What Would Jimmy Do?

I don’t mean to imply anything to anyone with this — I just think it’s an interesting quote from Desmond Tutu…..
“When the missionaries first came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.”
— 30 —

I was helping my neighbor put new shutters on  his house and to get the old ones off, we used a small pry-bar that I’ve had for years. He said he should get one of those things and I asked him if he knew what it was called. He didn’t, and I told him that it was a jimmy. (if you look up jimmy in the dictionary, it says it’s a short crowbar used by burgers.)  He thought that was pretty funny. 

But people’s names are used to describe all sorts of things and situations.
I guess maybe of all the names in the English language, “John” might be used the most in unflattering ways. We’ve all heard of a “Dear John Letter, an unknown dead guy is referred to as “John Doe,” and even worse, we call a bathroom the “john.”

Well, I wondered what the heck John did to deserve so much disrespect. I figured extensive research was in order….
It seems like the most common or popular explanation for why we call the bathroom the john is that it retained an association with the first name of British nobleman Sir John Harrington, who invented the flush toilet in 1596. Well that sounds reasonable, but it didn’t satisfy my extensive research. Harrington is, in fact, usually credited with devising a prototype of the flush toilet — it was not conceived by Thomas Crapper (You’ve probably heard stories about that, too, but it’s a myth.) But anyhow, the “john” moniker for the bathroom almost certainly is not related to Harrington.  Here’s why (maybe.) When Harrington invented the toilet, he called it the “ajax” — a pun on the term “jakes,” that was slang for toilet at the time. And — the newfangled toilet idea never really caught on during Harrington’s lifetime. It didn’t come into widespread use until after 1775, when another British inventor, Alexander Cummings, got a patent for it. So it seems pretty unlikely that Harrington’s name would have been attached to the toilet nearly two centuries later. The term “john” as a term for the bathroom wasn’t recorded in print until the mid-18th century — nearly 150 years after Harrington’s moment of glory.
Now consider that “john” is a distinctly American term — people in Britain don’t call the bathroom the “john.” The usually call it the “W.C.” — short for “water closet.”
So even with all my extensive research, the origin of the term isn’t really clear. 

I found an interesting article that indicated that the first recorded use of the term “john” to refer to the bathroom dates back to 1738 and is found in — get this — the rules that governed the actions of incoming Harvard freshmen. The rules say, “No freshman shall mingo against the College wall or go into the fellows’ cuz john.” At that time, “cuz john” was short for “cousin John,” an 18th-century American slang term for the bathroom.

Cousin John’s actual identity isn’t known, but he probably wasn’t anybody in particular. Probably, “going to visit cousin John” was a euphemism for using the bathroom — kind of like “I’m going to see a man about a dog” has been used more recently. I wasn’t familiar with the word “mingo” — it was slang for urinating. I think it’s kind of funny that the college elders at Harvard thought it was necessary to enact a rule that prohibited students from peeing on the sides of college buildings.
But — I’m not sure that college kids have changed that much — maybe the  rule is needed even today…..
— 30 —

A few years ago the musical Hamilton was very popular — might still be, I’m not sure. Anyhow, after seeing the play, I did a bit of research on Alexander Hamilton. I hadn’t though about it until a few days ago until we were having one of our world problem-solving sessions out on the patio. The conversation, as it sometimes, does, turned to politics and for some reason I remembered that I’d looked up some stuff about Hamilton. I wasn’t picking on Hamilton — it just happened to be on my mind after I’d seen the theatrical production.

If you’re anything like me, you’re sick and tired of hearing about sleazy politicians and their scandals. I wish it was like the good old days when he had honorable leaders. Well, the reality is that there’s always been sleazy politicians — seems like there’s more today, but…..

Alexander Hamilton is considered to be one of the greatest of America’s founding fathers. He put his personal stamp on the creation of American through his hard work, determination, and sheer brilliance. He served as George Washington’s trusted aide during the Revolutionary War. He was one of the primary architects of the Constitution, the first Secretary of the Treasury, and he created the National Bank.

In 1791, at the height of his influence and power — and, while he was happily married — Hamilton met Maria Reynolds. This attractive young woman asked him for money. She said her philandering husband had abandoned her. Hamilton later said he was touched by the poor woman’s story. Apparently he was touched enough to begin an affair. Several months later, Maria’s husband appeared at Hamilton’s door. 
Hamilton expected Maria’s outraged husband to demand satisfaction — a duel to the death. But — James Reynolds only wanted $1,000 as compensation for husbandly pain and suffering. Hamilton paid up, and James granted Hamilton leeway to continue the affair — in return for future payments.
Hamilton continued his relationship with Maria for a while, but he soon realized he’d been taken by a husband and wife con team. After he was able to wriggle out of Maria’s grasp, he breathed a sigh of relief. He considered himself lucky to only be a few thousand dollars poorer and to get rid of Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds.

In 1792, Hamilton received a visit from three U.S. senators, including James Monroe. They told Hamilton about a rumor that he had given money and secret Treasury Department information to someone named James Reynolds. (James was currently residing in a Philadelphia prison.) Hamilton faced the accusations and came clean. He confessed to the affair with Maria, but denied giving away secret information. The senators believed him. He had squeaked by again.

A few years later, Hamilton left the Treasury Department and returned to private law practice — his scandals remained hidden, and he was an influential figure in national politics. He even considered running for president in 1800. But a pamphlet dredged up the whole Reynolds Affair. It was a tale of sex and payoff in high places and created a sensation. Hamilton suspected that James Monroe — one of the senators that came to his office —had leaked the story. Monroe was an ally of Hamilton’s opposition for the  presidency, Thomas Jefferson.
Hamilton decided to let it all out. He’d wrote a fiery essay admitting he had sex with Maria, but he denied any wrongdoing at the Treasury Department. Apparently Hamilton wanted everyone to know that he might be a two-timing skunk — but — he wasn’t a crook. His public career survived, but just barely. His enemies continued to discuss the affair, and his friends were embarrassed by it. There was no chance he could run for president. The election of 1800 was won by….. Thomas Jefferson.

There’s no record of Hamilton’s wife’s reaction to her husband’s embarrassing behavior. Hamilton’s death occurred in the famous duel with Aaron Burr — after the duel, his wife burned all her correspondence.
An interesting side note is that Maria Reynolds later had an affair with Aaron Burr…. 
— 30 —

While continuing to clean out our library — to be sure we don’t have any “banned” books, I ran across an interesting little book about Alchemy.
For thousands of years, maybe more, alchemists have had two goals — transmuting base metals into gold, and discovering the Elixir of Life, which would grant immortality to those who drank it. So far, not one alchemist has changed lead ( or any other metal) into gold. And everyone who drank various elixirs has since died — quite a few of them from the elixirs they drank. All in all a pretty spectacular history of failures.

But these guys weren’t all quacks. A guy that today is revered as the father of modern physics and the inventor of calculus, Sir Issac Newton, dabbled in alchemy. In fact, one of his papers describes a recipe for the Philosophers’ Stone, a legendary substance that reputedly could turn base metals like iron and lead into gold. And — the recipe he described had come from his older contemporary, the famed British chemist Robert Boyle. 
(Alchemists believed the philosophers’ stone could transform common metals like lead into silver or gold and could be used as an elixir of life for health and longevity. It was considered the most pure and perfect of all substances. Alchemical images often include pairs of animals or people uniting to become one. These represent the combining and refining of different ingredients into a new form — the philosophers’ stone.)

So — how could so many have failed so often for so long….. there are a lot of reasons, but the underlying reason is that alchemists — all of them — didn’t have a clue as to how the universe really functions. A lot of them were diligent experimenters and did their research, but they invariably started from bad premises. Bad premises get you bad results in science — and — alchemy.

I’m pretty sure you can make gold from other elements — maybe not easy, but start with a huge cloud of hydrogen floating around the universe, then collapse it into a supergiant star. Let that star run through its natural life, fusing hydrogen into helium, and helium into carbon, then oxygen, silicon, and iron, and on and on through the process of thermonuclear fusion in its core. Eventually, the star will completely collapse and explode in a supernova and shoot out millions of tons of gold and other heavy elements. So theoretically, the process is pretty simple. 

But all the alchemists were woefully ignorant of atomic theory, or even the periodic table. But they did have some practical knowledge of metals and ores, learned from the experience of metallurgists and other metal workers. And they believed that everything in the universe was comprised of varying amounts of four elements — earth, fire, air and water. So if you presume everything is made from those four things, the changing one metal to another is just a matter of rearranging the proportions — typically through the use of acidic solvents and alloys. That makes perfect sense, if all matter is actually comprised of the four elements — but — it’s not. 

Alchemy was known to ancient Greeks, Chinese, and Indians as “the Art.” That’s probably because they thought that the seven known metals (gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, iron and mercury) were in some way aligned with the seven major planets in the sky (the Sun, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and Mercury.) So astrology and alchemy came together making it a mystical art as well as a practical endeavor. If these were the guiding principles of alchemy, it’s no wonder alchemists didn’t make much progress in terms of making gold. 

Of course, some alchemists put on a good show and claimed to make gold. In the 3rd century B.C., Bolos of Mende, writing under the name of Democritus, claimed in his treatise, Physica et Mystica, to have made gold. But for anyone wanting to do the same, his written directions for changing other metals into gold were extremely vague, and there was a lot astrological mumb-jumbo thrown in that further muddied the waters. 

Alchemists certainly had a good idea, but their search for gold has produced massive, never-ending, total and complete failure.
I once heard that to obtain something, something of equal value must be lost.
But maybe William Shakespeare said it best — “You are an alchemist; make gold of that.”
— 30 — 

Well, once again, there’s been a school shooting — this time in Georgia. And once again we’ll probably hear that all our national leaders are shocked that such a thing could happen. And Congress will offer their thoughts and prayers to the victims — and their families. They may even have a moment of silence.
I’m sure knowing that makes every parent feel better about sending their kids to school today….
— 30 —

I’ve been in a funk for a while now and sometimes I feel like I’m cursed. I really know that I’m not, but that got me to thinking about a lot of the “curses” I’ve heard about over the years, like the curse of the Kennedy family and James Dean and the “Billy Goat” curse…..
Anyhow, I thought today might be a good day to talk about curses.

Almost everyone has heard about the curse of the Kennedy family. The number of Kennedy family tragedies has led a lot of people to believe there must be a curse on the whole bunch. Maybe if the family had stayed out of politics and off airplanes, their fate might have been different, but consider….
JFK’s brother Joseph Jr died in a plane crash in 1944 and his sister Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948.
Another of JFK’s sisters, Rosemary, was institutionalized in a mental hospital for years.
JFK himself was assassinated in 1963 at age 46.
One of JFK’s younger brothers was assassinated in 1968.
Another younger brother, Senator Ted Kennedy, survived a plane crash in 1964. In 1969, he was driving a car that went off a bridge, causing the death of his companion, Mary Jo Kopechne. That pretty much squashed his presidential goals. He died in 2009 at age 77.
In 1984, Robert Kennedy’s son David died of a drug overdose. Another son, Michael, died in a skiing accident in 1997.
In 1999, JFK Jr., his wife and his sister-in-law perished when the small plane that he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.
So I can understand why the family might think they were cursed….

Another pretty famous “curse” is “Da Billy Goat” curse. In 1945, William “Billy Goat” Sianis brought his pet goat, Murphy, to Wrigley Field to see the fourth game of the 1945 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and the Detroit Tigers. Sions and his goat were later ejected from the game, and Sianis reportedly put a curse on the team that day. Ever since, the Cubs have had legendary bad luck. Over the years, Cubs fans have experienced agony in repeated late-season collapse when victory seemed imminent. In 1969, 1984, 1989, and 2003, the Cubs were painfully close to advancing to the World Series but couldn’t hold the lead. Even those who don’t consider themselves Cubs fans blame the hex for the weird and almost comical losses year after year. But happily, the Cubs ended the curse by winning the World Series in 2016 — their first since 1908.

One of the more interesting curses, to me, is the curse of Tippecanoe, or Tecumseh’s Curse. This curse is a widely held explanation of the fact that from 1840 to 1960, every U.S. president elected (or reelected) every 20th year has died in office. The popular belief is that Tecumseh administered the curse when William Henry Harrison’s troops defeated the Native American leader and his forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe…..
William Henry Harrison was elected president in 1840. He caught a cold during his inauguration, which quickly turned into pneumonia. He died April 4, 1841, after only one month in office.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860 and reelected four years later. Lincoln was assassinated and died April 15, 1865.
James Garfield was elected president in 1880. Charles Guiteau shot him in July 1881. Garfield died several month later from complications of the gunshot wound. 
William McKinley was elected president in 1896 and reelected in 1900. On September 6, 1901, McKinley was shot by Leon F. Czolgosz, who considered the president an “enemy of the people.” McKinley died eight days later.
Three years after Warren G. Harding was elected president in 1920, he died suddenly of either a heart attack or stroke while traveling in San Francisco.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected president in 1932 and reelected in 1936, 1940, and 1944. His health wasn’t great, but he died rather suddenly in 1945, of a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke.
John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960 and assassinated in Dallas three years later.
The curse may have been broken beginning with Reagan. Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 and survived an assassination attempt in 1981. And George W. Bush, who was elected in 2000 and reelected in 2004, survived both his terms.

In 1922, English explorer Howard Carter, leading an expedition funded by George Herbert, Fifth Earl of Carnarvon, discovered the ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun’s Tomb, and the riches inside. After opening the tomb, however, strange and unpleasant events began to take place in the lives of those involved in the expedition. Lord Carnarvon’s story is the most bizarre — he apparently died from pneumonia and blood poisoning following complications from a mosquito bite. Allegedly, at the exact same moment Carnarvon passed away in Cairo, all the lights in the city mysteriously went out. Carnarvon’s dog dropped dead that morning, too. Some point to the foreboding inscription, “Death comes on wings to he who enters the tomb of a pharaoh,” as proof that King Tut put a curse on anyone who disturbed his final resting place.

Of course, no one really knows for sure if there’s any truth to these curses.
I’ve always heard that there are no such things as curses — only people and their decisions.
— 30 —

I know some things that I wonder about don’t seem important to a lot of people, but they must be important to me. Why else would I wonder about them? 
One thing I’ve wondered about for a long time is why is the famous police force that patrols London called Scotland Yard?

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in England and I realize that their language is loaded with misleading terms. For instance, plum pudding isn’t pudding — and — it doesn’t contain plums. But Scotland Yard has always puzzled me. So — I figured it was time for a little extensive research. As is often the case, my research didn’t really come up with a definitive answer, but here’s what I found….

It started in 1829, when Charles Rowan and Richard Mayne were given the job of organizing a citywide crime-fighting force in London. At the time, the two men lived together in a house at 4 Whitehall Place, and they ran their newly formed outfit out of their garage, using the back courtyard as a makeshift police station.They apparently decided the “Rowan and Mayne’s Backyard” didn’t seem like a good name for the headquarters of a police force. So it was called Scotland Yard. 

Why Scotland Yard? There seems to be two stories that possibly explain the origin of the name. The first explanation is that Scotland Yard sits on the location of what was once the property of Scottish royalty. The story is that back before Scotland and England unified (in 1707) the present day Scotland Yard was a residence used by Scottish kings and ambassadors when they visited London on diplomatic missions for short stays. The second explanation is that 4 Whitehall Place backed onto a courtyard called Great Scotland Yard, named after a previous landowner — Scott — who owned the property.

But anyhow, the metropolitan police was a successful organization and grew. In 1809, they decided that they needed new digs and moved to a larger building on the Victoria Embankment. That gave them the opportunity to rename their new headquarter something more appropriate with a name that actually made sense.
So the London police chose to name it the New Scotland Yard.
— 30 —

One of my favorite TV shows was the Big Bang Theory. It was on for a number of years and is still being re-run on various channels today. I thought it was a pretty funny show, but the Big Bang elicits serious discussions and is truly hard to understand for most people.
According to a lot, if not most, scientists, our universe started out as this really small piece of matter and metamorphosed into an ever-expanding universe.  But some creation scientists don’t believe it happened.

Explanations of the Big Bang usually cause headaches to people like me. I’ve heard the theory described something like this — A really long time ago there was nothing, and suddenly there was a whole lot of nothing, which was actually something, but nobody could really see it, even if there was somebody there, which there wasn’t.
See what I mean?

The Big Bang Theory was announced in 1948 by Russian-American physicist George Gamow, saying it was based on Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Cosmological Principles.
Here’s what (I think) it says….
Some 12 to 14 billion years ago, maybe longer, the portion of the universe we can see today was only a few millimeters across (that’s a little smaller than a gnat) and extremely hot. The bang being mentioned is the expansion of this small, hot dense state into the vastly expanding and much cooler cosmos that we currently inhabit. The universe is still expanding, gradually increasing the distance between our galaxy and other galaxies. 

For a theory to be taken seriously on its way to becoming accepted as fact, it has to undergo rigorous testing. Since 1948, when Gamow first mentioned it, scientist have found the Big Bang Theory consistent with a number of important observations:
• Astronomers can observe the expansion of the universe.
• There is an observed abundance of helium, deuterium, and lithium in the universe — three element that scientist think were synthesized primarily in the first three minutes of the universe.
• The existence of significant amounts of cosmic microwave background radiation.

The cosmic microwave background radiation is an important observation because radiation appears hotter in distant clouds of gas. Since light travels at a finite speed, we see these distant clouds at an earlier time in the history of the universe, when it was denser — and hotter.
One big question is whether the currently expanding universe will continue to expand or will it ultimately contract and implode. Apparently contraction is a definite possibility.

There’s a bunch more to the theory, like about how space and time are altered by gravity, and the possible shape of the universe  — is it saddle-shaped, ball-shaped, flat or, as some think, doughnut-shaped. And is the universe open or closed — is it infinite or not.
The doughnut shape is an example of a closed universe — in such a universe, you could start off in one direction and, if allowed enough time, ultimately return to your starting point. If the universe is infinite, you would never return. I’m not sure what universe Star Trek operated in… I would guess it wasn’t an infinite universe, or Kirk and Spock would never have returned for all those re-runs.
— 30 —

Over the years I’ve written a lot about China. China is one of the most unique places I’ve ever been, and their history is absolutely fascinating. They also have quite a cast of characters that have made their impact on the world. 

China’s been around for over 2,000 years and if you think our society and government has accumulated a lot of rules, you can imagine how many have been created in China. The Chinese are very good at following complicated rules — in fact, following rules isn’t just a part of the day’s work, it’s a religion. That religion is called Confucianism.
Confucianism doesn’t deal with questions of the soul, or God, or life after death. It deals with how we should behave — toward our parents, toward our superiors — and, in the case of government officials, toward the public. 

The guy that came up with all the rules is Confucius, who was born in the province of Lu in 551 B.C. His father died when he was three, and Confucius worked hard after school to support his mother. After leaving school, he gave lessons in his home, charging whatever his pupils could afford. He taught history, poetry and — his favorite subject — the rules of proper behavior. He initially only had a few pupils, but the word spread, and at the end of his life he boasted that he’d taught 3,000 young men. 
Through the years, Confucius was invited to take a job in the government. But he wouldn’t work for any government he disapproved of, so for many years he turned down all the offers. He once said, “I don’t care that I’m not known. I seek to be worthy of being known.” An official he disapproved of once asked him for advice on how to rule. Confucius replied that he should learn to govern himself before trying to govern others. 

Confucius taught his students how to behave through a collection of rules, all of which were written down by his followers and compiled in a book known as the Analects. Many of his sayings start with the words “Confucius said,” or sometimes “The Master said.”

Confucius was nearly 50 when he finally accepted a government position as chief magistrate of Chung-tu, a town in the province of Lu. One story is that under his rule, the people became so honest that wallets and purses accidentally dropped in the streets would lie untouched until their owners returned to find them. 
Confucius’ reputation continued to grow after his death, and in time the Analects became the basis of one of China’s oldest and strongest religions. Mao Zedong tried to stamp out Confucianism  when the Communists took over in 1949, but old habits die hard,and Confucius’s principles are still widely practiced, both in government and in private life, even today.

We hear Confucius sayings all the time and often don’t realize they should be credited to Confucius. I think maybe may all time favorite is: “Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
But another comes to mind that maybe we should give some serious thought to at this very moment in our history — “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”
If Confucius was running for office, I think he’d get my vote…..
— 30 —

Over the years, we moved around quite often. One good thing about those moves is that the government took care of packing and shipping our belongings. Maybe one of the bad things about those moves is that the government took care of packing and shipping out belongings.

We never had any serious issues, but we did have some “interesting” experiences, like having a bowling pall packed in the same box full of Waterford crystal, and having nothing stolen out of all of our effects except a box of umbrellas — just weird things like that.

On one move, when our belongs were unpacked, there was about 12 or 14 frisbees —they were all bright colors, looked brand new and were neatly stacked together. The only problem was that they didn’t belong to us. We didn’t think much about it and for some reason, either Claire or myself put them in one of the kitchen cabinets in our new apartment. I didn’t think any more about them until several days later we were having a dinner party for a few of our friends. We were again fortunate to have a very good cook and Claire told her that the people coming to dinner were very good friends and she wanted it to be “special.” 

As usual, dinner was great. The cook took away the dinner dishes and then served dessert. She came in with the biggest smile on her face and served everyone an individual dessert — each one in a different color frisbee. I didn’t know what to think, and the guests didn’t say anything. But the frisbees weren’t “flat” on the bottom, so they tend to roll around on the table when the guests tried to cut into the dessert (I think it was cake of some kind.) At that time both myself and Claire couldn’t keep from laughing. After explaining what we thought had happened to the guests, they thought it was pretty funny, too. I’ve never looked a a frisbee the same way since that night.
— 30 —