On the DEWLine 2.0: Dwight Williams

I am remembering "All Good Things", the wrap-up of The Next Generation's branch of Star Trek. Specifcally, one of the "guest" starships in that episode, the hospital ship USS Pasteur as captained in an alternative future by Beverly Crusher Picard.

Well, hospital ships are a real thing in some few real-worlds wet navies. The USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort are in US service and have been for some decades. Since I was in grade school, I think.

Anyway. It's occurred to at least one naval affairs blogger that maybe more hospital ships would be a good thing for the USN to have at hand in case of future crises, domestic and overseas. Whether new-built or refitted from private hands. I would agree re: Canadian purposes as well, if we get through this current mess reasonably intact enough. If we don't need them at home, there's UN/WHO operations that could be supported, right?

But again, we have to get through this mess without being annexed by "Trumpistan" or being remade into a province of Xi Jinping's or Putin's regimes. Or bankrupted and whatever else our nightmares can dream up.

And on to whatever's next between now and the end of the first season of Picard...

Related note: https://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2020/03/cruise-ships-and-usnr-covid-19-public.html

I'm bracing to restart my job search tomorrow. My once-and-likely-future employers were making noises along the lines of "might be back in August, maybe in October, almost definitely next February". I intend to operate on the assumption that they won't be able to rehire me until they either phone or e-mail otherwise. Only makes sense, right?

Meantime...weather's been going from one extreme of frost warnings last night to the other with 28℃ being the expected high temperature today. This is meteorological whiplash in action to some extent, although Ottawa-Gatineau hasn't been getting it nearly as badly as certain other regions of the planet in recent days.

Some stuff of interest in recent days:

A whole new look at Love Boat-type cruise line operations and the hazards the crew and passengers alike face, courtesy of propublica.org.

The Toronto Star just wrapped up a four-parter on the Precariate, those of us with less-than-stable work lives. (There's a fourth article in the series I can't yet find a link for.)

More later on other stuff...

I can see it taking two years, but ten?

http://www.canada.com/News/canada/Canadian+warships+built+over+years/10752235/story.html

Courtesy of vivelecanada.ca, I found this item on a proposed scaling-up of the commercial cargo sailing ship concept.

Could this work?