What Would Jimmy Do?

Every time I go to the doctor, I’m told to “stay off ladders.” I suppose that’s good advice at my age and, probably, good advice in general.

Ladders have been associated with bad luck I guess just about as long as they’ve existed. That’s all chalked up to superstition, but actually there’s some truth to that superstition. According to OSHA, falls from ladders account for about 20% of all falls and lost workday injuries. I couldn’t find any statistics on accidents caused by walking under ladders, but just the same….

From Egyptian times, ladders were believed to be used to help spirits climb to heaven. Walking under a ladder might disturb and anger a spirit who was using it. In the Middle Ages, walking under a ladder was unlucky because leaning a ladder against a wall formed a triangle. This symbol of divine trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit, was broken when someone walked through it. But there was another powerful reason for staying away from ladders. Before gallows were invented, criminals were hung from the top rungs of ladders, and their angry ghosts might still be “hanging around.”

But if you do happen to walk under a ladder, there are several ways you can reverse any bad luck coming your way. The “historic” solution is to spit three times through the rungs. This seems to work — maybe it just disgusts the evil spirits into leaving you alone.
So my doctor apparently knows what she’s talking about — be wary of ladders…..
— 30 —

Back in January, I talked about Friday the 13th and that some people believe Fridays and the number 13 are related to bad luck. If you happened to read that entry, you may remember that I mentioned the Code of Hammurabi. I mentioned it because the Code of Hammurabi is famous for a list of “laws” numbered #1 to #282 — except there is no #13.

Anyhow, the story of King Hammurabi is interesting…. he’s one of the few characters that caught my attention and interested me during my ancient history college courses.
Hammurabi was the king of Babylon. Sometime around 1789 B.C. he decided to have his favorite laws carved into an eight-foot high stone column. At the top, his royal artists carved a picture of the great king on his throne. Below that carving is the text, that begins with a rambling message from Hammurabi, in which he calls himself “the exalted prince” and vows to “destroy the wicked and evil-doers.” On the rest of the column is carved a list of laws from #1 to $282, called the Code of Hammurabi. It’s thought that the code was displayed in a conspicuous place, like maybe the town square. That way, nobody had an excuse for breaking the law.

The laws are arranged in orderly groups — a cluster of laws governing slaves are grouped together, laws concerning marriage and inheritance are in another group, and so on. Some of the laws you’ve heard about — like, and eye for an eye. It’s specified in Law #196 this way — “If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out.” Pretty basic — a tooth for a tooth is covered under Law #200. There’s no mention of prison — the only alternatives were fines, a death sentence, or like the eye and tooth, the occasional “pound of flesh.”

Crimes and their punishment had a direct correlation to social status. Unless the crime was serious, the higher up you were on the social ladder, the less severely you were punished. The poor slobs clustered around the bottom of the social ladder paid dearly — often with their lives. A good example is Law #8 — it covers the theft of livestock. Say someone steals a goat. If the goat belonged to “a god,” i.e., was stolen from a temple (the very top of the social scale) the thief had to pay 30 times the worth of the goat. If the goat belonged to a “free man.” someone a step up from a regular citizen, the thief had to pay less — just 10 times the amount. If the thief was too poor to pay the fine, he was put to death. 

Actually, there were a lot of opportunities for the average Babylonian to be sentenced to death. Here’s some of the crimes that called for capital punishment….
You would be put to death for:
• Accusing someone of a crime without proof.
• Falsely accusing someone of a crime
• Stealing the property of a temple or a court. 
• Receiving the stolen property of a temple or a court.
• Stealing a slave.
• Breaking and entering.
• Committing a robbery.
• Allowing conspirators to meet in your tavern.
• Violating a virgin who is promised in marriage to another.

Even innocent bystanders could be included in the death sentence. Law #229 states that a house builder will be put to death if the house he built falls in and kills the owner. The next Law #230, adds that if it kills the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death.
In most cases, the exact manner of death is not specified, but in some cases, it’s well-defined:
• If a wife and her lover had their mates (her husband and the other man’s wife) murdered, both of them shall be impaled.
• If a robbery is committed during a fire, the criminal will be thrown into that “self-same fire.” I guess that doesn’t leave much time for a trial….
• If you’re a priestess and you own or enter a tavern, you’ll be burned to death.

The punishments for minor offenses weren’t as severe… but you could have your hands cut off if:
• You’re a surgeon who kills someone during surgery.
• You hit your father.
• You steal plants from a farm owner you work for.

You could have your ear cut off if:
• You’re a slave who says to his master, “You are not my master.”

Apparently the Babylonians weren’t much for swimming, or even knew much about it. If a crime couldn’t be proven, the accused would be thrown into the water. If she (it was usually a she) floated, she was innocent. If she didn’t she drowned.
Crimes for which you would be thrown into the water:
• If your husband accused you of being unfaithful, but couldn’t catch you in the act.
• If you quarreled with your husband for no reason, then left him or neglected him.

There was another level of punishment when you wouldn’t be given the option of trying to stay afloat. You would be tied up and thrown into the water if:
• Your husband surprised you with another man, or if you were the other man with the wife when the husband surprised her.

At first, these laws seem a little harsh — in fact it doesn’t appear the Babylonians were doing anything that doesn’t happen every day in our society. But — then there’s the goddess Ishtar, a.k.a. “The Great Whore of Babylon.”
Ishtar was the goddess of war and sexual love, and the most powerful goddess in the Mesopotamian religion. If you wanted to be part of the cult (and everyone did) you had to participate. Every female citizen was expected to go at least once in her life to the temple of Ishtar and offer herself to any male worshiper who paid the required contribution. There was no shame attached to being one of Ishtar’s prostitutes — in fact, it was considered a sacred means of attaining divine union between man and goddess.

I read some time back, that in 1901 a team of archeologists, led by a French scholar, found the fairly well-preserved column we call the Code of Hammurabi, in Persia. Besides its importance as a historical find, it gives us a pretty good look into the customs of ancient Mesopotamia. The column is on display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. If you visit, you can verify that there is no Law #13. Apparently the Babylonians were superstitious, too.
— 30 —

Today is Cinco de Marcho — not Cinco de Mayo — that’s on the 5th of May. This holiday has been around since 2007 and is celebrated annually on March 5th.
This “made-up” holiday was invented by a man that goes by the name of Carlos Fantastico. But his true identity is a mystery. 

Cinco de Mayo simply means “the fifth of May” in Spanish. It marks the anniversary of May 5, 1862, when the Mexican army won the Battle of Puebla. It’s recognized in Mexico, but mostly celebrated in the United States. And that’s true of Cinco de Marcho — it’s a mostly U.S. “holiday.” 

The idea behind Cinco de Marcho is that on the fifth of March, Carlos Fantastico was in a Mexican restaurant and realized that St. Patrick’s Day was right around the corner. So why not have a holiday that would celebrate both cultures? A holiday with a Mexican name, celebrating the drinking associated with St. Patrick’s Day — a way to simultaneously celebrate both cultures — what a great idea.

However, contrary to popular belief, Cinco de Marcho isn’t about excessive drinking. Carlos Fantastico views the day as training for light drinkers. Those with low alcohol tolerance can start building their alcohol tolerance starting on Cinco de Marcho to prepare their liver for the upcoming St. Patrick celebrations.

So if you’re out and about today, remember that Cinco de Marcho is a combination of the traditions of both St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo. You may see sombreros, margaritas, four leaf clovers and glasses of Guinness all mixed together — just remember it’s March 5th, and you’ll remember why.
— 30 —

There’s a lot of indicators that I’m getting old, but one of them kind of came as a surprise to me — when I listen to the news, some of the words they use don’t make any sense. This is especially true when I try to understand political “news.” I realize politics has a language of their own, but some of the words they use nowadays apparently have taken on a whole new meaning than when I “learned” them in school.

One word that puzzles me is “woke.” Watching the news the other night, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, pretty much indicated that all the current problems that America faces mostly stem from “wokeness.” 
I think woke means, or at least used to mean, socially aware, or empathetic. Apparently, not anymore.
Governor DeSantis recently signed a Stop Woke Act into law and bragged about it during his “midterm victory speech.” In Washington, there is talk in the House of Representatives of forming an “anti-woke caucus.”
It seems like woke is the blame for everything from deadly mass shootings to increased medical costs.

My extensive research found that “woke” was once used largely by black people, encouraging them to stay mindful of racism in America. Its use was fueled by black musicians, social media and the #BlackLivesMatter movement and the term only entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017 — by then it had become more of a fashionable buzzword than a set of values.

The term is now mostly used by political figures — maybe because it doesn’t actually mean anything. That might be part of its appeal — one can slam “wokeness” to oppose various issues without spelling out any specific objections. 

So after all my extensive research, I’ve decided that “woke” is interesting, but, at least for me, it’s just kind of an unusable word — because it doesn’t actually mean anything. Actually, it obviously means something — I just don’t know what….
— 30 —

Today is a day I always look forward to — the first day of March. No matter what the weather turns out to be, I just seem to feel better knowing it’s March. I realize it’s not quite spring, but winter is certainly in the rear-view mirror. 

March is named for the Roman god of War, Mars. This was the time of year to resume military campaigns that had been interrupted by winter.
Lots of thing happen in March….
The vernal equinox, the return of Daylight Saving Time, St. Patrick’s Day, “March Madness.” Cinco de Marcho, Pi Day, and of course, the Ides of March.
March’s full Moon is called the Worm Moon and reaches peak illumination on the morning of Tuesday, March 7. 

I’ve always heard that if March comes in like al lion, it will go out like a lamb — which means that if the month starts off stormy, it will end with mild weather. However, there is another interpretation of the lion/lamb proverb. The constellation Leo, the lion, rises in the east at the beginning of March and thus the month “comes in like a lion,” while Aries, the ram, sets in the west at the end of the month, and hence, the month “will go out like a lamb.”

The vernal, or spring, equinox occurs on March 20 and marks the start of spring (in the Northern Hemisphere.)
The “Ides of March” was a day in the Roman calendar equivalent to March 15th. It was considered a deadline for settling debts. It was also the day Julius Caesar was assassinated.
Every year, March and June finish on the same day of the week.
St Patrick’s Day occurs every March 17th and is celebrated in many western countries to commemorate the day Saint Patrick died.

Statistically, March is the most unproductive Month of the year in the U.S. It’s said that this is the result of “March Madness,” Some companies lose up to $1.9 billion in wages paid to workers who were not productive and instead spent company time betting on the games.
On March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell made the first-ever phone call. It was to his assistant and he said, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.”
The Eiffel Tower was ascended for the first time during March. Eiffel himself led a group of government officials and members of the press to the top. The elevators were not in operation yet, so the journey was made on foot and took over an hour. 

So I don’t care how March comes in, I’m just glad it’s here….
Goodbye February — Hello (and welcome) March.
— 30 —

Yesterday, I talked about Edgar Allan Poe kind of being the “inventor” of the modern detective story. So I guess it’s only fitting that when he died, his death was kind of “mysterious.”

Most people agree that Poe was a literary genius, but much of his writings were disturbing because his stories were gruesome and involved death and/or injury. His life was short — and mostly unhappy. 
He was alway known as a “hard drinker,” but when his young wife got tuberculosis and died five years later, Poe regularly hit the bottle even harder.

In the late summer of 1849, he was in Richmond, Virginia and he proposed to an old sweetheart, Elmira Shelton. On September 27, 1849, Poe left Richmond, bound for Philadelphia. What happened the next few days is uncertain — his actions and whereabouts are not known. But on October 3, a passerby noticed Poe slumped near an Irish pub in Baltimore. When Poe’s friend, Dr. Joseph Snodgrass arrived, he found Poe in what he assumed was a highly drunken state, wearing cheap, ill-fitting clothes — very different from his usual mode of dress. He was taken to Washington College Hospital, where he slipped in and out of consciousness. He died early on the morning of October 7. He was 40 years old.

Poe’s death left a mystery that hasn’t been “solved.” No death certificate was filed and a Baltimore newspaper reported his cause of death as “congestion of the brain” — a polite way of saying alcohol poisoning. Aside from alcoholism, historians and biographers have suggested alternative causes of death ranging from lesions on the brain, epilepsy and tuberculosis, cholera, syphilis and even rabies. Another popular theory is that Poe may have been a victim of so-called “cooping,” a common practice at the time in which Baltimore’s notoriously corrupt politicians paid thugs to kidnap down-and-out men, especially the homeless. The victims were drugged, disguised and forced to vote over and over at different polling places, then left for dead. Those that support the cooping theory point out Poe’s unfamiliar and ill-fitting clothes, as well as the fact that citywide elections were held in Baltimore the day he was found — and — the Irish pub near where he was found functioned as both a bar and a voting place.

The mystery surrounding Poe’s death would have made a good book to add to his “detective series.”
— 30 —

For some reason I seem to have been doing a lot with books lately. Claire spends a fair amount of time trying to keep the St. Agnes library in some semblance  of order and a few days ago I helped her move some books around in support of that effort. That inspired me to re-arrange the books in my office and I noticed that I seem to have quite a number of mystery books, or what I used to call “detective books” when I was growing up. 

I remember that in one of my literature classes, the instructor was particularly fond of Edgar Allan Poe, and he said that Poe had actually “invented” the detective story. I’m not sure that’s totally accurate, but it appears that Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is considered by many to be the first detective story.

Of course The Murders in the Rue Morgue was required reading when I was in school, and the story is about the extraordinary “analytical power” used by Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin to solve a series of murders in Paris. Dupin is a reclusive character that is contacted by the police when they are not able to solve a crime. He has keen powers of observation and points out to his roommate, who narrates the story, that “the necessary knowledge is of what to observe.” There are clues throughout the story that offer the reader a chance to solve the mystery. Three of Poe’s stories featured C. Auguste Dupin and that led to another feature of future detective stories — the recurring character.

Almost forty-five years after Poe’s death, the detective story was popularized by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle when he created Sherlock Holmes.
And if you bother to check, you’ll see that Sherlock Holmes peculiarities are very similar to those of Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin.
— 30 —

Yesterday’s topic discussed how some people believe a rabbit’s foot can bring you good luck. But there are a lot of “good luck charms” and some of them don’t seem to make much sense. But they’ve all earned their place in the “lucky” category for various reasons.

In the past I’ve mentioned our Friend Anne. She has a horseshoe over the inside of her front door. I’ve never asked her about it, but it’s there for luck. We’ve all had good luck charms in our lives — I remember having a rabbit’s foot (like we talked about yesterday) on a key chain when I was a kid and believed that it brought me good luck. People have four-leaf clovers, lucky pennies, lucky shirts, etc. Your don’t see them so much anymore (maybe because horses aren’t as common as they once were) but when I was growing up, it was commonplace to see a horseshoe somewhere in or on the house. 

So how did horseshoes become a lucky charm? Like a lot of these things, no one really knows for sure but one of the more popular theories is that horseshoes became synonymous with luck when St. Dustan, the patron saint of blacksmiths in the Catholic Church, tricked the devil. The story goes something like this….
When a man came into Dustan’s blacksmith shop asking to be shod in horseshoes, he realized that the request was unusual, and then saw that his customer had a cloven foot — he was shoeing the devil himself. Dustan, who later became the Archbishop of Canterbury, tortured the devil with hot irons and nails until the devil promised that neither he nor any of his demons would enter a building protected by a horseshoe. 

The basic metal makeup of horseshoes contributed to it becoming a lucky charm. Most of the early horseshoes were made of iron, which is a durable metal but is also thought to have mystical powers — it has magnetic properties and runs abundantly through human bodies. Witches were said to be so fearful of the iron-made horseshoes that they decided to take flight on broomsticks instead of riding on horses for transportation. 

Even the number of nail holes made the horseshoe lucky. Seven holes were made in the shoe to hold it in place on the hoof. It just so happens that seven is one of the luckiest numbers on earth, because it appears so often in nature. There are seven days in a week, seven seas, seven continents, seven colors in a rainbow, etc. 

Most all the horseshoes I’ve seen hung over doorways are hung with the open area up — like the letter “U.” But apparently some people think it should be hung with the opening facing down. Hanging a horseshoe “heels up” means it keeps all the good luck from running out of the shoe. Hanging it “heels down” means it flows good luck down on everyone who walks underneath it. I guess they both make sense, so if I can find some horseshoes, maybe I’ll hang two — one each way…. couldn’t hurt.
— 30 —

On June 4, 1951, the Cleveland Indians played the New York Yankees — in Cleveland. The Indians were major underdogs. In fact, the Indians prospects were so dismal that the Plain Dealerr distributed lucky rabbits’ feet to the Indian fans. The Indians won 8 – 2!! Was it the rabbits’ feet that did it? What’s with those rabbits’ feet, and why are they lucky?
There is an old superstition that on the first day of the month, if your first words that day are “rabbit rabbit,” you’ll have good luck for the rest of the month. 

There’s no clear answer as to how rabbits became associated with good-luck superstitions, but rabbits and their wild cousin, the hare, have been associated with the favorable aspects of spring, renewal, and fertility since pagan times. In the Middle Ages, hares were associated with magical witches who were said to be able to change themselves into rabbits.

Despite its association with witchery, the rabbit was still considered a lucky animal because of its many offspring and its burrowing habits. People feared what was buried under the Earth, so they admired the rabbit’s ability to live underground and still survive.

Eventually, the legends surrounding rabbits including fertility, the ability to survive evil and magical powers became associated with “luck” — specifically, in the left hind foot of a rabbit. Of course I guess rabbits have a different view of that….
— 30 —