15 January 2020

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 15 January 12020 is Bagel and Lox Day—also Strawberry Ice Cream Day. In Egypt it is Arbor Day (honoring trees); in India it is Army Day (glorifying their military); in Malawi it is John Chilembwe Day (remembering a Baptist minister who advocated resistance to colonial rule), and in Nigeria it is Armed Forces Day (celebrating the crushing of the Biafran independence movement). It is the real birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.—as opposed to the day set aside for remembering his work.

From the news I gather that the Dopey Don is going to force children to pray in public schools by executive decree—or something like that; the details were not announced. (Children can already pray in school if they want to; that’s never been in question in the United States.) Possibly this is just another brainfart of the Lunatic-in-chief, and nothing more will be heard of it. And apparently neither Iran nor North Korea wants to deal with him on the subject of limiting nuclear weapons—not at this time, anyway, and possibly ever.

Venus will be in sextile with Uranus today, as if things weren’t bad enough. Otherwise the planets continue their malign conspiracies at the old Capricorn inn, as Mercury prepares to jump ship to Aquarius, if travel plans hold.

And in history this is the anniversary of the 1919 Great Molasses Flood in Boston, Massachusetts. Twenty-one people died and over a hundred were injured when a tank containing molasses exploded, sending a flood of the sticky substance through the North End neighborhood at thirty-five miles an hour, inundating people, horses, dogs, and whatever else was in its path. The company responsible for the disaster of course denied all responsibility for it in the good old American corporate tradition, and instead blamed imaginary anarchists for the results of their own cost-cutting incompetence. The good news is that it was ultimately called to account after a fashion—and after some years had gone by—by having to pay out small sums to the families of their victims, but the bad news is that none of the corporate criminals were actually punished. That wouldn’t have been fair to them, I suppose. After all, they were only trying to make a buck.