it, you’d never believe it!” 

👉  Two from “Ooh You’re Gold.”

👉  “Will I oink?”

When was the last time you asked your doctor that question?  Or even thought about asking your doctor that question?  Well, if you were David Bennett Sr. of somewhere in Maryland, it would be a logical question.  You see, Dr. Bartley Griffith of the University of Maryland Medical Center had just told Mr. Bennett that he wanted to replace his diseased and failing heart with one from a pig.

And now, to scramble a great Paul Harvey line, here is the rest of the story.

Mr. Bennett was out of options.  He had exhausted other treatments and was too sick to qualify for a human donor heart.  When Mr. Bennett first told his son, David Bennett Jr., about the upcoming transplant, he was flummoxed.  “At first I didn’t believe him,” he said. “He’d been in the hospital a month or more, and I knew delirium could set in.”

The pig had 10 genetic modifications.  Four genes were inactivated, including one that encodes a molecule that causes an aggressive human rejection response.  A growth gene was also inactivated to prevent the pig’s heart from continuing to grow after it was implanted.  In addition, six human genes were inserted into the genome of the donor pig – modifications designed to make the porcine organs more tolerable to the human immune system.

As of yesterday morning, Mr. Bennett and his new heart were doing well.  Oink indeed!

🛐  Today’s close, “A Breakfast Blessing,” is from Christ Beside Me, Christ Within Me, by Beth A. Richardson.

A Breakfast Blessing

Bless this food.

Bless this day.

Bless my steps.

Bless my words.

For clean water, for juice or milk, coffee or tea.

For food, for bread or tortillas, noodles or rice.

For those who wake with plenty, never knowing a hungry moment.

For those who enter their day hungry for food, craving comfort.

For all those who helped to make this food.

For farmers and harvesters.

For sellers and truckers.

For cooks and servers.

May all be loved this day.

May all be fed this day.

May all be blessed with your generous love.

-30-