What Would Jimmy Do?

Besides the various wars and shootings, the news is full of the mess in Congress. The Speaker of the House fiascos are only the latest in a long list of actions, or non-actions, that indicates that Congress is failing to perform.

For more than 200 years, Congress operated pretty much like the country’s founders envisioned. They usually forged compromises on the bigger issues and they competently carried out their authority to declare war, sensibly spend taxpayer money and keep the presidency in check. Unfortunately, that model seems to be dead. 

Congress consists of a weakened legislative branch, where debate is strictly curtailed, party leaders dictate the agenda and many/most elected representatives rarely get a say. Government shutdowns are a regular threat because the governing body can’t agree on budgets — among other things.

So what’s wrong with Congress? Congress is uncivil, too partisan, gridlocked and rarely passes any broad legislation that is in the public interest. And of course this is only a short list — it could go on and on…. And — apparently the American public (voters) isn’t ticked off enough to do anything about it. It appears that we’ve reached the point that many predicted…. and it shall come to pass that idiots shall roam the Earth, and morons shall rule the masses.
— 30 —

I read somewhere that today is St. Luke’s Little Summer. My extensive research turned up that the summer-like days that occur around October 18 are often called Saint Luke’s Little Summer. Actually, October 18 is Saint Luke’s feast day. It isn’t clear to me exactly why today is referred to as St. Luke’s Little Summer.

But my research did discover that St. Luke is kind of special. He was the only Gentile to write books of the Bible, and he was a close companion of St. Paul. He is also the first Christian physician on record. Luke uses more medical terms than any other New Testament writer. For example, he does;t just say Publius’ father was sick — he tells us he suffered from fever and dysentery.

Tradition tells us that St. Luke was the son of pagan parents, possibly born a slave, and was one of the earliest converts. Legend has it that he was also a painter who may have done portraits of Jesus and His Mother. St Luke traveled with St. Paul and evangelized Greece and Rome with him. St. Luke wrote the Gospel According to Luke, much of which was based on the teachings and writings of St. Paul and his own experiences. He also wrote a history of the early Church in the Acts of the Apostles. He was a martyr.

St. Luke is the patron saint of artists, bachelors, bookbinders, brewers, butchers, doctors, glass makers, goldsmiths, lacemakers, notaries, painters, physicians, sculptors, stained glass workers, surgeons, and unmarried men.
But even though today is St. Luke’s Little Summer, I couldn’t find any indication of his association with weathermen, or the weather….
— 30 —

Tomorrow, October 18, is a legal holiday int Alaska — it’s Alaska Day. It is the anniversary of the formal transfer of territories in present-day Alaska from the Russian Empire to the United States. That occurred on Friday, October 18, 1867.

The United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire for the sum of $7.2 million on March 30, 1867. It wasn’t until October of that year that the commissioners arrived in Sitka and the formal transfer was arranged. The formal flag-raising took place at Fort Sitka on October 18, 1867. The ceremony included 250 US Army troops, who marched to the governor’s house at Castle Hill. The Russian soldiers lowered the Russian flag and the U.S. flag was raised.

National Alaska Day is a day to honor the history and culture of the state. From Native American heritage to Eskimo folklore, Alaska is full of fascinating stories and histories. I’ve been lots of places around the world, but if I had to make a list of the most interesting and beautiful places I’ve been, Alaska would always make the top three or four.
Alaska Day was established  in 1959 when Congress declared October 18th Alaska Day to commemorate Alaska being admitted into the Union as the 48th state.
— 30 — 

Yesterday was Friday the 13th — considered by many to be an unlucky day. Well, that got me to thinking — people do all sorts of things to change their luck, like carrying a rabbit’s foot, etc. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at things, or actions that people believe will bring them luck — or at least make it harder for bad luck to find them.

Sneeze three times before breakfast — the number three has been seen as a lucky number in many cultures and religions throughout history. In Europe, where this superstition originated, the number is associated with the Christian trinity.
Carry an acorn in your pocket — acorns, the fruit of the oak tree, are an ancient symbol of fertility and long life.
Sleep on un-ironed sheets — this is a superstition with unknown or uncertain origins. It’s good if it works, because probably not a lot of people iron their sheets theses days, anyway.  
Walk in the rain — rain has always been a sign of good luck, probably because it is so important too the success of crops. Before modern irrigation methods, a rainy season meant the difference between lean year and prosperous ones.
Wear your clothes inside out — this is another superstition that no one seems to know how it originated, but believing that clothing worn inside out, or backwards brings good luck is fairly widespread. I think our kids believed that if they wore their pajamas inside out, they might get a snow day…
Knock on wood — it was once believed that good spirits lived in trees and that by knocking on anything made of wood could call upon these spirits for protection against misfortune.
Ladybugs — many cultures believe ladybugs bring good luck. In German speaking countries, they are literally called lucky bugs — Glückskäfer.
Horseshoes — horseshoes are one of the oldest lucky superstitions, with various legends from different cultures attributing lucky powers to them.
Rabbit Foot — lucky rabbit foot keychains are popular symbols of luck. The original legend says that the left hind foot of a rabbit that is captured in a cemetery at night can ward off magic.

So if you had a bad day yesterday, you may want to check some of these things out before the next Friday the 13th comes around. But I’ve heard it said that bad luck is temporary — good luck lasts a lifetime with the right mindset. And I remember that my granddad always said that you make your own luck…..
— 30 —

Today is Friday the 13th — the most unlucky day of the year, at least in some people’s minds. If you fear Friday the 13th, you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia. The bad news is that all years will have at least one Friday the 13th, but the good new is that there cannot be more than three Friday the 13ths in any given calendar year. The longest time between Friday the 13ths is 14 months.

For a Friday the 13th to occur in a specific month, that month must start on a Sunday. Whenever a year begins on a Thursday, that year’s February, March, and November are guaranteed to have a Friday the 13th. If January 1st of a leap year is a Sunday, then January, April and July will each have a Friday the 13th in them. 

Nobody really knows why Friday the 13th is feared so much as an unlucky day, but there are tons of theories. If Friday the 13th makes you uneasy, you may want to practice some of these well accepted things that keep bad luck from finding you…. like, knock on wood, find a four-leaf clover, avoid cracks in the sidewalk, or find a lucky penny on the street — you know what they say…
Find a penny
pick it up
and all the day
you’ll have good luck.

And  — you can always just keep your fingers crossed. 
Anyhow, happy Friday the 13th — and, good luck! 
— 30 —

OK — here’s the question for today. Are the electrical outlets in your house installed upside down? Take a look — is the ground hole (the round hole, above or below, the two slots) on the top or bottom?
Just so you know, there is an age-old debate about whether an electrical outlet should be mounted with the ground pin up or down.

Like most subjects, there are a lot of theories about the orientation of an outlet — for example:
• The outlet should be mounted with the ground pin up because if the plug comes slightly loose and a metal object were to fall from above, the ground plug, which usually does not carry current would deflect the object so it would not hit “live” prongs.
• The outlet should be oriented with the ground pin down because a person grabbing the outlet will have their index finger at the bottom side of the plug and the index finger sticks out further than the thumb. Having the ground down will keep a person’s index finger from touching the live pins. 
• The outlet should be oriented with the ground pin up because this pin is longer and the plastic around the plug is meatier, so it will help to keep the plug inserted into the outlet.
• The outlet should be oriented with the ground pin down because many common household items such as nightlight, timers, and battery chargers are oriented with the ground pin down. And — GFCI outlets, which have text on the test and text buttons, are oriented with the ground pin down (and the text is readable.)
If you’re like me and got nothing better to do, check any source you can find, including the Internet, and you’ll discover that all these theories can be easily debunked.

Here’s the answer — it doesn’t matter, technically, if you install an outlet with the ground hole up or down. The National Electrical Code (NEC) doesn’t require a certain direction. the NEC allows outlets to be installed with the ground plug hole facing up, down or sideways. It’s up to you — there is no standard electric outlet orientation. So the answer to my first question is no — your outlets are not installed upside down.

Now how about if the receptacle is installed horizontally? Again, it’s up to you — typically, horizontal outlets are installed with the grounding hole to the left, and the wide neutral slot on top, but if for some reason it makes more sense to place the grounding hole on the right, that’s ok.
The bottom line is that there is no code-required orientation for electrical outlets and in some instances there may be a good reason for both orientations.
So it’s your choice — don’t worry, up or down, the outlet police won’t come.
— 30 —

Both faithful readers know that today is a day that we always celebrate. It’s Ten Ten Day, or Double Ten Day. We started celebrating this occasion back in 1972 when we were living in Manila. We lived in an apartment building next door to the Taiwan Embassy. From our balcony, we could look right down into Embassy’s courtyard. On the 10th of October, they had a BIG party. At the time, we weren’t sure why, but we knew it had to be something special. 

We found out that the national holiday known as Taiwan National Day or Double Ten Day is observed in Taiwan every year on October 10. Pretty much all Taiwanese have the day off from work. In mainland China, Double Ten Day is known as the Anniversary of the Wuchang Uprising, and there isn’t a big celebration, but commemorative ceremonies are conducted. 

Taiwan celebrates the beginning of the Wuchang Uprising in China on October 10. 1911. The revolution brought an end to the Ching (Qing) Dynasty, which the Manchus had created in 1644. The insurrection resulted in the establishment of the Republic of China on January 1, 1912.
So in our household, October 10 calls for Chinese food — it’s a tradition that we’ve looked forward to annually for over 50 years. 
Happy Ten Ten Day!!
— 30 —

Well, I hope you’ve recovered from National Pierogi Day yesterday, because today is Columbus Day. Columbus Day is a federal U.S. holiday commemorating the voyage and landing of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in the “New World” on October 12, 1492. Columbus Day is celebrated on the second Monday in October — this year, that’s today, October 9.

Back in the day, scholars already knew that the world was round. People assumed a ship traveling west from Europe would sail clear through to Asia. But many believed that such a westward journey was impossible. Columbus (an Italian) thought it was possible to get to Asia by sailing west.and he persuaded King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to sponsor his exploration and search for riches. 

On October 12, 1492, Columbus landed on a small island in the Bahamas. He was convinced that he had reached his intended destination of Asia. He wasn’t the first European to come across the Americas, but his expedition sparked enthusiasm for European exploration of the hemisphere and began a significant connection between the “Old World” and the “New World.”

The first celebration of Columbus’s landing in the New World occurred in 1792. It was organized by the Columbian Order (Society of St. Tammany) in New York City. In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared the occasion a national holiday. Columbus Day has been observed on the second Monday of October since 1971.

Of course Columbus Day, like just about anything you can name today, is surrounded by some controversy. The issue is that it’s acknowledged that Columbus’ landing in the New World marked the start of a new age of exploration and development for the world, but the European colonization brought disease, enslavement and genocide to the indigenous people of the Americas. The argument is that this part of colonial history has been largely overlooked by Columbus Day celebrations.
Some cities and states are choosing to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the second Monday in October to honor Native American culture.
So today some locations choose to celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead of, or alongside, Columbus Day.
— 30 —

Today is National Pierogi Day. I had never heard of a pierogi before I was married, but it turns out these “Polish dumplings” have been around since the 13th century. They originated in Eastern Europe as a tasty — and popular —dish among peasants. 
Americans are pretty much obsessed with food — that’s why we have cheeseburger day, ice cream day, potato day, etc. So it’s not surprising that pierogis have their own day. 

To make pierogis, you make a dough and boil it. After that, you can bake it and fry it in butter. Initially the peasants stuffed the dough with potatos, cheese, onions, cabbage, mushrooms, and spinach. But today, you can put anything inside the dough. Depending on the filling, pierogis can be a side dish, appetizer, or a dessert. 

My extensive research couldn’t find any real history behind today being Pierogi Day, or even find any indication of when it started. I did find one article that indicated that researchers are still working on finding some evidence of the importance and history of Pierogi Day. But until then, you can still  celebrate the day.

Claire’s family has their own Pierogi Day — every year, just after Thanksgiving, they get together and make pierogis by the hundreds. I think most are then eaten at Christmas. Maybe the day that the Stracensky family makes pierogis should be National Pierogi Day — but it isn’t. If pierogis are your thing, I don’t think there’s any reason you can’t celebrate both days.
— 30 — 

Both our kids went through a period of complaining about “rules.” They thought they were stupid and uncalled for didn’t make any sense and they shouldn’t apply to them. I tried to explain that as long as they lived in an organized society, rules and laws were necessary — they couldn’t just do as they pleased — their actions had an effect on other people.

I guess we all go through that thought process from time to time. From “No Parking” zones to “No Smoking” areas to the amount of water a toilet can use when it’s flushed…. it sometimes seems as if our society operates under too many rules and regulations. Sometimes it sure seems like it’s getting worse — I don’t remember so many rules in the past.

But — if you go back even just as far as the middle ages, virtually everything was regulated, and the regulations often varied according to social class. Take weddings for example — where the nobility could invite 48 people to their weddings, but servants or day laborers could only have 32 guests. And the wedding banquet or reception had to start promptly at noon in summer or at 11 a.m. in winter.

Just look at some of the “crimes” and the punishments that were imposed…
If a husband allowed his wife to rule the home or hit him, his fellow villagers would come to his house and remove the roof. 
The poor soul who fell asleep in church was forced to wear a heavy wooden rosary and stand by the church door before the service for a number of the following Sundays.
Fines were imposed for going to a fortune-teller or wearing a dress of more than two colors or arriving late for a wedding or serving meals or wine to guests after a baptism or being on the street at night without a lighted lantern.

In England a court sought to reduce competition among bakers by fixing the price of bread. It stipulated that fluctuations in the price of wheat would determine not the price of bread, but its weight. The statute also fixed the price of a gallon of ale according to the price of wheat, oats and barley. (The practice of adding extra bread to each loaf to avoid punishment for selling underweight bread is thought to be the origin of the “bakers dozen” — where, if a dozen loaves were ordered the buyer would, in effect, receive 13.) Bakers who sold loaves of bread that were too light for the advertised size were placed in something called a “bakers cage” or “bakers chair,” a seesaw device that dunked the baker in a pond. The number of dunkings was determined by the difference between the wrong weight and the right weight.

Today, it’s daunting enough to have to ask the father of your partner for their child’s hand in marriage. This practice is done out of respect — the answer given doesn’t decide your future, and you can still get married, even if the father doesn’t give his blessing. This wasn’t the case in the middle ages. Your rank in society played a big role in medieval life, especially for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Peasants and serfs working and living under landowners essentially had no freedom. A man wanting to get married not only had to get the father’s permission but also their landowners’s. For a woman it was even worse. If her husband died, the landowner could force her to marry another man in a relatively short amount of time.
So, the next time you are late to a wedding, or let your wife beat you up, just be happy you live in the 21st century…..
— 30 —