9 March 2020

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 9 March 12020 is apparently Teacher’s Day in Lebanon. It is also Canberra Day (Australia), Doljatra (Bangladesh), National Heroes and Benefactors Day (Belize), Commonwealth Day (Canada), Holika Dahana (India), Fast of Esther (Israel), Taranaki Anniversary Day (New Zealand), Madin Full Moon Poya Day (Sri Lanka), and Holi Phagwa (Suriname). And a number of countries observe International Women’s Day today as well. The saint of the day is Catherine of Bologna, and it’s Ornette Coleman’s birthday. Playing calendar roulette it’s JD 2458917, 13 Adar 5780 (Jewish), 30 Meshir 1736 (Coptic), or 14 Rajab 1441 (Islamic). (There are other calendars in the world; these are ones I’ve noted since I was in high school.)

In the news I see that North Korea is continuing to maintain its threatening stance by lobbing missiles into the ocean (which as a sovereign nation it has a right to do, though it doesn’t seem particularly productive, or even helpful, from here). President Trump’s abject failure to accomplish anything towards limiting North Korea’s world ambitions (a.k.a. “threats”) can hardly be held against him, since much the same can be said of Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama—although at least they didn’t make things worse (much worse anyway), as Trump has done. Still, for a fifth-rate nation like North Korea to have made itself as big a threat to humanity as global warming is one hell of an achievement, and should be celebrated by somebody. Not me, though.

On this date in 1496 Jews were expelled from Carinthia in Austria, and in 1776 The Wealth of Nations was published, and in 1862 the USS Monitor and CSS Merrimack fought, and in 1916 Pancho Villa raided Columbus (New Mexico), but I don’t know anything about any of these events, and none of them inspire me to do even the minimum amount of research (say, looking them up on Wikipedia) necessary to write something of any interest. I’ve read newspaper accounts of the last two, but that was in another country, and besides the wench is dead.