What Would Jimmy Do?

Today is Chinese New Year — a day that we always celebrate in our house. Every year I discuss some aspects of Chinese New Year here, so if you’re interested, you can check the archives for previous year entries.

Chinese New Year can fall any time between January 21 and February 21 — it falls on the second new Moon after the winter solstice. In 2022, that’s today, February 1. The new year marks the transition between zodiac signs. Last year (2021) was the year of the Ox — this year (2022) is the year of the Tiger. I’m very excited because I was born in the year of the Tiger, so I figure this must be my year — except for the dreaded Ben Ming Nian.

The Chinese New Year is often referred to as the Lunar New Year and it’s actually a 15 day festival marking the start of a new year. The celebrations start with the Little Year, during which the preparations for the new year begin. This is a span of eight days, which fall between January 24 and January 31 this year. Next is the Spring Festival, which lasts for 11 days, from February 1 through February 11, and finally, the Lantern Festival, which is four days between February 12 and February 15. Even though many in China keep up with all the traditions for the duration of the Chinese New Year, only the first seven days — starting (this year) with New Year’s Eve on January 31 are considered a public holiday.

As I mentioned, the Chinese New Year doesn’t follow the Gregorian calendar but uses the lunisolar Chinese calendar, which is based for the most part on the movement of the Moon. Just like the Gregorian calendar, days begin and end at midnight — but in a lunisolar calendar, the months start on the second or third new Moon after the winter solstice.

While most people in China and elsewhere in Asia use the Gregorian calendar, the Chinese calendar is an important part of Asian culture that determines many of the region’s largest holidays and other important events.People often use the Chinese calendar to pick dates for weddings, funerals, starting a business, moving to a new home, etc.

Each year of the Chinese calendar is represented by one of the twelve Chinese zodiac signs — the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig, in that order. Then they start over.

I mentioned that I was born in the year of the Tiger. It seems like being born during the year of the current animal year should be lucky, but the opposite is actually true. In Chinese astrology, the year that lines up with your zodiac sign is your Ben Ming Nian, a term that refers to a person’s zodiac being the same as the current year’s zodiac. Chinese astrology says that when it is your sign’s Ben Ming Nian, it will be your year of Fan Tai Sui.”Fan Tai Sui” means that you are offending Tai Sui, who is the guardian god for the year. This all boils down to a way of saying beware — there may be bad luck ahead. But luckily, for us Tigers, Chinese mythology has a few remedies to help ward off bad luck, like:
Praying to the Tai Sui early in the year for protection and peace.
Wearing an ornament or piece of jewelry to protect against the effects of Tai Sui.
Befriending people who are favored by the current year’s reigning Tai Sui — for 2022, that would be people under the Pig zodiac sign.
Doing good deeds and behaving with love and kindness, especially to elders and the needy, which helps gain the favor of the Tai Sui.
Worshiping the Tai Sui, often by setting up a shrine in your home to make offerings to both the god and the year’s zodiac animal.
Wearing red, which is said to help improve your fortunes and ward off Fan Tai Sui since it is considered a joyous and auspicious color.
So just to be safe, I’m going to follow all these remedies in 2022 — especially being nice to Pig people.

Even though Chinese New Year has lot of superstitions and traditions associated with it, some of them make good sense for all of us…. here’s some you may find useful.
Housecleaning should be done before the Chinese New Year’s Day to sweep away bad luck from the previous year. No sweeping or dusting is allowed on New Year’s Day so that good fortune will not be swept away.
Precedents are set on New Year’s Day. Nothing should be loaned on this day, or else the lender will be loaning all year. Mischievous children are never spanked on this day to avoid tears destined to last the whole year through.
Do not use references to death or the past, or use foul language and unlucky words, or the telling of ghost stories — all those are taboo on New Year’s Day.
Hair washing is forbidden. Leave your hair as it is on the first day of the New Year. The Chinese character for hair is the same first character in the word prosper. This means washing your hair is seen as washing your fortune away and dramatically reduces your chances for prosperity and good fortune in the year.

The New Year celebration is a time to worship ancestors, exorcise evil spirits and pray for a good harvest. Basically the celebration is centered around removing the bad and old, and welcoming the new and the good. Happy New Year to all…..
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Today is the last day of January — tomorrow we get into the shortest month of the year, but there’s a lot going on in February. I’ll be blogging about a lot of February’s special days throughout the month, but we shouldn’t forget that February has been designated Black History Month. Seems like racism is making a comeback in the United States, so I think we should take a few minutes to reflect on what the month is intended to honor — the contributions of African Americans to U.S. history. 

We’re all at least aware of prominent figures like George Washington Carver, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Jackie Robinson and Oprah Winfrey but there a many, many more that probably don’t get the recognition they deserve.

The celebration of Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” and was created in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, a noted African American historian, scholar, educator and publisher. It became a month-long celebration in 1976. The month of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

The Quakers were the first to protest against slavery. They were famously known as “The Society of Friends.” Four Quakers from Germantown, Pa. wrote the first protest against slavery in 1699. Drawing inspiration from the Golden Rule, the peace-loving men wrote, “Pray, what thing in the world can be done worse towards us, than if men should rob or steal us away, and sell us for slaves to strange countries, separating husbands from their wives and children….” This rare document was rediscovered in 2005 and is now part of the Haverford College Special Collections.

We should all be proud of our heritage, and a number of maybe not so well-known African Americans achieved a lot of “firsts:
Jack Johnson became the first African American to hold the World Heavyweight Championship boxing title.
John Mercer Langston was the first Black man to become a lawyer when he passed the bar in Ohio.
Thurgood Marshall was the first African American appointed to the Supreme Court.
Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate (from Mississippi.)
Shirley Chisholm was the first African American woman elected to the House of Representatives.
Hattie McDaniel was the first African American performer to win an Academy Award (for the Movie Gone With the Wind.)
Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play Major League Baseball.
Robert Johnson became the first African American billionaire.
Barack Obama was the first Black President of the United States
Kamala Harris is the first woman of African or Asian descent to become Vice President of the U.S.

If your knowledge of cowboys comes from the movies or TV, you may not know that a quarter (25%) of (real) cowboys were black. After the Civil War ended, the old “wild west” attracted lots of newly freed slaves seeking freedom and paid work. These “cowboys” did find a demand for their skills and freedom, but they had to contend with many physical dangers while sleeping under the stars and “riding them horses” — like inclement weather, reckless outlaws and rattlesnakes.

On February 12, 1909 a group of African American leaders joined together to form a new permanent civil rights organization — the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP.) That organization will celebrate their 113the anniversary on February 12. The organization was formed on February 12, 1909 because it was the centennial anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

We’ll probably hear a lot about Black History Month over the next few weeks — we should pay attention. There are a lot of lessons to be learned from our past. No one should be proud of some of our past, but it isn’t were we came from, it’s where we’re headed that counts….
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Well, we’re almost through the first month of the new year and past the date we can officially ditch our resolutions for the year. Only one more month of (probably) crappy weather before we can start looking forward to spring.

But even though January is really one of my least favorite months, lots of important things have happened during the month of January over the years, such as….
The Catholic Church adopted January 1, instead of March 25, as the beginning of the New Year (1622)
During the American Revolution, George Washington unveiled the Grand Union Flag, the first national flag in America (1776)
China and the U.S. established diplomatic relations, 30 years after the founding of the People’s Republic (1979)
Alaska was admitted as the 49th state (1959)
President George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address (1790)
Winston Churchill died (1965)
The Pontiac was introduced by General Motors (1926)
The March of Dimes Foundation was created (1938)
Nancy Pelosi was elected first female Speaker of the United States Congress (2007)
Work began on the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay. (1933)
The Yankees brought Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox (1920)
The “Today” program began on NBC (1952)
Flight 1549 crashed in the Hudson River (2009)
The US launched the world’s first atomic submarine, the Nautilus (1954)
The Apple Macintosh computer was first displayed during the Super Bowl (1984)
First canned beer was sold (1935)
Honeymoon Bridge across Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada collapsed (1938)
The Space Shuttle Challenger exploded (1986)
Iceland became the first country to legalize abortion (1935)
The USS Pueblo was seized by North Koreans in the Sea of Japan (1968)
The first use of a donkey to symbolize the Democratic Party in America appeared in a cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, criticizing former secretary of war Edwin Stanton with the caption, “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion.” (1870)

Even though some people would just like to remove January from the calendar and have and extra July instead, there’s still a lot of stuff happens during the month so we should probably keep it around even if January is the “Monday” of the months.
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There’s been a lot in the news lately (actually, for a long time) about the havoc that the Corona virus is causing in our schools. There’s the mask debate of masks or no masks and the difference of opinions over the pros and cons of “virtual learning.” Like it or not, there’s probably going to some amount of virtually learning, periodically, for the foreseeable future. So I guess it’s something we all just have to deal with.
Luckily, it looks like Rory and Ellie are taking it in stride….
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Almost a year ago one of my blog entries discussed redundancies, and while that particular blog didn’t specifically discuss oxymorons, it did address the subject of using two incompatible words together in one expression.

Well, for no particular reason, I thought it might be good to explore the subject of oxymorons. I suppose I should point out that I just used a technically incorrect term by using oxymorons. If you’re referring to more than one oxymoron, they’re not called oxymorons, so what do you call them? The correct plural form of the word is oxymora.You may, or may not, have even ever heard of that word. Over the years, so many people have been saying oxymorons that — even though technically incorrect — the term is so widespread that it’s now considered an acceptable usage by most language scholars. But — if you want to be precise (and correct,) oxymora is the word to use.

We’ve all heard people use terms like old news, pretty ugly and serious fun without thinking much about it, but these expressions are all oxymorons. In fact we all use them in our speech and writings all the time, without ever thinking about it. 

Just because I thought it would be interesting, and I didn’t have much to do, I took a little time and flipped through an issue of AARP magazine, the Smithsonian magazine and a couple of on-line news articles and just wrote down expressions that I would consider to be oxymorons. Surprisingly, there were more than I expected and they weren’t hard to spot. 

[While I was browsing, it occurred to me that some of the articles contained what I’d call self-contradictory words and terms, such as almost (is is all or most?) aircraft black box (it’s painted orange.) and broker (this is a guy that’s suppose to be investing our money.)]

But back to oxymorons/oxymora — these are some that I found that I’d consider to be incompatible words used together…. paid volunteer, friendly takeover, authentic reproduction, small crowd, clearly misunderstood, continuing resolution, United States (think about that,) graduate student, experienced novice and only choice.
And — one that jumped out at me that I’m sure I wouldn’t have run across a couple of years ago — social distancing.
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The ampersand (&) is an often over-used abbreviation for the word “and.” It seems like I’ve seen it used incorrectly a lot recently — maybe it gets more use because with all the texting, people tend to abbreviate everything.

From what I think I was taught years ago, its use should be limited…. like when space is very limited, maybe in a table that has a lot of text, or certain company names, such as “Smith & Sons, Inc.,” or when it’s used in a logo or something that artistic considerations dictate its use.
An ampersand should never be used in general writing just to abbreviate the word and. 

It’s interesting to note that the shape of the ampersand character varies from font to font. All computers have numerous fonts already installed and you can download hundreds from the Internet. Some of them are very stylish — if you’d like to use an old or unusual style ampersand in your writing (it might make your writing more sophisticated) experiment with setting a regular ampersand in italics. In some fonts (e.g. Garamond) this produces an old-style ampersand. The one I’ve shown at the left is from the Garamond Premier Pro font family.

If you look at it and use your imagination, you see the letters e and t. This is because the ampersand character is a stylized form of the Latin word er, which means and.
Is that cool, or what?
Aren’t you glad you checked this blog today?
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Honestly, the last couple of years have been pretty crappy. Just about all our “normal” activities have had to be modified in some way. I know we’re always supposed to look on the bright side of things, or for the “silver lining,” but that’s sure a lot easier said than done recently. 

But I decided to honestly take a look and see if I could think of anything good that has come about as a result of COVID. So here are (possibly) some of the positive changes that have happened during Covid-19. Maybe some of the changes will remain in place and become building blocks for the future.

Although I haven’t experienced it, apparently some places have opened drive-through doctors clinics and some doctors are even making home visits. Being able to get a Covid or flu shot in your car seems like a good thing.
This whole work from home thing has revealed some advantages to a lot of people — reducing travel time, saving on travel costs. Online meetings have become popular, if not the norm. I guess that makes it easier for more people to attend (although I’m not sure bigger meetings are necessarily a good thing.)
Shopping from home has become more popular…. more and more businesses are offering home delivery services including for groceries and essential items.
Museums and art galleries are starting online tours and live streamed concerts and there are more online courses available for all sorts of subjects. Religious services are being shared online.
From what I’ve read, carbon emissions are down globally — China recorded an 85 percent increase in days with good air quality recently.
Most everyone has had to become more innovative — lots of businesses have had to reinvent themselves with a “business as unusual” philosophy… for instance, gin distilleries turned to making hand sanitizer.

And COVID gave us all a new sense of appreciation and gratefulness. We probably all gained a new perspective on everything we have taken for granted for so long — our freedoms, leisure, connections, family and friends, and work. Life as we knew it was all suddenly taken away from us. Maybe when this finally ends, we’ll all have gained new levels of gratitude. 

Obviously all these “positive” aspects come at a pretty hefty price of death, sickness, depression, the economy, etc. 
I guess it’s up to us to change ourselves and our system to make the most of these “positives.”
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Last year at this time, we were inaugurating a new President — something we’ve done every four year since our nation was founded, and — hopefully — something we’ll continue to do forever.
This isn’t an inauguration year, but I think it’s something we should all be proud of and there’s a lot of interesting stories about the process and the event itself.

We think of January 20 as Inauguration Day, but that hasn’t alway been the case. Following Washington’s first inauguration, the Continental Congress declared March 4 as Inauguration Day. That date remained in place until the ratification of the 20th Amendment in 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president inaugurated on the new date — for his second inauguration on January 20, 1937.

Several presidents have been inaugurated in places other than Washington, D.C., George Washington is the only president to have been inaugurated in two separate cities. On April 30, 1789, Washington took the presidential oath on the balcony of New York City’s Federal Hall. His second inauguration took place on March 4, 1793, at Congress Hall in Philadelphia, which was then the nation’s capital. 

After Warren G. Harding died in office, Calvin Coolidge was sworn in by his notary public dad. They were at a farm in Vermont and had to conduct the whole thing by kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 13, 1923. (The new President then supposedly went back to bed.)
Teddy Roosevelt assumed the role of president following the assassination of William McKinley. He was sworn in at the private home of Ansley Wilcox. Following the assassination of JFK, Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office on November 22, 1963 — while aboard Air Force One. (The oath was administered by Judge Sarah Hughes, who became the first woman to inaugurate a president.)

William Henry Harrison set the record for longest-ever speech with his 8445-word inaugural address. George Washington’s was the shortest with 135 words.

When Franklin Pierce was inaugurated (March 4, 1853) he became the only president to “affirm” the office of the president rather “swear” it. At the time he was in the midst of a crisis of faith — still reeling from the death of his only son. 

The first Inaugural Ball was held during the inauguration ceremonies of James Madison. 

Dolly Madison was the first First Lady to attend her husband’s inauguration.

John Quincy Adams was the first to wear long pants at his inauguration. In previous years, knee breeches were the standard “uniform”

Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on a Sunday, because he was very strict about “keeping holy the Sabbath.” The position of president couldn’t be just left vacant until Monday, so the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, David Rice Aitchison, was brought in to fill the vacancy. It would seem that makes Aitchison the 12th president and Zachary Taylor the 13th, but apparently he doesn’t count…

If you look at old inauguration pictures, you’ll see that the president-elect is almost always wearing a top hat. So apparently the top hat was part of the uniform of the day. It’s not clear why, or when, this tradition started. Kennedy was the last president to sport a top hat at his inauguration. Lyndon Johnson apparently ended the tradition.

Warren G. Harding was the first to travel to and from his inauguration in an automobile. 

Harry Truman’s second inauguration was the first-ever televised inaugural ceremony.

Richard Nixon didn’t want his inauguration (in 1973) to be marred by a bunch of annoying pigeons, so he requested that tree branches along the parade route be treated with a chemical called Roost No More, which would supposedly make the birds’ feet itch so they wouldn’t want to perch above the president’s motorcade. The inaugural committee spent $13,000 to comply with Nixon’s request. But — the pigeon didn’t just sit on the branches, they wolfed down the Roost No More, which proved to be highly toxic to birds. So instead of dealing with the hassle of live pigeons in the trees, Nixon’s parade was marred by dead and dying pigeons littering the route.

Although George Washington owned a lot of land — more than 50,000 acres of it, in addition to Mount Vernon — he was considered “land poor,” meaning he didn’t often have a lot of cash at his disposal. His bank account was so low he actually had to borrow money to travel to New York City for his first inauguration.

So — hopefully my great-great-great grandkids will blog about interesting inauguration facts and stories when they’re my age…..
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Ok, this blog is aimed mostly at those two or three people that made resolutions for the new year. Today is your day — it’s Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day. Believe me, I know how hard it is to follow resolutions taken on New Year’s Eve, and if you’ve gotten this far and haven’t fallen off the wagon, good for you. But sometimes (most times) you have to acknowledge you’re not going to keep a resolution and withdraw it — for whatever reason. The calendar says this is “Ditch New Year’s Resolution Day.” It’s an annual celebration observed every January 17 for those of you that got carried away on New Year’s Eve.

So if you fall into the “new year, new me” category, you can officially give up today. But giving up doesn’t necessarily reflect a lack of willpower. In fact, changing your mind about sticking with some of your intentions is probably a smart idea. Actually, if you have followed your new year’s resolution until now, you have achieved quite a lot — now you can go back to your old self, and feel relaxed and guilt free. 

People who study people’s behavior generally agree that if you feel like you need to make a resolution, then the message is that something about you is inadequate and you need to change it.

Some people that aren’t completely ready to throw their resolution out the window, use Ditch Resolutions Day to reset and/or modify their 1 January intentions — maybe by coming up with a simpler, more positive plan not fueled by a holiday hangover. 

So no matter if you’re just forgetting about your resolutions today or taking the day to re-think and recommit, this is the day to do it. I think it’s a good idea — someone could have called today “celebrate your imperfections day,” or something like that. Even though that nomenclature might sound a little less severe, I like the idea of just admitting your mistake and “ditching it.”
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Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. King is arguably the best known civil rights leader — he was born Michael King Jr. (not Martin) on January 15, 1929. His father, a pastor at a Baptist church in Atlanta, traveled to Germany and became inspired by the Protestant Reformation leader Martin Luther. He was so inspired that King Sr. changed his own name as well as that of his 5-year old son.

In 1983 President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that created a federal holiday to honor King. The holiday, first commemorated in 1986, is celebrated on the third Monday in January, close to the civil rights leader’s January 15 birthday. The only other Americans to have had their birthdays observed as a national holiday are George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.

On September 20, 1958, Martin Luther King Jr. was in Harlem signing copies of his new book, “Stride Toward Freedom,” in Blumstein’s department store when he was approached by Izola Ware Curry. The woman asked if he was Martin Luther King Jr. After he said yes, Curry said, “I’ve been looking for you for five years,” and she plunged a seven inch letter opener into his chest. The tip of the blade came to rest alongside his aorta, and King underwent hours of delicate emergency surgery. Surgeons later told King that just one sneeze could have punctured the aorta and killed him. From his hospital bed where he convalesced for weeks, King issued a statement affirming his nonviolent principles and saying he felt no ill will toward his mentally ill attacker.

Many believe that King’s last public speech foretold his death…. he had come to Memphis in April 1968 to support the strike of the city’s Black garbage workers, and in a speech on the night before his assassination, he told an audience at the Mason Temple Church: “Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now… I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

He was a very gifted student — he skipped grades 9 and 12 and enrolled in 1944 at Morehouse College, the alma mater of his father and maternal grandfather. Morehouse president Benjamin Mays was a noted theologian and convinced King to enter the ministry and he was ordained while at Morehouse before graduating with a degree in sociology. 

The civil rights leader went to jail 29 times. He was arrested for acts of civil disobedience and on some trumped-up charges — he was jailed in Montgomery, Alabama in 1956 for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone. 

So today should mean more than just a day off — Martin Luther King Jr. is best known for his work on racial equality and ending racial segregation in the United states. We should take some time today to at least reflect on civil rights issues across the globe.
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