What Would Jimmy Do?

Tomorrow is World Ozone Day. The day is “celebrated” every year and every year there is a specific theme. This year, in 2023, the theme is Montreal Protocol: fixing the ozone layer and reducing climate change. 

The Montreal Protocol, finalized in 1987, is a global agreement to protect the stratospheric ozone layer by phasing out the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances (ODS.)  ODS are substances that were commonly used in products such as refrigerators, air conditioners, fire extinguishers, and aerosols. The Montreal Protocol has proven to be innovative and successful, and it is the first treaty to achieve universal ratification by all countries in the world.

In 2016, parties to the Montreal Protocol adopted the Kigali Amendment to phase down production and consumption of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) worldwide. HFCs are widely used alternatives to ODS such as Hydrochloroflourcarbons (HFCs) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs,) which are already controlled under the Protocol.

The latest update from the Scientific Assessment Panel to the Montreal Protocol confirmed that ozone layer recovery is on track and ozone levels are expected to return to 1980 levels by around 2066 over the Antarctic. 

So we’re making progress, but there’s still a long way to go — hopefully, we’ll get the world to cooperate on broader climate change issues……
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There’s been a lot in the news lately about the medical profession — most of it not particularly good. We keep hearing about all the “burn-outs” due to an overworked profession and then of course there’s the occasional medical “scandal” at some hospital, the VA, or somewhere else.

Anyhow, I was thinking about doctors — when I was growing up there was no doctor in Maysville until I was maybe about in high school — then there was one doctor. I’m sure there isn’t one there today. I’ve been to lots of doctors in various countries and from my perspective, across the board they’re much better right here in the good old USA. 

We didn’t have one in Maysville, but years ago, there were the witch doctors — many years ago, most people thought illness was a result of evil spirits and preferred to take their medical complaints to the local healer. 
Then about 2,500 years ago Hippocrates came along and hung out his shingle on the Greek island of Cos — and he had his work cut out for him. But he persevered and even established a medical school where he taught his new fangled ideas to the future doctors of Greece. He’s now known as “the Father of Medicine,” and even today, all medical school graduates in the U.S. take the oath he wrote.

His biggest contribution was that he treated patients based on scientific evidence. Well, at least mostly scientific anyway.
He was one of the first doctors to believe that disease wasn’t a punishment from the gods. He thought disease was the result of lack of balance in the body. He also believed in the importance of moderation in all things — working, eating drinking, exercising, sleeping, etc. to prevent disease.

And… the use of fasts and diets to cleanse the body, the importance of fresh air and a good diet, and the danger of being too overweight.

Some of his innovations included:
Putting his ear to his patients’ chest to check their lungs.
Aligning fractures
Popping dislocations back in place
Draining pus from infections.
All this sounds pretty obvious to us but it was incredibly groundbreaking at the time.

For all he got right, we can forgive him for a few mistakes. His biggest was his belief in the theory that every living thing contains certain mixtures of four elements, called “humours:” — black bile, phlegm, yellow bile, and blood. These four humours had to be in balance or illness would result. 

His Hippocratic Oath is still taken by doctors today — the oath lists the responsibilities of the physician to the patient — to work for the good of the patient, to do him or her no harm, to prescribe no deadly drugs, and to keep confidential any medical information regarding the patient — and the rights of the patient under the physician’s care. It warns doctors against overcharging (???) overdressing and wearing perfume. It encourages a pleasing bedside manner, but not too pleasing, because it forbids the doctor to have sex with patients. 

Even though Hippocrates gets all the credit, what’s considered his discoveries and beliefs is probably the collective results of the work of many students at his medical school. And even though he was wrong about a few things, he probably earned the title “Father of Medicine.”
Many of his quotes make a lot of sense today…..
“Prayer indeed is good, but while calling on the gods, a man should himself lend a hand.”
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”
“To do nothing is also a good remedy.”
So Hippocrates had lots of good advice, but my grandmother had pretty good advice too — she always said you should never go to a doctor whose office plants have died.
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As is often the case, Israel was in the news yesterday — and it included a little blurb on Golda Meir. I’m sure you know that Golda Meir was the Middle East’s first female head of state and she was one of the signers of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. She was also an important activist in labor and Zionist causes. 

But — did you know she grew up in Milwaukee? It’s true — in fact there are a number of institutions and schools in that city named after her. The University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee even named its main library for Meir.

Gold Mabovitch was born in Kyiv in what was then Russia on May 3, 1898. When she was five years old, her family moved to Pinsk, but in both places, they faced anti-Jewish persecution. Shortly after their move to Pinsk, her father immigrated to the United States to get the family our of Russia altogether.
Moshe Mabovitch worked as a carpenter to earn enough to bring his wife, Golda, and her sisters to Milwaukee. At the time, Milwaukee had a population of about 300,000 people, with a Jewish community of about 9,000.

She became one of the leaders of the Milwaukee branch of the National Committee for the Defense of Jews in Easter Europe — an organization protesting anti-Jewish programs.
She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1917, but because of her Zionist activism, she had her mind set on moving to Palestine. After getting married, the couple moved to Palestine in 1921 and lived in a communal settlement before settling in Jerusalem.

Meir was one of the 24 signers of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. She served as Israel’s top diplomat in the Soviet Union, and was elected to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament in 1949. That same year, she was named labor secretary in Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion’s cabinet. She rose to become foreign minister, but resigned, in 1966, amber being diagnosed with lymphoma.

When Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died unexpectedly in 1969, Meir, who was 71, was elected leader of Israel’s Labor Party and became the country’s fourth prime minister.
During her time in office, 11 Isreli athletes were massacred by Palestinian terrorist at the 1972 Munich Olympics and the 1973 Yom Kippur War occurred. She resigned in 1974, after her coalition government was not able to form a government. She died of lymphatic cancer at age 80, in 1978.
Who would have thought this all started in Milwaukee…..
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You remember back in July, I talked about the first (human) landing on the Moon. Well, today’s the anniversary of a special milestone in making that happen. As a bit of background, on May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced before a special joint session of Congress a dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon before the end of the decade. Kennedy’s decision was based on a number of political factors, and the timing of them. Kennedy felt great pressure to have the United States “catch up to and overtake” the Soviet Union in the “space race.”

The decision involved a lot of consideration before making it public and would require enormous human efforts and expenditures to make what became Project Apollo a reality by 1969. Only the construction of the Panama Canal in modern peacetime and the Manhattan Project in wartime were comparable in scope. 

But back to today…… On September 12, 1962, Kennedy stood in front of a crowd of roughly 35,000 at Rice University and delivered his historic speech — he declared that by the end of the decade, the United States would land astronauts on the Moon. The Rice University speech — not the one to Congress back in May — galvanized public support, and led to government investment. The U.S. government committed approximately $25 billion to the program — the NASA funding comprised 4.4% of the national budget in 1966.
Just seven years after the speech, Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the Moon and the world celebrated. It was a historic moment, but also a global victory for the U.S.
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I know every year on this date, I write about the events that occurred in 2001, but I think it’s important. The phrase “never forger” has become synonymous with September 11 — we should never forget what happened and do our best to ensure that it never happens again…..

On September 11, 2001, terrorists linked to the Islamic extremist group al Qaeda, founded by Osama bin Laden, hijacked four commercial passenger planes and carried out suicide attacks against targets in the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia and the passengers and crew of the fourth plane fought back, and the plane was downed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Almost 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the 19 al Qaeda terrorists. The President, George W. Bush, and his administration responded by declaring a “war or terrorism,” that included the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, and led to the invasion of Afghanistan. 
Citizens of 78 countries died in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.

On December 18, 2001, Congress approved naming September 11 “Patriot Day” to commemorate the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. In 2009, Congress named September 11 a National Day of Service and Remembrance. 

On the first anniversary of the attacks in New York City, two bright columns of light were shot up into the sky from where the Twin Towers once stood. The “Tribute in Light” then became an annual installation run by the Municipal Art Society of New Your. On clear nights, the beams are visible from over 60 miles away.

So today is one of those days that are etched in all our memories — a day we can never forget. Maybe President Obama said it best….”Even the smallest act of service, the simplest act of kindness, is a way to honor those we lost, a way to reclaim that spirit of unity that followed 9/11.”
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Today, September 10, 2023, is Grandparent’s Day. Both the readers of this blog know that Grandparent’s Day has it’s roots here in West Virginia. Grandparents Day is observed on the first Sunday after Labor Day in both the United States and Canada. 

A day celebrating grandparents was a fairly new idea when West Virginia native Marian McQuade pressed the U.S. Senate to proclaim a special day for grandparents in 1978. That same year, President Jimmy Carter signed the bill into law proclaiming special recognition for grandparents throughout the land.

In the UK, grandparent’s day is the first Sunday in October. In Germany, Grandmother’s Day is observed on the second Sunday in October. Grandparents Day (Dia del Abuelo) is celebrated in Mexico every year on August 28.
In Latin America and Spain, grandparents are called abuela and abuelo, in Italy, it’s nonna and nonno, in Germany, oma and opa and in the US we call them grandma and grandpa.

A lot of famous people have been raised by their grandparents, including President Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Jack Nicholson, Carol Burnett and Willie Nelson.

The median age of grandparents today is 48 and about 10% of them have tattoos.
The official flower of Grandparent’s Day is the forget-me-not.
Of those asked, 72% think being a grandparent is the single most important role in their lives. If you are one, you probably agree with that.
Grandparents Day is a great excuse for family get-togethers — of course, so is every other day!!!
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Practice does not make perfect — it was never intended to.
Rather, it increases our repertoire of ways to recover from our mistakes.
And — provides lessons learned of what not to do again.
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So last night officially kicked off this year’s NFL season. The NFL has now expanded beyond our borders, with games to be played in England and Germany this year. 

The NFL got its start in a car dealership — in 1920, representatives from several professional American football franchises met at Ralph Hay’s Hupmobile auto showroom in Canton, Ohio, to form what would eventually become the NFL. At the start, it was known as the American Professional Football association (APFA) before being changed to the NFL a couple of years later. 
The Green Bay Packers are the only publicly-owned franchise in the NFL. The team’s bylaws stipulate that profits are to be reinvested in the team or donated to charity.
The first live televised NFL game was played on October 22, 1939 between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Only about 500 TV sets in New York received the broadcast.
The longest game in NFL history took place on Christmas Day in 1971 between the Miami Dolphins and Kansas City Chiefs. The Dolphins won, after 82 minutes and 40 seconds, including two overtime periods.
Lamar Hunt, the founder of the American Football League (AFL) coined the term “Super Bowl” after watching his children play with a Super Ball — a popular toy in the 1960s. The name stuck and has been used since the third championship game.

So we’re off and running in the new football season. Good to have it back, because football is the most important of the less important things in the world.
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When I was a kid, my granddad always hauled stuff around in a “toe sack” — at least that’s what he called it and I grew up thinking the proper name for a burlap bag was a toe sack. I think everybody around Maysville used the term “toe sack.” 

I looked the term up and dictionaries say that it basically a US regional term that means a kind of burlap sack or a gunny sack. I found one example of the term being used in Lightning Bug by Donald Harington — it includes the following sentence: “You do not think it until he comes through the door, carrying the empty toe-sack in one hand and the revolver in the other.”

My extensive research kind of concluded that maybe what I heard as “toe sack” was really “tow sack.”
Tow is the leftovers from flax when the linen fibers are removed. It is very rough and doesn’t spin well, but can be spun to make a coarse fiber that makes a burlap type fabric, and it’s sometimes used to make ropes. Tow is usually a pale yellowish color. That may be why I remember that kids with blond hair were referred to as tow heads when I was growing up.

From what I can tell, a large sack made from loosely woven, coarse material is called by various names in different parts of the country. The most general term seems to be burlap bag, used pretty much everywhere, but especially in the Northeast. The preferred term in the Midwest and West appears to be gunnysack. The word gunny in gunnysack means “coarse heavy fabric made of jute or hemp.” In the South, a burlap bag is often called a tow sack, and for some reason, in eastern North Carolina, the term is a tow bag. In South Carolina, and parts of Georgia, a burlap bag is known as a crocus sack and in the Gulf States, you’ll hear croker sack. Crocus is a coarse, loosely woven material once worn by slaves and laborers — it was common in colonial New England.

So I haven’t seen a burlap bag, or “toe sack” like they had when I was a kid for a long time. Those bags, or sacks didn’t have a handle and were large — usually to hold and transport potatoes, or grain or other agricultural products. 
I guess I can now add toe sacks, or whatever you call them to something else that dates me — sigh….
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A few days ago (September 2) was the anniversary of the death of Ho Chi Minh.  The Vietnamese Communist revolutionary leader died on September 2, 1969 due to a heart attack. He was 79.
Even though this month marks the 24th year he’s been dead, the mention of his name brings back memories for all of us that lived through the “Vietnam era.”

Over the years he had lots of names — at birth, he was given the name Nguyēn Sinh Cung. Following Confucian tradition, it was changed at the age of 10 and throughout the years he wrote under pseudonyms, and during his life, while he engaged in all kinds of clandestine activities, it’s estimated he used anywhere between 50 and 200 aliases. He eventually settled on the name Ho Chi Minh — “he who has been enlightened.” He was often referred to by his admirers as “Uncle Ho.”

The French began their conquest of Vietnam in 1858 and consolidated their hold over the nation in 1885. Supposedly their purpose for being in Vietnam was to “civilize” the country, but they did little more than plunder it. Civil liberties were virtually non-existent, and protests were often met with merciless violence. It was this regime that Ho Chi Minh fought to overthrow and his effort made him famous, or notorious. 

Even though he had strong opposition to French imperialism, Ho Chi Minh had a lot of respect for the French people and for Western democratic values. He once stunned Western listeners when he opened an important speech by quoting America’s Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of Rights of Man.

When he was young, Ho Chi Minh spent four years in France — it was during that period that he officially became a communist. He wrote articles criticizing the capitalist West and participated in several international organizations established by the Soviet Union. By 1923, he was a “committed Stalinist.” However — Josef Stalin had little respect for his Vietnamese “comrade.” Ho went to Moscow on a diplomatic mission in 1950 and while there he asked Stalin to autograph a Soviet magazine for him. Stalin did, only to regret his decision later and ordered his bodyguards to discretely steal it back.

Of course he was most well known for his effort to unite and “free” Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh hoped to strike a deal with the French in which Vietnam wold be granted autonomy. He promised the French would be welcomed back as friends but not as conquerors. Unfortunately, a peaceful resolution wasn’t in the cards and Vietnam had to achieve independence through wars that would see hundreds of thousands killed. 

So today, there is a united Vietnam — in large part due to Ho Chi Minh. It didn’t happen the way he had hoped for, but he certainly made an impact on history. His choice to use the name Ho Chi Minh — “one who enlightens” probably says a lot about him — too bad things had to work out like they did.
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