What Would Jimmy Do?

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.
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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….
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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.”
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April Fools’ Day — celebrated on April 1 every year — has been celebrated for centuries by different cultures. The exact history of the day is “shrouded in mystery,” but because so many people have embraced April Fools’ Day jokes, the day has had a long life.

Some historians speculate that April Fools’ Day began when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. In the Julian calendar, as in the Hindu calendar, the new year began with the spring equinox around April 1. People who were slow to get the news or failed to recognize that the start of the new year had moved to January 1 and continued to celebrate it during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.”

Other historians have linked April Fools’ Day to festivals such as Hilaria (Latin for joyful,) which was celebrated in ancient Rome at the end of March. It involved people dressing up in disguises and mocking fellow citizens and even magistrates and was said to be inspired by the Egyptian legend of Isis, Osiris and Seth.

Another school of thought is that April Fools’ Day was tied to the vernal equinox — the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when Mother Nature fools people with changing, unpredictable weather.

In modern times, people have gone to great lengths to create elaborate April Fools’ Day hoaxes. Newspapers, radio and TV stations and websites have participated in the April 1 tradition of reporting outrageous fictional claims that have fooled their audiences. 

In 1749 London newspapers advertised that in an upcoming show, a man would squeeze his entire body into a wine bottle and then sing while inside it. The ad promised that, “during his stay in the bottle, any person may handle it, and see plainly that it does not exceed a common Tavern Bottle.” The ad promised the show would feature other tricks as well, including communicating with the dead. Legend has it that the ad was the result of a bet between the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Chesterfield. Reportedly, the duke bet that he could advertise something impossible and still “find fools enough in London to fill a playhouse and pay handsomely for the privilege of being there.” And apparently he was right — the night of the show, every seat in the house was filled, but no performer ever showed up. Realizing they had been duped, the audience rioted.

While not exactly an April Fools’ joke, but a prank that I remember from when it happened comes to mind…. in 1959, students in Sãn Paulo, Brazil, who were tired of the city’s overflowing sewers and inflated prices launched a campaign to elect a rhinoceros to the city council — and won. The rhino’s name was Cacareco (Portuguese for “rubbish,”) and she was already a popular figure in Sãn Paulo when the students launched her campaign. The four-year old rhino had moved to the city from Rio de Janeiro when Sãn Paulo’s zoo opened, and was scheduled to return to Rio soon. When the students looked at the 540 candidates vying for Sãn Paulo’s 45 council seats and feared that none of them would address the city’s problems, they decided to make a point by asking people to vote for the popular rhino instead. Cacareco won a city council seat with a whopping 100,000 votes, far more than any other candidate. Of course, she didn’t end up serving on the city council because the election board disqualified her. But she remains one of the most famous protest votes in Brazilian history.

In 1998, in a full-page advertisement in USA Today, Burger King unveiled a new menu item specifically engineered for southpaws — the Left-Handed Whopper. According to the fast food chain, the burger’s condiments were rotated 180 degrees to better suit the 1.4 million lefties who patronized its restaurants. Thousand of customers requested the new burger — believing this whopper about Burger King’s Whopper. 

Apparently Lincoln was right — you can fool some of the people all of the time. Pay attention to what you read and hear today…..
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Today is backup day — a day I originally thought celebrated the fact that you could back-up. What if you had no reverse gear in your car? Or maybe we should be celebrating by walking around backwards or something like that. 

But it’s not one of those frivolous days — turns out this is a very important day. It’s a day set aside every year to to boost awareness for businesses — and individuals — of the importance of regular data backups. Yep, World Backup Day refers to data backups. the goal is to use March 31st as the date each year to reach those who never backed up their data, and even people who might not even know about data backup.
The fact that World Backup Day falls on March 31 is no coincidence. The next day may be about laughs and pranks, but the potential loss of data is no joke. 

I admit I don’t backup our computers as regularly as I should, but I do backup our “important” information regularly. Admittedly, backup for our house is pretty simple — we don’t have a huge amount of data — a lot of “stuff” on our computers isn’t something that would invite a ransomware attack. But nonetheless, I’d hate to lose some of it. 
World Backup Day was designated, in 2011, by Ismail Jadun, a digital strategy and research consultant…. good idea, Ismail.
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Both you faithful readers of this blog know that I often wonder about various things. A couple of months ago, an announcer was interviewing a football player prior to one of the playoff games and the player said, “this is not my first rodeo.” I’d heard the phrase before and I know that “This ain’t my first rodeo” is pretty much telling a person that you’re more prepared for a given situation, and maybe even that it doesn’t offer much of a challenge. 

I did some checking and it appears that the phrase can be traced back to the movie Mommie Dearest, in which a character says, “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.” But what made me wonder is why the term “rodeo?” Why use rodeo to tell someone that you’r not a novice to a situation, that you have experience or that you are competent? I’d venture to say most people have never even been to a rodeo. Why didn’t the football player just say, “This ain’t my first football game (or playoff game?)” 

I’ve also heard the term, “My last rodeo.” That’s usually used when someone is in the latter stage of their career, or about to finish something. Why not just say “my retirement?”
I remember Hearing Peyton Manning saying something like, “this might be my last rodeo, so it sure has been a pleasure” after he won a Super Bowl with the Denver Broncos. Why didn’t he just say this might be my last game?

Besides not my first rodeo, and my last rodeo, I’ve heard that been to the rodeo, that means something like been exposed to conmen or hucksters, or being experienced. And I’ve often heard the phrase straight out of the shoot, which means something done immediately, or from the beginning. That phrase is taken from the rodeo terminology — a bucking bronco, or bull is kept in a narrow pen, called the chute, until it is released.

Anyhow, my question hasn’t been answered — how did the word rodeo become part of American slang, especially in parts of the US where “rodeo” is almost a foreign term…
Rodeos have been part of cowboy culture in America for centuries — they were very popular where I grew up, but Claire had never been to a rodeo before we were married.

Maybe I’ll just never know….. I’ve heard the phrase that the opera isn’t over ’till the fat lady sings. Where I grew up, it was more like, the rodeo ain’t over till the bull riders ride.
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Tonight should be a sight for sore eyes — weather permitting, of course. Five planets — Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Uranus and Mars — will all line up near the Moon. 

According to NASA, you should look to the western horizon right after sunset. The planets will stretch from the horizon line to around halfway up the night sky. 
Both Mercury and Jupiter will dip below the horizon by about half an hour after sunset, so the spectacle will only last a short time. 
The five-planet spread can be seen from anywhere on Earth — as long as you have a view to the west, and clear skies. 
Happy planet watching!
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The ninth century Pope John VIII was brilliant, kind, musically talented ….. and female. Well, probably not, but that’s what some historians say — and others think it is pure myth.
The object of this blog is not to tell you what to believe. Here’s the story — it’s up to you to believe…. or not.

The story is about Pope Joan — yep, Joan, not John. According to legend, Pope Joan served as pope during the middle ages.
Although the story of the female pope has several versions, here’s how it usually goes. An English woman named Joan ( or Jeanne) resented the fact that she wasn’t allowed to get an education. At the time, book-learning was thought to be unnecessary, and even harmful, for a woman. So Joan disguised herself as a man — probably a monk — and called herself John English (in some versions of the story, John of Mainz.)

She went to Athens to study, where she impressed everyone with her scholarship.After her studies, she moved to Rome, where she taught science, became a secretary in the Curia (the central administration arm of the Roman Catholic Church,) and eventually was made a cardinal. Once again, her abilities attracted the attention of scholars — and — her conduct was also considered flawless.

So Joan, still in disguise, was elected pope. Over the next two years, five months, and four days, she handled the position very well. But then, she gave herself away — during a solemn procession through the streets of Rome, the pope got down from her horse — and — gave birth to a child, then and there.

Now here’s where the story diverges…. some versions say she died in childbirth or soon afterward. Others say a furious mob tied her to the tail of a horse, dragged her through the city, and finally stoned her to death. And another version has her immediately deposed as pope, but living out a long life, and doing penance — lots of penance. Some versions say her son grew up to be a bishop.

A female pope was first mentioned during the ninth century by a historian called Anatasius the Librarian. Actually, Joan’s name turns up in some early lists of the popes. Several versions of the story were written down by Dominican record keepers during the 13th century. In a report written by Martin of Troppau, a Dominican friar from Poland, in 1265 named names, gave deaths, and placed Joan’s papacy in the 9th century. Since he’d served in the Curia as chaplain to a pope, his story was widely believed. 

So was Joan real? Probably not. Does it matter? Probably not. Maybe the story tells us something important about the attitudes toward sex and gender back in the middle ages.

It’s generally agreed that Joan didn’t exist. According to Vatican records — and there are a lot of them — all the popes are accounted for and there’s no Joan among them. The John VIII that their records list has a very complete biography — he was born in Rome, served as pope from 872 to 882, involved himself heavily in politics, bribed the Saracens to keep them from invading Rome, and was assassinated by his own relatives. A story about him would make a pretty good “pope story” — but I don’t think it could top Joan’s story.
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A few weeks ago, some of us were doing some work at our church and  one of the guys said he had a “gut feeling” about something. I’ve heard the phrases “gut feeling” or “trust your gut” almost my entire life. But thinking back, I’ve rarely been in a situation where I “trusted my gut.” In fact, I’m not sure I know what a gut feeling even feels like.

Google provided the following explanation…. A gut feeling (or intuition) is an immediate physical response you feel that suggests the best decision when presented with two or more choices. Common sensations associated with a gut feeling include a sinking feeling or butterflies in your stomach, sweaty palms, prickling on your neck, goose bumps, muscle tightness or tension, increased heart rate, or an overwhelming sense of calm or clarity. 

In scientific terms, gut feelings come from the enteric nervous system, a web of neurons in the gastrointestinal tract that some neuroscientists call the “second brain.”
I’ve had those feelings, but I never associated them with decision making. I guess I can maybe believe that following your gut or instinct can often direct you down the best path, but I’ve always tried to follow the “do what’s best” path — I’m not sure there’s much difference. I think logic and reason are the two most important things in play to make good decisions, but science suggests that intuition can be a valuable tool in some circumstances. 

From what I’ve read, gut feelings produce some of the same physical sensations as anxiety, so I’m not sure how you tell them apart. And then of course, there’s paranoia…. how do you tell the difference? Gut feelings tend to pass once you make a decision, while anxiety is more than just a passing feeling — it lingers, like maybe you made the wrong decision. And paranoia is an irrational suspicion, not based on fact.

So maybe those gut feelings do mean something, and they can often help you make good decisions — sometimes we can all use a “second brain.”
Someone said that prayer is telephoning to God, and your gut feeling is God telephoning to you. Maybe it’s better to not let that call go to voice mail…..
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Since we’ve been on the subject of bread lately — discussing sandwiches and sliced bread, I should probably re-visit the subject of wrapping or bagging that bread.
Way back on November 18, 2018, this space was filled with a discussion of the Burford Company that’s located just outside my hometown of Maysville, Oklahoma. If you’re interested in the history of the company you can refer back to that 2018 entry. 

The reason I bring it up again is that the great majority of bread wrapping machines are made by the Burford Company. They’ve expanded over the years and now have offices internationally — but their headquarters remain just outside of Maysville. Their invention of the first twist-tie machine for bread wrappers revolutionized the packaging of bread and today they are still the acknowledged innovators and suppliers for the baking industry — around the world.
I’m still proud to say that me, Wiley Post and the Burford Company put Maysville on the map…..
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