What Would Jimmy Do?

I think I’ve mentioned before that our niece and nephew, Sue and Mike, have taken up Archery. I thought of them when I recently noticed a documentary on the longbow — I think it was maybe on PBS. I didn’t get to watch all of it but it was pretty interesting…. the program indicated that back in its day — roughly the 13 to 16th centuries — the longbow wasn’t just a weapon, it was the weapon, the supreme tool of any serious arsenal. It was probably invented in Germany or Scandinavia, it traveled to Wales, then England and made that country a superpower in Europe. 

Historians disagree on the original length of a longbow, but it was generally considered to be no less than five feet. Ideally, the bow was as tall, or maybe just a little taller than the person using it, and made from yew, a type of wood known for its elasticity. 

It was not an easy weapon to master. The “pull” of a longbow — the amount of force needed to stretch the bowstring back to where it needed to be, was between 80 and 110 pounds. Skeletons of longbow archers show signs of deformation consistent with the use of the bow. A spine curved in the direction of the pull arm, arm bones thick with compression, and coarsened bones in the fingers used to yank back the bowstring. The good news is that all that work of becoming a longbowman is that if he was experienced he could hit a target with killing force 200 yards out. And, he could fire six to ten times a minute — a firing rate that no practical weapon could match until well into the 19th century.

One thing that caught my attention was when in battle with a knight, wearing armor, the longbow arrow didn’t just bounce off the armor — it went right through, spearing the knight inside.

The longbow first rose to prominence during the Battle of Crecy, between the English and French. Edward I’s force of 8,000 men was led by his son, the Black Prince. The French forces had a firing rate of 3 to 5 volleys per minute — that proved to be no match for the English bowmen who could fire 10 to 12 arrows in the same amount of time.

The longbow’s military service came to an end at the end of the 16th century, not because it was obsolete as a weapon — even in the late 1500s there was still no weapon that could beat its combination of power, accuracy, and rate of fire — it was retired because there were too few people taking up archery as a profession. Someone once said, the longbow didn’t fail us — we failed it.
Maybe Mike and Sue can bring back its popularity and we’ll need to have “longbow control laws.”
— 30 —

A few days ago, I mentioned some people think that if a full Moon falls on certain days of the week, it’s lucky — or maybe unlucky.
I know I’ve blogged about this before, but since ancient times, moons and full moons, especially, have been associated with bizarre happenings of all kinds. As far as I can tell these notions fall into the superstition or folklore category, but a lot of people, including some members of our families absolutely believe there’s something to them….
For some, a full Moon is romantic, but for others, it evokes madness. But people have always been bewitched by the full Moon and are convinced it influences the human mind or spirit and the rhythms of nature. 

A full Moon only occurs about 12 times a year, give or take. so the repeating phases of the Moon have intrigued people for centuries. The Moon is regular in its cycle, but not exactly regular — so it took people some time to figure it out. 
Even the origin of the terms we use when discussing the Moon gives us some insight into our perception of the Moon — the words Lunacy, lunatic and loony all have their origins in the word “lunar.” And the persistent belief that werewolves morph into their canine incarnations when the Moon is full leads to the belief that it is a time of transformation and magic.

For years, many doctors and mental health professionals believed there was a strong connection between madness and the Moon. Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, wrote in the fifth century that “one who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is being visited by the goddess of the Moon.”
In 18th century England, people on trial for murder could campaign for a lighter sentence on grounds of lunacy if the crime occurred under a full Moon. Even today, contrary to scientific evidence, some people think full Moons make everyone a little loony. 

In the 1820s, the Bavarian astronomer Franz von Paula Gruithuisen claimed to have glimpsed entire cities on the Moon with his telescope. He wrote that the “lunarians” who live there had built sophisticated buildings, roads and forts. Most of his colleagues scoffed at his assertion, but he eventually got a small luna crater named after him. 

One theory that still exists today is that full Moons cause an uptick in births, flooding maternity wards with mothers-to-be in labor. Studies have turned up little statistical evidence for Moon-induced baby booms.

Several science-fiction books of the early 20th century, including H.G Wells’ The First Men in the Moon, take place within a hollow Moon inhabited by aliens. In 1970 two Soviet scientists took this seemingly whimsical premise a step further, proposing that the Moon is actually a shell-like alien spacecraft built by extraterrestrials with superior technology and intelligence. 

After World War II, rumors circulated that German astronauts had traveled to the moon and established a top-secret facility there. Some even speculated that Adolf Hitler faked his own death, fled the planet and lived out the rest of his days in an underground lunar hideout. 

Legends from various traditions around the world, including Buddhism and Native American folklore, recount the tale of a rabbit that lives on the moon. This shared myth may reflect common interpretations of markings on the lunar surface — an alternate take on the famous “man in the Moon.”

There is actually a bit of logic to the myths linking the Moon and human behavior. Earth, much like the human body, is composed mostly of water. If the Moon’s gravitational pull can affect ocean tides, so the reasoning goes, couldn’t it also affect a person’s body? Some American Indian tribes considered the full Moon to be the best time to detox and take part in “sweat lodge” rituals. Their thinking was that “at that point, the Moon’s pull is going to pull more out of you.”

Even today some people consult the lunar calendar when deciding when to have surgery. Each part of the zodiac corresponds with a part of the body. As the Moon moves through the different signs, the superstitious caution against medical intervention on that body part or region.
And farmers who’s livelihoods depend on the health of their crops — planting by the phases of the Moon is still common in some rural areas.
So the Moon always has, and will probably continue to fascinate us in her simplicity, but remember that we’re all under the same sky, looking at the same Moon….
— 30 —

Today, we’re going to talk about art….
Pained expressionist? Embarrassing failure? All of the above? On December 24, 1888, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, suffering from severe depression, cut off the lower part of his left hear with a razor while staying in Aries, France. He later documented the event in a painting titled “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear.”
Vincent van Gogh was born in Groof Zundert, Holland, in 1853. From his early youth he was thought to be a bit strange — some even called him freakish. He was a failure at everything he tried — except painting.
Twice in his life he tried to cultivate romance with women that rejected him outright. The woman he finally had a relationship with was a prostitute — a fact that scandalized his family. 
He chose to associate with the poor and downtrodden. He completely rejected all aspects of middle-class respectability. He was prone to volatile mood swings and mental breakdowns. The best description of hime was that he was just a weirdo.

Of course if you ask most people what they know about van Gogh, you’ll more than likely get some vague reference to an ear-chopping incident. But why did he do that? 
To this day, scholars continue to put forth various theories that attempt to expose the true story of Vincent van Gogh and the severed ear. The truth is probably some combination of actual events and all the theories and speculation about what happened. 

From what I can tell, the most widely accepted story goes something like this….
By 1888, van Gogh, who was then 35 years old, had become sadly disillusioned with life in Paris. Besides being a misfit, he was a failure. He couldn’t sell any of his paintings, so he moved to Aries, in the south of France, where he planned to establish an artist’s colony. He invited fellow painter Paul Gauguin to live with him. From the outset, the relationship between the two was volatile to say the least — van Gogh was a foreigner to all of the normal social graces of decent living — a thing that annoyed the heck out of Gauguin. On Christmas Eve, 1888, the two men got into an argument — the argument became a brawl and Vincent attacked Gauguin with a razor, but Gauguin managed to ward off the blow…. and van Gogh fled to his room
Vincent proceeded to get hopelessly drunk. He soon came to regret his intense display towards Gauguin. In his drunken stupor he concocted a way that he could make amends — he would cut off his ear (????) as a show of remorse. Holding a razor in his right hand, he stood in front of a mirror and sliced through his left ear from the top of the lobe, working down at an angle.
Then van Gogh gift-wrapped the severed portion of his ear in a handkerchief and took it down to his local bordello where he, covered in blood, sought out Rachel — a prostitute he had a crush on — and handed her the package. The legend has it that the poor girl fainted. The brothel was thrown into turmoil, and Vincent beat feet. The police found him asleep in his bed the following morning. 

He spent the next 12 months in an asylum, but apparently they weren’t big on rehab back in those days. Two years later, he ended his life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. 
His work — and the romantic(?) story of the tortured, antihero artist have become the stuff legends are made of.
— 30 —

There seems to have been a lot of talk about navigation lately — Tesla’s self-driving cars are getting a lot of publicity, and not the kind they’d like and then there was the Chinese Balloon’s path; the news media sometimes listed its location by latitude and longitude. Latitude and longitude are how we navigate the globe. Our car’s GPS only knows where it is by latitude and longitude coordinates. It just displays the map for all of us too stupid, or lazy to to navigate by coordinates. 

The quest for an accurate gauge of longitude is an interesting story — and finding an accurate gauge of longitude literally opened up the world.
Think back to maybe the fourth grade — when you learned about latitude and longitude. Now if you can find one, look at a globe. On the globe, you’ll notice it is sliced by a bunch of lines going two separate directions. The horizontal lines are called “latitude.” They tell you how many degrees you’re north or south of the Equator. That means the the vertical lines are longitude.They tell you how far east or west you are using the longitude line that runs through Greenwich, England (for no really good reason) as the prime meridian. By using longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, you can find any spot on the globe. 

But finding your longitude is much harder than finding your latitude. Latitude is set by the equator — a fixed point. That means, even out at sea, it’s simple to gauge your latitude by the length of the day or the position of the Sun. But longitude is more dynamic — it moves as the Earth rotates. Every four minutes, longitude shifts one degree. So — determining longitude, especially at sea, long ago was considered a problem as insoluble as finding the fountain of youth or turning lead into gold.

Just knowing your latitude, or where you were in a northerly or southernly sort of way was perfectly adequate for a time, but as humans and their ships navigated farther and farther from the shore, it became apparent that there was a need for accurate positioning data. Traditional methods of measuring longitude were laughably inaccurate. One scheme worth mentioning is the method in which distance was measured by counting how many rope knots, spaced about 50 feet apart, slipped out of a sailor’s finger in 28 seconds (this is where the nautical term for speed, “knots” came from.) This would be fine as long as you traveled in a direct straight line and were constantly gauging your speed. But no one on a ship ever did either one of those things — the former because of waves, cross-currents, and winds. The latter, just because — maybe the sailors were busy singing sea shanties and playing the hornpipe. Anyhow, this way of measuring distance was known as “dead reckoning,” because a navigator deduced the ship’s position based on speed and direction of travel — and the time elapsed since the last known position. 

While latitude only required the knowledge of the date and ability to determine the angle of the Sun, longitude required another measurement — the knowledge of the exact time at a place that was not where your were…. let’s call that place Greenwich, England. Due to the rotation of the Earth, noon comes at different times at different places east and west on the Earth. If you spotted the Sun at high noon wherever you were, and then noted the time difference between you and Greenwich, you could determine your longitude distance from that point. But what you need is a clock set to Greenwich mean time — and — it must keep excellent time. 

This was a much easier problem if you were on land. By the 17th century clocks were reasonably accurate thanks to the principle of the pendulum. However, pendulum clocks aren’t practical on sailing ships — especially the rickety ones that people used to cross the seas back in the early days. You just can’t use a pendulum clock on a ship that’s rocking and rolling on the waves. 

The longitude problem haunted sailors for centuries and captains of ships had to rely on dead reckoning, which essentially meant they were guessing, or steering the ship by the seat of their pants. Ships were forced to stick to the few safe routes everyone knew.

Finally, in 1714, merchants and sea captains banded together and brought a petition to the British Parliament to solve the longitude problem. The government paid attention and offered a reward to anyone who could solve it. The Longitude Act, issued on July 8, 1714, offered a prize for a practical and useful method to determine longitude to an accuracy of half a degree.
As you might guess, this led to some really stupid ideas being submitted. One suggested stationing warships in permanent positions across the Atlantic — at midnight Greenwich time, they’d send up fireworks that could be seen for 100 miles around. Ships at sea could take their reading from there. Of course, this solution assumes there was a practical method for the “fireworks ships” to know when it’s Greenwich time… obviously if that were the case, there would be no need for the ships at all. The entries became so cockamamie that the “quest for longitude” became a shorthand phrase for insanity.

Finally, a guy named John Harrison, a self-taught clockmaker and carpenter, came to the rescue. Harrison did three things. First, he replaced the pendulum with balance springs. Second, he made the springs with a combination of metals to compensate for shrinkage and expansion. And finally, for the wood casings and other wood parts of his timepiece, Harrison used a tropical wood that was self-lubricating to reduce friction. What this all meant is that John Harrison had created the first timepiece that could keep accurate time at sea. 

Harrison created four versions of his timepiece — he took the first version, the H1, on its maiden voyage to Lisbon in 1734 and got so violently seasick that he never sailed again. His final version, the H4, was taken on a voyage from England to Jamaica — a trip that took more than 80 days — and his “clock” only lost five seconds.
So Harrison not only came up with the means to establish accurate positions at sea, he also gave the world the most accurate time measurement it had ever seen. It turns out that to know where you are, you must also know when you’re there. 
I’ve always heard that timing is everything — I guess that’s true if you’re looking for your place in the world.
— 30 —

It’s become a kind of tradition to talk about various holidays every year, but the problem is that it’s hard to say something different every year — there’s only so much to be said for most holidays. Easter is no exception…. after a few years the discussion about the real meaning and importance of Easter and the Easter Bunny, chocolate eggs, egg hunts, etc. begin to sound like a broken record.

Anyhow, I thought this year I’d focus on Easter being a “movable feast.” Easter occurs on the first Sunday after the “Paschal Full Moon” — that means the first full Moon immediately following the vernal (spring) equinox. Of course, like most things, it’s more complicated than that — because Easter isn’t based on the actual Moon or equinox date…. here’s the connection between the Moon and Easter.

I mentioned that Easter is what’s known as a movable feast — that means that Easter jumps around the calendar and is a religious holiday that falls on a different calendar date from year to year.

The date of Easter is tied to the relationship between the Paschal Full Moon — whose dates are based on calculations made long ago, and the Church’s fixed date of the March equinox (the spring or vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere) which is March 21. This makes determining when Easter will be more confusing because of the (occasional) differences between the “Church dates” and the astronomical dates. 

Here’s the “rule-of-thumb” I found for determining the date:
“Easter is observed on the Sunday following the first full Moon that occurs on or after the March equinox.” But occasionally, as I said, the Church’s dates don’t coincide with the astronomical dates, in which case the “rule-of-thumb” won’t apply.
First, let’s define the terms:
The astronomical dates of the full Moon and the March equinox are the actual, scientifically determined dates of those events.
The Church’s dates of the full Moon and the March equinox are those used by the Christian Church. They were defined long ago in order to aid in the calculation of Easter’s date. That means that they may differ from the astronomical dates of those events.

In A.D. 325, a full Moon calendar was created that did not take into account all the factors of lunar motion that we know about today. The Christian Church still follows this calendar, which means that the date of the ecclesiastical full Moon may be one or two days off from the date of the astronomical full Moon. And — the astronomical date of the equinox changes over time, but the Church has fixed the event in their calendar to March 21. This means that the Church date of the equinox will always be March 21, even if the astronomical date is March 19 or 20,

Using the astronomical dates for 2023, the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere occurred on Monday, March 20. The first full Moon to occur after that equinox date is April’s full Pink Moon, that reached peak illumination on Thursday, April 6 at 12:37 a.m. Eastern Time. According to the rule-of-thumb, that makes April’s full Moon the Paschal Full Moon [“Paschal” comes from Pascha, the Greek and Latin word for Passover] so Easter is observed on the first Sunday after April 6 — that’s today, April 9.
Happy Easter!
— 30 —

Today is Good Friday. Good Friday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal triduum (or three days) on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday.
On this day, Jesus was crucified — it is a day of mourning. Good Friday is often referred to as Black Friday. Some people believe the term Good Friday is probably the remainder of what was once called God’s Friday. According to some beliefs, the contradictory word “good” is used to describe this day because the eventual outcome was good. 

Several traditions are followed around the world on Good Friday at various places. One tradition that I’ve seen in other countries that I don’t remember seeing here is the ending of the Good Friday service with tolling the church’s bell 33 times. Why 33 times? Because that is the customary age Jesus is believed to have been when he died. According to Luke 3:23 He was about thirty when He began His ministry and John mentions three Passovers during his ministry which brings Him to the age of thirty-three. 

One interesting thing about Good Friday is that it’s much older than the celebration of Christmas. Even in the Bible, there is no mention of the of Jesus’ birth but it does specify His crucifixion. 
Good Friday is considered the most somber day of the Christian year.
— 30 —

April’s full Moon will look full tonight, but will actually reach peak illumination just after midnight at 12:27 a.m. EDT (April 6th.) This year, April’s full Moon is the first full Moon of the spring season, which began with the spring equinox on March 20, 2023.
That means that April’s full Moon is the Paschal Full Moon — an important Moon for Easter, since Easter’s date depends on the date of the Paschal Full Moon.

Full Moon names come from a number of places, including Native American, Colonial American and European sources. Traditionally, each full Moon name was applied to the entire lunar month in which it occurred — not only to the full Moon. 

So why is this month’s the full Pink Moon? Actually, it’s not the color of the Moon — April’s full Moon often corresponded with the early springtime blooms of a certain wildflower native to eastern North America: Phlox subulata — commonly called creeping phlox or moss phlox — which also went by the name “moss pink.” Due to this seasonal association, this full Moon came to be called the “Pink” Moon.

Other names for the April Moon that you probably haven’t heard include these from various Native Americans: Breaking Ice Moon (Algonquin,) Moon of the Red Grass Appearing (Oglala,) Moon When the Ducks Come Back (Lakota,) Moon When the Geese Lay Eggs (Dakota,) Frog Moon (Cree,) and the Sucker Moon, that notes the time to harvest sucker fish, which return to streams or lake shallows to spawn. According to legend, now is the time when this fish comes back from the spirit world to purify bodies of water and the creatures living in them.

Full Moons supposedly effect some people’s behavior, but a full Moon can also determine your luck….
It’s lucky to have a full Moon on the “Moon day” (Monday) but it’s unlucky to have full Moon on Sunday.
So if the skies are clear and the weather is warm, I think tonight’s full Pink Moon should be  lucky….
— 30 —

Today is one of those Chinese holidays that, like most, is seeped in tradition. Every year, on the 15th day after the Spring Equinox, Chinese People celebrate Qīngmíng jié — the Tomb Sweeping Festival. This year, that’s today — April 5. 
The festival has been held for more than 2,500 years, but it only became an official public holiday in China in 2008.

In order to observe Qīngmíng jié Chinese people go to the cemetery to honor, remember and celebrate the memory of their dead relatives and ancestors. 
The ceremony is divided into three main parts. The first part consists of tombs and graves being tended, cleaning and removing any debris from the tombstones.
Praying is part two of the Qīngmíng ritual. A member of the family lights incense sticks, which are stuck into the ground. Family members then take turns and offer prayers to their ancestors. 
During the third part of the ceremony offerings are given to the deceased. This can be in the form of food, alcohol, paper goods or so called “ghost money” being burned as a formal offering for the afterlife of the beloved. (In return for this it is believed that ancestors will bless their living family members and help them have prosperous year in today’s world.) 
At the end of the entire ceremony all the family members gather around the tomb and throw colored papers in the air, toward heaven for blessing.

That’s the way the Qīngmíng festival is intended to be celebrated. But as you might expect, today’s generation has their own version of the celebration — kind of like Qīngmíng Festival 2.0.

In the modern version of the rite a big emphasis is given to the material aspects of the ceremony — paper made goods in the form of cars, smart phones, tablets and other technological gadgets are especially made for this occasion, while wealth and luck is asked in return. And — people that live too far from their ancestors tombs are now able to send flowers, candles or food through the Internet. In fact, special websites have been created for this festival addressed as “Internet memorials.” All that has to be done is select the items and make an online payment to the website and the goods will be delivered.
It’s interesting that this convenient method to honor Qīngmíng jié has been encouraged by local authorities because it’s considered eco-friendly and also reduces the risk of accidental fires during ceremonies. 

Anyhow, the festival is not only a day for remembering and honoring the departed, but also a day to be spent with family outdoors or traveling in the spring after a long winter.
— 30 —

Since it’s the Easter season, it seems like a discussion about saints might be in order. A few blogs a while back, I mentioned that St. Dustan was the patron saint of blacksmiths. Well, that got me to thinking…. no matter who you are, what you do, or don’t do, for a living, whatever your situation, you’ve got a patron saint — whether you want one or not.

The term “Patron” is used in Christian religions, including the Roman Catholic religion, to describe holy and virtuous men and women who are considered to be a defender of a specific group of people or of a country. There is a patron for virtually every cause, country, profession or special interest. There are two categories of saints — martyrs and confessors.
A “martyr” has been killed for his or her Christian beliefs; a “confessor” has been tortured or persecuted for his or her faith, but not killed.

When I looked this up, I ran across quite a few “interesting” saints, like….
If you work in television, or even just sit in front of the TV a lot, you’ve got a patron saint — Saint Clare of Assisi. She’s not as famous or well-known as another saint from Assisi — St. Francis is the real well-known one — the one who’s always shown with all the cute animals around him or birds on his shoulder. Anyhow, Clare started an order called the Poor Clares, but she wasn’t poor to begin with. She had everything — she was pretty and nice, and lively and rich. But St. Francis converted her. He did such a good job that she swung totally in the other direction — she and her poor Clares wore no shoes, slept on the ground and lived in absolute poverty. They had to beg for food. So why is she the patron saint of TV? One Christmas, in the 13th century, when she was old and sick and couldn’t make it to the midnight services, Clare heard singing and saw a vision of the nativity scene on her wall. I’m not sure, but that may have been one of the earliest instances of streaming….

As I said, just about everyone has a patron saint — even henpecked husbands. So if you’re one of them kind of guys, you’ve got somebody to pray to… but he does have a sort of goofy sounding name — St. Gomer — he was an 8th century Germanic knight who is said to have had infinite patience. While Gomer was meek and pious, he was married to a shrew beyond belief. She was mean to his employees when he was away on business, so he had to perform miracles every time he got back to keep them happy. I guess it’s appropriate that St. Gomer is the patron saint of henpecked husbands.

It turns out there is a patron saint of hangovers. I’m not sure she’s the real patron saint of hangovers — but she’s the one you pray to when you’ve got one. St. Bibiana was a Roman female martyr — to the Romans she was “Vibiana.” The best story I’ve heard is that she arrived at her patronage by a silly mistake. To the Romans, she was “Viviana,” “full of life,” but the Spanish pronounce Vs like Bs and it came out as” Bibiana,” “full of drink.”

So it seems no matter what your plight, you’ve got a saint to pray to. That’s good — I’ve heard that prayer is a wine that makes glad the heart of men….
— 30 —

Today is the Sunday before Easter and begins Holy Week, sometimes referred to as Passion Week — today is Palm Sunday…. it’s also the sixth Sunday and final day of Lent. 

Today is observed to mark the occasion when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey — people in Jerusalem threw palm leaves on the floor to greet Jesus. 

On Palm Sunday, palm leaves are blessed and then collected to be burned into ash to be used in the following year’s Ash Wednesday celebration. People also make crosses out of palm leaves because they are considered a symbol of goodness and victory. 
The colors of the Mass on Palm Sunday are red and white,symbolizing the redemption in blood that Christ paid for the world. 
Jesus rode a donkey because in those times, it was common for kings or important people to arrive by a procession riding on a donkey. The donkey is a symbol of peace and riding on it showed the person had peaceful intentions. 
Palm Sunday is one of the most important days in the Christian calendar after Christmas and Easter. 
Pope Benedict XVI said, “Palm Sunday tells us that it is the cross that is the true tree of life.”
— 30 —