Book Report: "Rookie" is back with the publisher and should be released soon. This story is about my first year as a civilian police officer in Dillingham Alaska, which I have mentioned before. I am also turning over to the publisher, Alaska Dreams, my recently completed story entitled "Apache Snow-Book Three- 'Sandbox Wars'. Publisher needed a bit more work on it and I ended up making numerous changes. Now I will begin my new story, set in Alaska, which was started by Gary Wells, a dear friend who went to be with the Lord before he could finish it. I've made a lot of changes to it, but the idea was his originally and I give him credit for it. His death really surprised me. We played on our church worship team together for 13 years and he taught our Bible Study we attended. He played a real hot mouth harp and was for a time the morning DJ on the church's radio station. He left behind his wife and two daughters, who are now adults. One of his daughters spent a good amount of time in Bangkok, Thailand rescuing young ladies off the streets who were enslaved in the sex trade. Dangerous work to be sure. I apologize if I have mentioned this information before, but my short term memory bounces about from all the meds I take. Thankfully I take most of them at night so when I write my tales I pretty level headed- I think. Any how I do not have a title for this book yet, but I am considering "Alaska Pursuit", and several others. I like to get a feel for the story before naming it usually.
You know how I follow the various news sites almost every morning, some 33 of them to get the latest information. These sights include Mainland China, Taiwan, Belfast, Germany and England, Russia, Iran and numerous U.S. sights, plus W.H.O., Catholic News and Blaze, Jerusalem and a few others. I like to get a round picture of what is happening out there. Oh, I also keep an eye on NASA to mainly keep an eye on the various asteroids coming our way.
Of course the Corona Virus -19 is the main story for the vast majority of these sites. How its effecting the economy around the globe and basically most of them are attempting to frighten a lot of people. The basic story needs to be told, but some of the news is either fake news or we can expect zombies by summer. Just kidding. But a lot of people are frightened and they are already breaking into food stores around the world after being warned by the news services that food is about to vanish, or hurting other people by setting fires to homes of people "possibly" infected. Countries are already closing their borders, effecting the job industry in a major way. I'm still waiting to see if the summer's cruise ship will be allowed to dock in Seward, or how many people are still taking these trips. So far, Alaska has not had a case of this virus yet, but will we be able to see that after the summer wraps up?
After World War One the Spanish Flu started up to become a major pandemic. There was some speculation this bug was spurred on by the first usage of Germany's usage of chemical warfare. But over 25 MILLION PEOPLE died from this and it was spread from Europe, into the Far East
and all across the Americas. Alaska was hit pretty hard and it killed a lot of Alaska Natives. I've seen the graves of the victims who died from this virus in Dillingham. Now we have no real idea of how many people actually died from the Black Plague, except we know there were a lot of them. Yet, so far we are still under 150,000 virus cases worldwide and less than 10% have died. True we need to be cautious and have safety concerns, but some of the news is selling these growing numbers to sell their wares. Paper masks have reported to be nearly sold out across the country and if their the regular paper masks a lot of the experts say they will not work against this virus. Today one of the larger news services who earlier reported a way to fight the disease was to regularly wash your hands and your eyes, but now they are telling us the eye washing is not a protective tool- but keep washing your hands. I recall seeing photos in World War Two that had people wearing paper masks and just towels wrapped around their faces as they wandered through Hiroshima and Nagasaki just hours and days after the dropping of nuclear bombs. Paper masks and towels did not protect these people from radiation sickness. Maybe when this is all over and the cure is out there, people will still avoid physical conduct with strangers and the friendly approach of shaking hands has totally stopped being done.
Here our some of this week's headlines you may not have seen. Oh, these only concern the Virus -19...."2,733 in Quarantine in New York City For Virus"...."Cost Rica has First Virus Case"...."Iran's Death Toll is Rising with 1,000 New Cases"...."Australia Reports 59 Virus Cases"...."South Korea Virus Cases Rise to 6,953, With 43 Deaths"...." ( No Reports from North Korea)...."France Virus Cases Rise to 285"...."Italy's Virus Cases Cases Jumps to 2,706 Cases"...."Italy to Close All Schools and Universities Due to Virus"...." "Japan Reports Virus Exceeding 1,000 Cases"...."Chinese Media Source Reports Chinese Labs Identified Mystery Virus as Highly Infectious New Pathogen in Late December Last Year, But They Were Ordered to Stop Tests, Destroy Samples and Suppress The News".... " "US Virus Cases Now at 400"...." California Reporting 69 Virus Cases".... "Florida Reports 8 Virus Cases".... "New York State Reports 76 Virus Cases Confirmed"...."Washington State Confirms 79 Virus Cases".... "Worldwide Virus Cases Reported at 101,923, With 3,386 Deaths"...." "Israel Closing Borders to Travelers Due to Virus"....."Report that New Anti-Virus Masks Now Available in US (one price I saw reported $400 each)...." USA Virus Cases Rise to Over 500"....."33 US States Now Report Having Virus Cases".... " "Saudi Arabia Suspends Travel to/from 9-Countries"...." Universities in California, Washington State and New York Cancel In-Person Classes".... "Iranian Supreme Leader Calls Virus a 'Blessing'...." Veterans Association Nursing Homes to Stop Visitations and Most New Admissions Due to Virus".... "US Cases Now number 950, With 29 Dead"...." Israel Now Reports 75 Virus Cases".... "Greece Reports Virus Cases Reach 84".... " "New York State Activates National Guard and Sends Them Into Virus Hot Spots"...."Japan Virus Cases Top 1,000" .... "Taiwan Reports 47 Virus Cases".... "Italy Now Tops 10,000 Cases With Death Total Now at 631".
We still see that a lot of countries are not reporting the virus, for what ever reason. New York City is having a lot of problems with the virus, yet I haven't seen any numbers from Eastern Canada, directly across the border from NYC. Like I said I don't foresee any cases in Alaska until tourist season begins in May. But planes are still coming in here and who knows?
God Bless All of You, BILL