What Would Jimmy Do?

Yesterday, 17 August was Indonesian Independence Day — I didn’t get around to mentioning it, I guess because I was pre-occupied with “Cat Nights.”

I’ve mentioned before that I was in Jakarta one year for Independence Day and I usually remember it around this time of year. Indonesian Independence Day is known locally as Hari Merdeka and is observed every August 17 to celebrate the nation’s declaration of independence from Dutch colonization — in 1945.

Indonesia is the largest island nation on Earth, and Java is the world’s most populous island. There are a lot of volcanos in Indonesia, some of them pretty famous — the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 is believed to be the loudest sound ever heard in recorded history. Mount Tambora erupted in 1816 and the eruption was so intense, it altered the climate so much it was incredibly cold throughout the year — 1816 is known as “The Year Without A Summer” and there’s a volcano in Indonesia that erupts blue lava. 

Even though two-thirds of the 17,508 islands that make up Indonesia are uninhabited, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country on Earth.
Borobudur is the largest Buddhist temple in the world. It was built in the 9th century and was constructed using over two million stone blocks.
The national animal is the komodo dragon — the world’s largest lizard. The national mystical animal of Indonesia is the Garuda — it is a golden bird that can be seen on Indonesia’s national emblem. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Indonesian Airlines airplanes…. the airline? Garuda.

Unlike the American Declaration of Independence, which contained over 1,000 words and contained 56 signatures, the Indonesian proclamation, when translated to English, consisted of only 45 words and contained two signatures — Sukarno, the new president, and Mohammad Hatta, the new vice president. It was drafted the night before declaring independence.
Happy Independence Day to Indonesia.
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Today is August 17, and the beginning of Cat Nights. Back in July we discussed the “dog days of summer.” In August, the Dog Star Sirius is no longer visible in the predawn sky, bringing an end to the Dog Days of Summer. So I guess that it’s appropriate that if dogs have their days, cats should have their nights.

Probably not a lot of people are familiar with “Cat Nights,” but it’s pretty old, going back to when most people believed in witches. 
A somewhat obscure old Irish legend said that a witch could turn herself into a cat eight times, but on the ninth time she couldn’t regain her human form. This legend is the origin of the phrase “a cat has nine lives.”

But what does the legend have to do with Cat Nights? Well — summer nights in August are getting longer and cooler. We notice the seasonal change, but animals are much more sensitive than we are to those changes. You’ve probably noticed animals are a little more lively this time of year. Cats, in particular, are more active at dusk and dawn. Cats see eight times better in the dark than we can. They can see colors and their eyes are much more sensitive to movements than our eyes. And cats are, by nature, nocturnal hunters — so their superior night vision means the nights belong to them.

So this time of year it’s nice to sit outside, or take a walk in the evening, but if you see a cat, be sure it is a cat and not a witch lurking about…..
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Today, August 16, is National Rum Day. Quite a few years ago, rum was a very popular drink — at least with the crowd I associated with. Rum and Coke was popular and most gatherings usually featured a few pitchers of Daiquiris. Some of my friends were very fond of Myers dark rum, and drank it over ice. 

Rum has been a staple of the economy of the Americas just about from its founding. Today, people put run into various cocktails, punches and mixed drinks.
Some form of rum has been distilled since the third century, but it wasn’t until the 17th century that colonizers started growing sugarcane in the Caribbean that it’s popularity really took off. Molasses is a byproduct of sugar production and rather than let this excess go to waste, it was distilled into booze.
It was initially called “kill devil” because of its high alcohol content — and — its less than savory taste. But the process of fermenting and distilling molasses became more sophisticated and the concoction became significantly more enjoyable. 

The etymology of the word “rum” is still debatable, but most agree that it is probably derived from the terms rumbuillion or rumbustion — both mean an upheaval. But the term was eventually shortened to rum.
Rum production spread throughout the Caribbean — and beyond, to islands such as Bermuda and Jamaica, becoming one of the most popular spirits….. it was even used as currency in some places. 
Rum became so popular in America that it eventually contributed to 80% of the exports from New England, and a tax on sugar in the 1760s led directly to the American Revolution. 

Of course, like many/most labor-intensive industries of the early American colonies — sugarcane (and rum) trade was based on slave labor and rum’s popularity contributed to the slave trade in America. 

But we have a bit of rum in our house — some of it purchased in the Caribbean while on cruises. It still makes great drinks and you can drink it anytime. One good thing about it is that drinking rum before noon makes you a pirate, not an alcoholic.
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Last year at this time I mentioned that we have new residents across the circle from our house, and they are originally from India. So in the spirit of world harmony, I’d like to wish our neighbors a happy 76th, or maybe 77th, Independence Day today. Why is there some confusion as to India’s Independence Day? Well, let me explain…..

Independence Day (Swatantrata Diwas) is celebrated on August 15 and is declared a National Holiday in India.
On 15 August, 1947, India got its freedom, ending an almost 200-year British rule on the subcontinent. It’s a day of pride for all indians and it commemorates the sacrifices made by millions of freedom fighters, who sacrificed their lives in the freedom struggle and forced the British empire to finally retreat. 

But every year, there is some confusion about which Independence Day is it? This year, India will cross a milestone of 76 years of freedom from British Rule. So — is India celebrating its 76th or 77th Independence Day in 2023?
On August 15, 1947, India earned its long-fought independence from British domination. This implies that India celebrated its first year of independence on August 15, 1948, 10 years later on August 15, 1957, twenty years later on August 15, 1967, and seventy years later in 2017. So this year marks the 76th anniversary of freedom.
But — counting the number of Independence Days celebrated in India since August 15, 1947, which would count as the first, the total will be 77. So by that reasoning, India will celebrate its 77th year of Independence in 2023. Both arguments are valid. 

But whether you think it’s the 76th or 77th, the Prime Minister of India will hoist the national flag at Delhi’s historic old Red Fort monument and make an address to the nation — that will be followed by a military parade. 

Last year I described the significance of the colors of India’s flag — you can check last year’s entry, if you’re interested. But I should mention that India’s national flag was adopted in its present form 23 days before India’s independence. The flag is made from khadi which is domestically spun Indian cotton as a symbol of nationalism and freedom.
Happy Independence Day to India.
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We have an ongoing project around our house — we have thousands of old photographs taken over the years and we’re making an attempt to organize them and scan them into a digital format. I’ve got the job of scanning and Claire has the un-enviable  job of categorizing them and identifying the subjects. 

Anyhow, as I’ve gone through these old pictures, I noticed that a lot of the pictures were of friends, and families, gathered together. It made me think about the way people take pictures these days. If you check the pictures you’ve taken on your iPhone, I’d bet it’s full of screenshots and selfies. Why don’t people take pictures with their friends — or family — anymore?

I mentioned screenshots — a lot of the pictures I have on my phone are of things I need to buy a part for, or to remember, or something someone sent to me for some reason — it’s more of a memory/reference book than a photo album.

I noticed a lot of our older pictures are of groups, usually families, gathered in from of the house. The house seems to always be a part of the picture. Front-of-the-house family photos seemed to have been  the thing back then.
I suppose before people had cameras, they must have hired photographers to take their pictures. Since a lot of these pictures are in front of the house, I guess photographers made “house calls” like doctors. But we do have some old photos that were quite probably taken in a photographers studio. 
I hadn’t thought about it before, but maybe having these pictures taken in front of a house was to send a message that the family was prosperous enough to own their home. I noticed that a lot of the newer — but still “old” — pictures were often taken at what looked like a picnic or  with a car of some kind in the picture…. again, maybe that was sending a message about their “wealth.”

But what’s with all theses selfies? The Oxford Dictionary declared “selfie” the word of the year in 2013. At that time, it was defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself.”  But today it seems to be a bit more than that…. it’s kind of a photograph that “features” oneself. 
And to be honest, our society has become so complicated, that taking group pictures is more difficult, and people may think it’s intrusive. You now have to worry about being sued or some kind of legal action being taken anytime you’re around other people.

Looking at our old pictures, it seems that they weren’t taken just for the sake of taking a picture — a lot of them marked some important event or milestone — a baptism, wedding, or maybe a vacation. 
Looking through the pictures on my phone, doesn’t feature many special events — there’s probably more pictures of “stuff” and “things” than people — or — special occasions.
If your phone pictures are like that, maybe it means that our online life is becoming more important than our offline existence…. maybe we should change that. It might be nice to look at our families in front of the house again…..
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I usually mention about this time every year that August 13 is kind of a special day around here. It’s the day that Claire and myself went on our first official date and it’s also my dad’s birthday.
I suppose that I should mention that it’s also International Left-Handers Day, but somehow that pales in significance compared to the other reasons to celebrate today.

Mine and my dad’s birthdays alway fall on the same day of the week — this year, that’s a Sunday. It’s the 33rd Sunday of this year — and — there are only 140 days left in 2023. 
In 1971, the year of our first date, August 13th was a Friday — turns out that was a good omen.
My dad was born in 1908, so today would be his 115th birthday.
And 52 years ago today, we went to see Blood, Sweat and Tears.
So August 13 remains special around here.
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We get a monthly magazine from an investment firm and looking through the last issue, there was an article titled “The Mysteries of History.” It had brief paragraphs about a lot of “mysteries” both past and present. It mentioned things like Big Foot, The Lost Colony, the Lizzy Borden Home, Area 51/UFOs, the Escape from Alcatraz, and things like that. 

I thought this might be a good time to talk about a present day mystery — one that’s a lot closer to my life than you might know….
Krypton is a sculpture located in the courtyard at the CIA’s headquarters. The sculpture is a 12-foot tall, S-shaped copper scroll supported by a petrified tree.The scroll is made up of four panels, stacked and welded together. The bend of the S and the position of onlookers determines how lines are read — left to right, backward and forward. The four panels contain four encrypted messages — altogether there are 1,735 letters on the scroll. 
The sculpture is known as Kryptos — the Greek word for “hidden.” The letters look like gibberish because it’s a cipher. The sculpture was created by Washington native, Jim Sanborn. And it was his idea to place it in the courtyard at CIA — a very appropriate place considering CIA has some of the best cryptographers in the world. 

The sculpture contains four encrypted messages. It was dedicated in 1990 by CIA Director William Webster and thirty three years later, only three of the messages have been decoded, or “solved.” NSA was able to decode the first three messages pretty quickly by using computers. Much more impressive is the fact that CIA employee David Stein decoded the messages by hand in 1999. He estimates that it took about 400 hours of painstaking, convoluted thinking to break the codes.

Something that isn’t well known about Kryptos is that the scroll isn’t all there is to it. Scattered around the courtyard there are shrubs, some polished granite formations, a koi pond, etc. — all part of Kryptos. Those granite structures can also be found elsewhere on the grounds — one has a Morse code motif, and another has a compass rose pointing at — the unknown?

Now here’s why I mentioned that I feel a bit of a connection to Kryptos — while Sanborn created the Kryptos sculpture, the task of writing the cipher fell to a CIA employee that I know very well, and served with on several assignments at various places in the world. We are both the same age and retired roughly about the same time. Sanborn contacted my friend and they met at secret locations in the Washington area and they wrote down almost nothing and didn’t use electronic devices. To Sunburn’s credit he was able to remember their conversations well enough to get back to his studio and hammer out the messages — that probably explains the few minor mistakes in the code on the panels. 

The first three panels of the sculpture were designed not to last a long time, but with the fourth panel, the two wanted to “make it a challenge.” If you’re interested, you can find the encoded text of Kryptos on the Internet — including Section IV that ,as of today, remains a mystery.

The message of Kryptos, and a partial guide to its solution, is contained in the panels of the sculpture. The passages follow a theme of concealment and discovery — each more difficult to decipher than the last.

The first reads: BETWEEN SUBTLE SHADING AND THE ABSENCE OF LIGHT LIES THE NUANCE OF IQLUSION.” (The misspelling was intentional, according to Mr. Sanborn, to make it more difficult to decode — or, as he put it, “to mix it up.”)

The second includes the location of the CIA headquarters by latitude and longitude and then asks: “DOES LANGLEY KNOW ABOUT THIS? THEY SHOULD: IT’S BURIED OUT THERE SOMEWHERE. X WHO KNOWS THE EXACT LOCATION? ONLY WW.” (The WW is a reference to William Webster, the head of the CIA when the sculpture was unveiled. It’s said that Mr. Sanborn provided him with a key for deciphering the message.)

The third panel paraphrases, again with a bit of misspelling, the account by the Egyptologist Howard Carter of opening King Tut’s tomb: “SLOWLY, DEPARATLY, SLOWLY, THE REMINS OF PASSAGE DEBRIS THAT ENCUMBERED THE LOWER PART OF THE DOORWAY WAS REMOVED. WITH TREMBLING HANDS I MADE A TINY BREACH IN THE UPPER LEFT-HAND CORNER. AND THEN, WIDENING THE HOLE A LITTLE, I INSERTED THE CANDLE AND PEERED IN. THE HOT AIR ESCAPING FROM THE CHAMBER CAUSED THE FLAME TO FLICKER, BUT PRESENTLY DETAILS OF THE ROOM WITHIN EMERGED FROM THE MIST. XCAN YOU SEE ANYTHING? Q” (The enciphered texts didn’t include any punctuation — any punctuation was added after the text was deciphered.)

The fourth section is shorter than the others, it’s just 97 characters. That fact could, in itself, present a decryption challenge — common solution methods rely on the frequency of the most common letters. The last passage also uses what is known as a masking technique, a further level of obfuscation. 
As I said, the fourth Section has not been solved. Over the years, Mr. Sanborn has offered “clues” to help unravel the mystery ‚ they are in the form of “cribs” that are words or phrases that appear in the decrypted text. In 2010, his clue was BERLiN. In 2014 he reveled the word CLOCK. His last clue was the word NORTHEAST. 

Jim Sanborn is now 74 or 75 year old. What if Section IV isn’t solved before he dies? He has apparently decided that if the code is not broken when he dies, the secret will be put up for auction. He said the buyer could reveal the secret or perpetuate the mystery. The money raised would go to funding climate science. When asked why that particular cause, he said it “seemed like a no brainer to me.”

So maybe the fourth passage will turn out to be unsolvable, but probably sooner or later someone will figure out the plain text of that final passage. But — that won’t be the end of the mysteries of Kryptos. The full text contains a riddle. There will be yet another mystery that the four passages together have a meaning that’s greater than their individual pieces and there’s something more to figure out. The sculpture is more than the scroll — there are scraps of Morse code scattered through the elements around the scroll, as well as a pillar of petrified wood, a swirling pool, slabs of granite — and more. The full mystery of Kryptos could involve the broader assemblage of pieces and their relationships to each other. 
So there’s sill lots and lots to learn about the mysteries of Kryptos — the sculpture that just keeps on giving…. 
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Well, if you’re not a big fan of hot weather, there’s good news and bad news.
The good news is that today marks the official end of the “dog days of summer.” The bad news? Unofficially, it’s probably going still be hot for another month or so. 

The “dog days of summer” occur every year from July 3 to August 11. If you’re a regular reader of this blog, or just naturally smart, you know that the dog days has more to do with the stars than dogs.

If you want more details, check the archives, but to recap, Sirius, which is known as the “Dog Star” of the “Canis Major, the Greater Dog” constellation, during the period between July 3 and August 11 is the brightest star visible and occupies the same region of the sky as the Sun. This led the ancient Romans to believe Sirius was adding to the warmth of the sun, and the “dog days of summer” were born. 

But — the Romans were wrong. Sirius doesn’t actually add any heat, so even though the dog days end, the heat doesn’t. I guess the next “official” weather event will be the official start of fall — we’ll see what that brings….
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Today is one of those Feast Days in the Catholic Church that I really don’t know much about. Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, bur I don’t remember hearing any priest over the years, say much about him. 
So — I looked him up. He’s listed as St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr. He was born on December 31, 225 and died on August 10, 258. His Feast Day is today, August 10.
The fact that today’s celebration ranks as a feast certainly says something about him, and that the Church holds him in fairly high esteem.

But we really know very little about his life. He’s one of those whose martyrdom obviously made a deep and lasting impression on the early Church.
He was one of seven deacons who were in charge of giving help to the poor and needy. The big trouble started when the troublemakers, who did not like Christians, decided to kill Pope Saint Sixtus II. The story goes that as they took the Pope away for execution, Lawrence followed him — weeping, and said, “Father where are you going without your deacon?” The Pope answered, “I am not leaving you, my son, in three days you will follow me”. Lawrence was so happy, he gave all the money he had with him to the poor. He even sold expensive church vessels so he would have more money to give away. 

The perfect of Rome (responsible for maintaining law and order within Rome — he was later in charge of Rome’s entire city government) was a greedy man and thought the Church had a great fortune hidden away. He ordered Lawrence to bring the Church’s treasure to him. The (to be) saint said he would — in three days. Then he went through the city and gathered together all the poor and sick people supported by the Church. He showed them to the perfect and said, “These people are the Church’s treasure.” Well — as you might imagine, the perfect was a little bit ticked, actually he was furious. He asked that Lawrence be killed slowly so he would suffer more. The saint was tied on top of an iron grill over a slow fire that roasted him.
God gave him strength enough to remain cheerful and maintain his sense of humor — the legend says that before he died, he said, “It is well done. Turn me over!!”
St Lawrence is the Patron Saint of, among others, Rome, miners, tanners, students, poor, firefighters — and — cooks. I’d say that’s appropriate, given St. Lawrence’s ending….. 
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Today is August 9, and while not generally recognized as quite as significant day as August 6, it played a major role in history. I’m sure you’re aware that on this date in 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb, “Fat Man,” on Nagasaki, Japan. Even though it doesn’t get the recognition that the first bomb, dropped on August 6, gets — it’s really the one that “sealed the deal,” prompting the surrender of Japan to end World War II. 

Of course, August 9 is noted for other things, too….
Construction of the Tower of Pisa began in 1173 — it took two centuries to complete. 
In 1483, this date marked the opening of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
And in 1944, Smokey Bear debuted as spokesman for fire prevention for the US Forest Service. (Smokey was named after a NYC fireman — Smokey Joe Martin.)
For you stair haters, on this day in 1859, inventor Otis Tufts patented the first elevator in the US. His patent paperwork calls the invention the “vertical railway elevator.”
And I should mention that in 1974, Vice President Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States after Richard Nixon handed in his resignation.

So — with all these momentous events occurring on this day, it should have a special name, don’t you think? Well, in fact, it does. It’s National Rice Pudding Day. Yep, you heard that right — rice pudding gets its own day!

Historians are divided over whether rice pudding originated in China or India. Obviously rice is a core staple in both those countries, so it’s possible/probable that rice pudding could have been invented in either country.
When the dish first came on the scene, it was called rice “porridge, or “pottage” —  not pudding. The original recipe hasn’t changed much over the years — water, milk, or cream is mixed with rice and then heated, either by boiling or baking…. that results in rice pudding. 

Until the 1800s, rice pudding was considered to have medicinal properties. Today almost every country has rice pudding, or some version of it.
A.A. Milne, the author of of Winnie the Pooh, wrote a poem called Rice Pudding, in 1924. It’s supposedly one of the author’s most-loved works.
In Sweden, rice pudding is a popular dish at Christmas. An almond is traditionally hidden inside the pudding, and the person who eats it will probably get married the next year.

So today you can commemorate, or celebrate the historical events that happened on this date by eating rice pudding — or — celebrate National Rice Pudding Day…. by eating rice pudding.
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