What Would Jimmy Do?

Tonight the President will deliver the State of the Union address. A State of the Union address is required by the U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 3, Clause 1.
The President shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend for  their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

The presidential message mandated by the Constitution has gone through a few name changes over the years. It was formally known as the Annual Message from 1790 to 1946. It began to be informally called the “state of the union” message/address from 1942 to 1946. Since 1947 it has officially been known as the State of the Union Address.

In the 19th century, the annual message was both a lengthy administrative report on the various departments of the executive branch and a budget and economic message. Beginning around 1913, it became a platform for the President to rally support for his agenda.

As technology advanced, and radio, television, Internet, etc. became readily available to everyone, the State of the Union became a forum for the President to speak directly to the American people.

Among the longest State of the Union addresses were those given by President Jimmy Carter, 33,667 words in 1981 and President Bill Clinton, 9,190 words in 1995. The shortest was given by President George Washington, 1,089 words in 1790. The average length of the message in the 19th century was about 10,000 words… in the 20th century, about 5,000 words.

So tonight President Donald J. Trump will deliver the State of the Union address for 2020. Accepting the fact that it will be the “greatest ever given,” it’ll be nice if the “state of the union” we hear about tonight is somewhat close to the real “state of the union.”
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Last night Super Bowl LIV was played. In case you went to a Super Bowl party, the final score was Chiefs 31 — 49ers 20. I post the score as a public service. 

I started my campaign last year when I proposed there should be no Super Bowl parties — at least not on Super Bowl Sunday. As stated clearly in my proposal for change, Super Bowl parties are all about the party — no one goes to a Super Bowl party to watch the Super Bowl. In case you don’t remember reading my blog last year around this time, here’s what I suggested.

Starting this year, there should be no Super Bowl parties. On Super Bowl Sunday, football fans should stay at home and watch the game. Non-fans should do whatever they do on a Sunday. Beginning this year (2020) instead of Super Bowl parties, there should only be Pro-Bowl parties, my reasoning being that nobody watches the Pro-Bowl and certainly no one cares who “wins.” So it’s the perfect time to have a party. Pro-Bowl parties will be just like Super Bowl parties — lots of food and drinks and the TV tuned to the Pro-Bowl, that no one will be watching, just like the Super Bowl. Except the game doesn’t matter anyhow — alleviating any possible guilty feeling during the party that maybe you should at least check on the game’s progress. 

But like a lot of my ideas, apparently not many people thought it was as good as I did… the Pro-Bowl passed and we didn’t get one invitation to a Pro-Bowl party. Even though I’m a little discouraged, I’m not giving up on my idea — maybe it was just too progressive for some people. I do hope it takes off though, because next year I want to stay home and watch the Browns and Redskins in Super Bowl LV.
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Groundhog Day has been around since 1887, but its traditions go back much further than that. The original Groundhog Day has nothing to do with repeating the same day over and over, but the 1993 Bill Murray movie was such a success that the two are now inextricably linked. So as I try to write something new about Groundhog Day here every year, it becomes more and more like the movie — it seems like I’m just repeating the same thing over and over. But — because it’s Groundhog Day, here’s my annual Groundhog Day blog…..

While we’re on the subject of the movie, the term “Groundhog Day” has become a slang phrase that is widely used in the military. It means a mission with long and repetitive duties that has no end in sight. Soldiers in the Iraq War used it to denote the boredom of daily life in the field, as well as assignments that included endless iteration of the same duties, such as patrols, transport, or guarding dignitaries. 

But back to the real Groundhog Day…. which is based on the premise of predicting the weather. The modern Groundhog Day is a variation of weather lore practiced by ancient peoples for thousands of years. The current Groundhog Day ritual is based on a practice brought to America by German immigrants. Of course Groundhog Day activities aren’t based on, or even about, the cold hard truth. They’re about upholding an ancient tradition and celebrating the coming of spring. 

I’ve mentioned in previous years the (probable) relationship of Groundhog Day and the Christian holiday Candlemas, which was held on February 2 — 40 days after the traditional birth of Christ. (Rather than repeat even more of this Groundhog Day blog, you can check the previous Years blog entries for Feb 2)

Every year, we discuss Punxsutawney Phil, the Pennsylvania groundhog who can predict if winter will end quickly or linger for six more weeks. Phil is supposedly the same groundhog from year to year, all the way back to 1887. That’s because every seven years, he’s given a magic Elixir of Life — a magic brew that contains a variety of herbs and fruits, ice from Antarctica, and the urine of the Loch Ness Monster.

One Legend has it that during Prohibition, Phil was so upset at not getting any booze, that he threatened the people with a staggering 60 weeks of winter — unless he was allowed to have a drink.

Most groundhogs live in eastern and central United States, although some reside in Canada and even Alaska. They build pretty impressive underground burrows that include multiple “rooms” with different purposes, including a sleeping chamber, a nursery chamber and a waste chamber (a bathroom.) Their burrows can stretch anywhere from 8 to 66 feet long. They spend a good amount of time underground, but they also climb trees — an activity I see often here in Deerfield Village.

So as I indicated yesterday, I’m trying to make the best of February — here’s to the first big celebration of the month. Happy Groundhog Day.
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I know you’ve heard this from me before, but here we are in February — my least favorite month. Every year I try to change my attitude about the month, but I haven’t made much progress. I suppose I could look at this second month of the year as a time for true new beginnings since by now a lot of people (not me) have already given up on their half-hearted New Year’s resolutions. I guess the month does have some redeeming qualities… celebration of love, a month to remember civil rights achievements, and February does have a couple of notable days dedicated to wine — the month contains both National Drink Wine Day and (the official) Open That Bottle Night. So, maybe its’s not all that bad. If we could just get rid of the cold weather and snow, it might be pretty good. And after all, it is two to three days shorter than every other month, and it does have its fair share of holidays and reasons to celebrate… we’ve got all these to look forward to — many of which I’ll probably be commenting about when they roll around. Groundhog Day, Lincoln’t Birthday and Valentine’s Day are all days to look forward to, but we’ve also got Susan B. Anthony’s Birthday, President’s Day and Mardi Gras — plus — this year we get an extra day — Leap Day on February 29.

February’s full moon, the Snow Moon, reaches peak fullness at 2:34 A.M. EST on Sunday February 9, 2020.
Even though there are many roses sold during February because of Valentine’s Day, the symbolic flowers of the month are the Violet and Primrose.
The violet signifies watchfulness, loyalty, and faithfulness. Give a violet to someone to let them know that you’ll always be there for them…
The primrose lets someone know that you can’t live without them…

So once again I’ll attempt to embrace February — I just realized that in addition to the two special wine celebration days, February 22 is National Margarita Day. Cheers to February!!!! 
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In yesterday’s blog, I mentioned that President Trump had a thing against wind power and especially windmills. Here’s his quote on the subject: 

“If you love birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill, because it’s a very sad, sad sight. It’s like a cemetery. We put a little statue for the poor birds.”

I actually thought that even though he doesn’t seem to care much about, or show compassion about, people, that he really did have a soft-spot in his heart about birds. 

But then today, the news reported this :
“Interior Department officials said Thursday that they will propose regulations clarifying that individuals and industrial operators, such as oil, gas and wind companies, will not be penalized if they accidentally kill birds — even on a massive scale. … Since guidelines under the administration’s interpretation of the law were issued in April 2018, hundreds of ducks, geese, herons and migrating birds have perished in oil pits, on utility lines and in other operations without penalty, according to documents compiled by conservation groups.”

Maybe a lobbyist has a company that makes those little statues for the poor birds….
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Haven’t heard too much about the wall being built along our southern border lately, but some news blew in last night. According to the news I read from a couple of sources, a section of the wall was taken down during “strong” winds. I put strong in quotes because these strong winds produced gusts of up to 37 miles an hour. Here in the West Virginia panhandle, we routinely get winds that gust to 37 miles an hour, or more. 37 mile an hour winds fall into the “Moderate gale” category of the Beaufort Scale. Supposedly, the sections footings hadn’t recently been poured and had not fully “cured.”

I suppose I could take this opportunity to make some smart-a** comments, like, I/m sure glad Humpty Dumpty wasn’t sitting on that wall or a big bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew that wall down, or build it and it will fall, or some such stupid thing… but it occurs to me that the President once said, “I hate wind.” Now I’m beginning to see why. The subject of wind often comes up at Presidential rallies, so I did a little extensive research and found these actual quotes made by President Trump:

I know windmills very much.
If it doesn’t blow, you can forget about television for that night.
I’m not going to lose that wealth on dreams, on windmills, which, frankly are not working all that well.
If you love birds, you’d never want to walk under a windmill, because it’s a very sad, sad sight. It’s like a cemetery. We put a little statue for the poor birds.
If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations. Your house just went down 75% in value.
They say the noise causes cancer.
I never understood wind.

So I think this latest incident clears up the President’s dislike for wind. I’m sure the wall section will be built back even stronger using the best quality materials, because I know no corners will be cut using our taxpayer money. 

Interestingly, on the same news page was story describing a large underground tunnel that had just bee found — it even had an elevator. The tunnel stretches from Tijuana, Mexico to San Diego. I’m not sure if moats are a deterrent to tunnels, but I’m confident Washington will come up with a solution.
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Super Bowl LIV is on tap for this Sunday. For some reason I haven’t heard quite as much hype about it this year… maybe San Francisco and Kansas City just don’t generate that much interest. From what I’ve heard, Kansas City seems to be favored to win, but I’m not sure of the current point spread. I guess it really doesn’t matter about the favorite — as the saying goes, “that’s the reason they play the game.”

This year’s game is in Miami — I’m not sure what the weather forecast is, but I’m pretty sure it won’t snow. Snow has yet to fall during a Super Bowl. The other thing that probably won’t happen is either team failing to score. Every team that has played in a Super Bowl has scored. But in six Super Bowls the offenses did fail to score a touchdown. 

I think it’s interesting that no team has ever played in a Super Bowl hosted in its home stadium. A couple of times games have been hosted in their metropolitan areas, but in a different stadium. The Minnesota Viking are the only team to have come within one win of playing the game in their home stadium. The 2018 Super Bowl was scheduled to be played in the U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, but the Vikings lost in the NFC Championship Game that year.

The closest, geographically, the two Super Bowl participants have resided was in Super Bowl XLI when the Indianapolis Colts and the Chicago Bears faced each other — the teams homes were separated by only 164 miles. 

Four teams have never reached the Super Bowl — the Detroit Lions, Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns and Jacksonville Jaguars. In addition to these four teams, 12 others have yet to win a Super Bowl: the Arizona Cardinals, Buffalo Bills, Carolina Panthers, Cincinnati Bengals, Atlanta Falcons, Los Angeles Chargers, Minnesota Vikings and Tennessee Titans.

The Baltimore Ravens, New Orleans Saints, New York Jets and Tampa Bay Buccaneers (and of course the four teams that never reached the big game) have yet to lose a Super Bowl.
There has never been a Super Bowl that neither team has failed to score a touchdown.

The record for the most consecutive Super Bowl appearances  is held by the Buffalo Bills — they played in Super Bowls XXV, XXVI, XXVII and XXVIII… and lost all four. The Minnesota Vikings also managed to lose four Super Bowls, but not consecutively.

There seems to be a Super Bowl record for just about anything you can name that’s in any way associated with the game. I remember watching the first Super Bowl in 1967 — I had no idea it would become the annual spectacle it’s become today — or — that I’d have a use for those Roman Numerals  I had to learn in grade school….
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Well, we’re now into the 2020s (“twenty-twenties”) or “two thousand (and) twenties” decade in the Gregorian calendar… but the Chinese New Year doesn’t begin until today (January 25th.) And the festival will last until February 8th — about 15 days. The Chinese New Year 2020 is the Year of the Rat. The Chinese zodiac is much too complicated to get into an in-depth discussion here, but I guess technically, 2020 is the Male White Metal Rat year. But most of us will just refer to it as the Year of the Rat.

We’re almost a month into our new year, and I’m doing really well on my resolutions, but now its time to turn my attention to Chinese New Year — a holiday that we always celebrate — besides finding it interesting, it always occurs between January 21 and February 20. That just seems like a good time for a celebration. We’re done with all the Christmas and New Year celebrations, the weather is usually crappy, so what better time for a festival. In China, it’s even referred to as the Spring Festival. Since the dates are based on the lunar calendar, many countries refer to it as the Lunar New Year or Lunar Festival.

The lunar calendar is still very important in China, even though it has officially moved to the Gregorian calendar like the rest of the world. The Chinese still celebrate all the traditional lunar holidays and days such as the Winter Solstice.

I write something about Chinese New Year every year, and by now I’ve just about run out of anything “new” to write about it. So if it seems like you’ve read some of this before, it’s because you probably have. But anyhow, here we go… 2020 is the Year of the Rat. Some of the animals in the Chinese zodiac aren’t particularly well liked, such as the Rat, Pig, and Snake. But the Chinese believe those animals positive traits are bestowed on people born in those years. The zodiac in China plays a much bigger role than in Western cultures. The animal of your birth year can decide your career, health and relationship success. 

The year of your birth is known as your benming year and is the year of your zodiac animal. Of the 12 year zodiac cycle, your benming year is the unluckiest for you. There are multiple explanations as to why — the Chinese believe that children can easily be taken by demons, and your benming year is your rebirth year. When your benming year rolls around, your weapon of defense is the color red. People decorate their homes in red for protection (and fortune) but they also wear red clothing. Many people will wear red underwear every day of the year. Some add red shirts, pants, jewelry and other items of apparel.

In China, you have a “real age” and a “fake” nominal age. The real age is the one we all know about. You grow one year older on your birthday. The nominal age, though, increases with the Spring Festival. This was the age most people went with until recent times. 

The Chinese have a saying that there’s no manner and/or etiquette without wine. This means that you need to have wine for every ceremony, festival or important dinner. There’s wine for engagement dinners, weddings, birthdays and, of course, the Spring Festival. When you’re eating with someone older than you, as is the case with New Year’s dinners, you need to follow strict toasting etiquette rules. That includes the order of the toasts, seating, how you hold the wine glass, etc. 

The new moon time determines the new moon date. The new moon time is at 5:43 on Saturday, January 25, 2020, in China’s time zone. Therefore, Chinese New Year Day is Saturday, January 25, 2020. The new moon time is at 21:49 on Friday January 24, 2020, in the United States Pacific Time zone. So — the 2020 Chinese New Year Day is on Friday, January 24, 2020 in California. Where we live, it’s already past midnight, so Chinese New Year Day here is on Saturday.

The New Year greeting in Chinese is xin nian kuki le. The phrase literally means “Happy New Year.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself….. 
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Every year, sometime before the first pre-season NFL game is played, I use my excellent analytic and forecasting ability to predict who will play in the Super Bowl. Here’s the way it works — I write down the name of the two teams that I think will play in the Super Bowl at the end of the upcoming season. I only pick the teams that I think will play in the game, I never pick a team to win. I also — every year — make a prediction as to what the Redskins win/loss record will be.

I write these predictions down, seal them in an envelope and don’t open it until the week before the Super Bowl. This is only for my own entertainment — if someone asks, I’ll tell them my choices, but only during the week before the Super Bowl. I know this all sounds kind of stupid, but it doesn’t take much to entertain me.

I thought this year, I’d reveal my predictions here rather than just keeping them to myself. In case you’re wondering, I’ve never picked the two teams that actually played in the game — I’ve picked one of the teams several times, but not both. 

So now that I have you on the edge of your seats, here were my predictions for Super Bowl LIV. The San Diego (actually I guess they’re now technically in Los Angeles) Chargers and the Philadelphia Eagles. Yep, my prediction had the Eagles playing the Chargers in next week’s game. Obviously this wasn’t my best year, but I did predict the Redskins record would be 3-13 — which, incidentally, happens to be exactly correct. So I batted a little over .300… that’s not too bad.
— 30 —

I’ve mentioned numerous times in the past that we often go out for Asian food. Before we moved from Vienna, we went to a Chinese restaurant pretty much every week. Since moving here to Shepherdstown, we often go to Kome — an Asian restaurant that advertises itself as Thai, but it’s really more “Asian.” Some time back, the restaurant started providing “throwaway” chopsticks. They come in a little paper wrapper and must be broken apart to use them. They’re really too short and just generally not acceptable (to me.) Not that I’m an expert when it comes to chopsticks, but I’ve been using them for more than fifty years — so I at least know what I like.

Well, every time I go to Kome, I complain about the chopsticks. Many times, we go to the restaurant with our friend, Anne. Apparently she got tired of hearing me complain and for Christmas, she gave me a set of chopsticks made out of titanium — and — they came in a titanium case. 

Even though I’ve written about chopsticks here before, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do it again… especially given the fact that Chinese New Year will be here in a few days. 

Chopsticks have been around for between 3,000 and 5,000 years. They originated in China and it’s thought that the Chinese philosopher Confucius had a major influence on their development as eating tools. Chonfucius’ nonviolent teaching philosophy was that instruments such as knives, with the connection people make with them for war and violence, were not to be used at the dinner table.

Using chopsticks involves over 30 joints and 50 muscles in the fingers, wrist, arm and shoulder as well as thousands of nerves.
February 6th is National Chopstick Day.
Almost one third of the world uses chopsticks every day — about as many as use a knife and fork.
80 percent of chopsticks made in Japan are made in the small city of Obama (spelled the same as President Obama) — it has a population of about 32,000.
The fear of chopsticks is called “consecotaleophobia.”

The Chinese use longer style chopsticks than other countries, usually made of wood that come to rounded or blunt end. These are the ones I prefer.
The Japanese use short, wooden sticks that come to a sharper pointy end.
Koreans use shorter, metallic, wood or plastic sticks that are often blunt at the end.
The Vietnamese also use longer sticks that come to a blunted end, like in China — often made of wood, but many are plastic.

So next time you visit us in Shepherdstown, we’ll take you out for some Asian food — but be warned, I’ll be using my titanium chopsticks — you’ll be on your own.
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