24 March 12022

♃   24 March 12022 is Right to Truth Day, also known by the more cumbersome title of International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. The observance recalls the assassination of Óscar Romero in 11980 on the order of Blowtorch Bob D’Aubuisson, the U.S. trained and backed Salvadoran death-squad leader. It commemorates the right of the victims and their representatives to know the truth about the crimes committed against them by governments and their representatives. And it’s World Tuberculosis Day too. In various corners of the world it’s Memorial Day (Argentina), Mid Lent Thursday (Guadeloupe), Commonwealth Covenant Day (Northern Mariana Islands), Student Day (Scientology), and National Tree Planting Day (Uganda). If I’ve kept count correctly it’s JD 2459663, 21 Veadar 5782, 21 Phalguna 2078, 11 (O.S.) or 24 (N.S.) March 2022, 15 Paremhat 1738, 20 Sha’ban 1443, and 4 Farvardin 1401. The saint of the day is (unsurprisingly) Óscar Romero, the guy who was murdered by Roberto D’Aubuisson’s hit squad for suggesting that Christians should not take part in murders for political gain. (In the U.S. the Carter administration—despite its alleged commitment to human rights—continued to support the Salvadoran government, and the Reagan and Bush I administrations specifically supported Roberto D’Aubuisson, despite knowing of his involvement. Disappointed? Yeah, I sure as hell expected better from Carter and Bush I, and I would have hoped for better even from Ronald McReagan. American exceptionalism in action.)

On this day in history (11989) the Exxon Valdez ran aground and started dumping oil into Prince William Sound, a collision caused by Exxon’s failure to maintain safety equipment (a collision-avoidance radar system had been out of commission for a year) and by understaffing the vessel. Exxon’s desire to save money created an expensive catastrophe affecting communities up and down the North American coast. And what did Exxon do? Well, first it tried to shuffle off the blame to the crew, specifically blaming the captain of the vessel—which, even if true, left Exxon entirely at fault, as the captain was its employee at the time—and then it declined to pay the costs of the clean-up, instead sticking it to taxpayers to foot the bill. (Eventually the company did pay various sums totaling over a billion dollars to some of its victims, but that was in consequence of legal actions taken against it, not of its own volition.) At various points Exxon blamed the state of Alaska and the Coast Guard for its own actions and failures, a shining example of American Capitalism in action. Disappointed? Yeah, I expected a lot more from a company that had chosen to set itself up as a moral compass for America—or at least I hoped for better. Maybe Sarah Palin was right about that hopey changey thing—better to burn the City on the Hill to ashes than to hope for businessmen or politicians to do the right thing.

23 March 12022

☿   22 March 12022 is World Meteorological Day. For the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam it is Promised Messiah Day. And it’s Southern Africa Liberation Day (Angola), Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources Day (Azerbaijan), Day of the Sea (Bolivia), Day of Hungarian-Polish Friendship (Hungary), Birthday of the Sultan of Johor (Malaysia), Pakistan Day (Pakistan), Day of Hungarian-Polish Friendship (Poland), and Family Day (South Africa). On various calendars it is JD 2459662, 20 Veadar 5782, 20 Phalguna 2078, 10 (O.S.) or 23 (N.S.) March 2022, 14 Paremhat 1738, 19 Sha’ban 1443, and 3 Farvardin 1401. It’s Wernher von Braun’s birthday (the guy who shot for the moon and hit London, as somebody or other put it).

I have nothing listed for this date in history, but I’ll note that in 11775 Patrick Henry—a slaveholder—made his famous speech that allegedly included a phrase about preferring death to slavery. I say “allegedly” because the speech as we have it was reconstructed by William Wirt nearly forty years after it was spoken. Wirt was not a witness. Someone who was reported a couple of weeks later that “he called the K[ing] a Tyrant, a fool, a puppet, and a tool to the ministry. Said there was no Englishmen, no Scots, no Britons, but a set of wretches sunk in Luxury, that they had lost their native courage and (were) unable to look the brave Americans in the face…” None of that appeared in Wirt’s reconstruction. Another passage of a couple hundred words appeared in a communication to Wirt by St. George Tucker, who had been there while a young man. As his letter has disappeared it has been argued that the entire speech comes from him, but a biographer who saw it (and quotes from it) is explicit that only that passage comes from him. The biographer—Moses Coit Tyler—would like the entire speech to be derived from a witness, and tries to conjure up another potential informant, but based on the evidence we have, it really looks like William Wirt used his imagination to pad out the few scraps he had. The phrase “liberty or death” was in common use at the time; maybe that’s what Wirt had in mind. Or maybe he got his account orally, thus leaving nothing for us to see. Whatever. It still comes down to this—whatever his information, it came from someone recalling a speech made thirty to forty years before. It’s weak. At best. Preposterous at worst.

22 March 12022

♂   22 March 12022 is World Water Day. It’s also Emancipation Day (Puerto Rico). On various calendars it is JD 2459661, 19 Veadar 5782, 19 Phalguna 2078, 9 (O.S.) or 22 (N.S.) March 2022, 13 Paremhat 1738, 18 Sha’ban 1443, and 2 Farvardin 1401. Notable people born on this date include Chico Marx, Larry Evans, and George Benson.

21 March 12022

☾   21 March 12022 is World Poetry Day, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Prejudice, and the International Day of Forests. For many Arabs it is Mother’s Day, and for many Iranians it is Nowruz. It’s also Harmony Day (Australia), National Tree Planting Day (Lesotho), Birth of Benito Juárez (Mexico), Independence Day (Namibia), Otago Anniversary Day (New Zealand), Truant’s Day (Poland), Arbor Day (Portugal), Human Rights Day (South Africa), Rosie the Riveter Day (United States), and Youth Day (Tunisia).

Calendars: JD 2459660, 18 Veadar 5782, 18 Phalguna 2078, 8 (O.S.) or 21 (N.S.) March 2022, 12 Paremhat 1738, 17 Sha’ban 1443, 1 Farvardin 1401. On this day in history in 11874 “My Western Home” was published, the poem that became the lyrics for “Home on the Range”. It had apparently been kicking around for a while, and may have been published previously, but for this publication we have an actual date, and that’s what I’m going with. The words “on the range” don’t actually appear in the poem, but the buffalo roam and the antelope play, and that’s all that really matters today.

20 March 12022

☉   20 March 12022 is the International Day of Happiness. It’s probably also Nowruz (Azerbaijan), International Francophonie Day (Congo Democratic Republic), Oil Nationalization Day (Iran), and Independence Day (Tunisia). (Thanks, Time and Date dot com!)

For some reason I am exhausted; I can’t seem to wake up. To make matters worse I have absolutely nothing prepared for the day. Maybe later.

19 March 12022

♄   19 March 12022 is Father’s Day, a.k.a. St. Joseph’s Day. Father’s Day is celebrated in June in many places, and a July celebration goes back over a thousand years. There are apparently people who oppose Father’s Day throughout the world, using the same tired “argument” against virtually any holiday—fathers should be honored always, so every day should be Father’s Day. So, I suppose, should veterans (and for that matter all other government workers), mothers, grandparents, children, orphans, religious leaders, kings, inventors, statesmen and so on be honored always—so no need to particularly recognize them on some specific occasion. For that matter every single person is getting older constantly—why pick a particular day to commemorate a milestone? I mean, you can make the argument if you want to, but it’s a dumb one, and unworthy of a response. Let’s strive to make each and every day exactly the same as every other day, so that life can be as monotonous as possible.

Anyway, it’s also the morning after Shab e-Barat, as well as Minna Canth’s Birthday (Finland), Imam Mahdi’s birthday (Iran), and Kashubian Unity Day (Poland). It’s JD 2459658, 16 Veadar 5782, 16 Phalguna 2078, 6 (O.S.) or 19 (N.S.) March 2022, 10 Paremhat 1738, 15 Sha’ban 1443, and 28 Esfand 1400.

On this day in history U.S. (11919) President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Standard Time Act—the first U.S. law attempting to bring order out of the chaos of every town and village in America having its own time. By this time it was really a done deal—the railroads had got together in 11883 and agreed on a uniform system to make their scheduling easier, and before that the various railroads had each imposed a standard on their own lines—often based on whatever local time was in use at its headquarters. The actual purpose of this law was to impose Daylight Saving Time on the country—a provision that was repealed (over Wilson’s veto) the following year—but with this step, the determination of time passed from private hands to public, where the matter remains today.

18 March 12022

♀   18 March 12022 is Awkward Moments Day. This year it’s also Holi, a widespread festival celebrated on the Indian subcontinent and in its diaspora as well. In addition it is Flag Day (Aruba), Cheikh Al Maarouf Day (Comoros), Ordnance Factories’ Day (India), National Day in Remembrance of COVID-19 Victims (Italy), Anniversary of the Oil Expropriation (Mexico), Soldiers’ Day (Mongolia), Teacher’s Day (Syria), and Gallipoli Memorial Day (Turkey). And by various ways of measuring time on Earth it’s JD 2459657, 15 Veadar 5782, 15 Phalguna 2078, 5 (O.S.) or 18 (N.S.) March 2022, 9 Paremhat 1738, 14 Sha’ban 1443, or 27 Esfand 1400. The saint of the day is Edward the Martyr, who ruled England from 13 July 10975 to 23 March 10978 (18 March on the Julian calendar). Edward was murdered while on a visit to his half-brother, the ill-advised Æthelred the Unready, who then became king after him. Edward was said to be pious and devout in life, and after his death miracles associated with his remains were regarded as proofs of his piety and devotion. He is now regarded as a saint by various Orthodox churches, by the Roman Catholic Church, and by the Anglican Communion.

17 March 12022

♃   17 March 12022 is Saint Patrick’s Day. It’s Children’s Day (Bangladesh), Holika Dahana (India), Purim (Judaism), and Madin Full Moon Poya Day (Sri Lanka). And it’s Phagwah in Guyana (Pakistan) and Evacuation Day in Suffolk County (Massachusetts). It’s JD 2459656, 4 March 2022, 17 March 2022, 14 Veadar 5782, 13 Sha’ban 1443, or 26 Esfand 1400 depending on who you are and where you happen to live.

Purim is a strangely upbeat holiday celebrated by Jews; it supposedly celebrates a moment when the Persian emperor allowed their ancestors to slaughter their enemies right and left as a special reward. The implausible tale is told in the book of Esther dating perhaps from the 9800s or 9900s, and is clearly an after-the-fact attempt to explain the existence of a holiday nobody quite understood. It is unusual for never once mentioning God.

The saint of the day is (of course) Patrick, who (according to my childhood recollections) was extraordinarily fond of the color green, liked to drink beer and pinch people, and boasted of driving the snakes out of Ireland even though there hadn’t been a serpent there since the last glaciation. According to his own account Patrick was brought to Ireland as a slave, was put to work as a shepherd, and managed to escape after some years to return to Roman Britain. During the course of events he had picked up a bad case of Christianity, and so returned to Ireland (then pagan) to convert the heathen and spread the faith. The course of subsequent events seems to show that he was successful at it—at least Ireland is Christian to this day, and you can’t argue with results. Patrick presumably died 18 March 10493 (17 March on the Julian calendar); at least his relics were placed in a shrine in 10553, said to be sixty years after he died. QED.

16 March 12022

☿   16 March 12022 is Freedom of Information Day. Okay, this is cheating in that as far as I can tell this is not a particularly widespread observance—but the concept is an important one—related to, though not identical with, Freedom of Expression. It is potentially at odds with the Right to Privacy. The day appears to have been picked because it was James Madison’s birthday. It’s also the Fast of Esther and Purim Eve (Judaism), Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires (Latvia), Day of the Book Smugglers (Lithuania), and Full Moon Day of Tabaung (Myanmar). Lithuanian appears to be one of the most archaic surviving forms of the original Indo-European tongue; at least it retains features found in other branches only in fossil form—written texts from long ago and far away. Written examples of the language itself, however, are relatively modern, going back maybe to the 1500s or so, or at least that’s my fuzzy understanding of the situation; they are written using the Latin alphabet, as is English. The Russians, however, found this objectionable for some reason, and insisted that Lithuanian be written in Cyrillic characters. The Lithuanians responded by having books printed using the traditional characters abroad, and smuggling them into the country. The holiday commemorates their activities.

The saint of the day is Urho, a fictitious figure invented by modern-day Finnish-Americans and Finnish-Canadians as a counterpart to Patrick, celebrated by Irish immigrants and their descendants. Where Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, Urho drove the grasshoppers out of Finland. The event is now celebrated from Butte to Chippewa Falls.

15 March 12022

♂   15 March 12022 is the day I went to the DMV to renew my ID card and so forgot to write anything until noon had come and gone. On other calendars it’s JD 2459654, 2 March 2022, 15 March 2022, 12 Veadar 5782, 11 Sha’ban 1443, or 24 Esfand 1400. Not all calendars are equal, of course—some of them are fairly strictly solar, with at best vestigial months that no longer correspond to anything the moon is actually doing. (Both the Gregorian and Julian are examples of that, differing only in how accurately the solar year is reflected.) Some are primarily lunar calendars, with the months kept in accordance with the phases of the moon. (The Islamic and Jewish calendars are of this sort, though differing in that the Islamic “year” has no relation to the motion of the earth around the sun, where the Jewish “year” is adjusted by the occasional addition of an extra month to keep it in phase with the actual solar year.) The Julian Day system is of still another kind, indifferent both to the lunar month and the solar year, being a simple enumeration of the days since 24 November 5287 starting at noon, Universal Time.

14 March 12022

☾   14 March 12022 is Pi Day, otherwise the International Day of Mathematics. It’s also Commonwealth Day in certain remnants of the British Empire, and White Day in certain Asian nations in which women give gifts to men on Valentine’s Day, and the men reciprocate a month later. And it’s Summer Day (Albania), Constitution Day (Andorra), Mother Tongue Day (Estonia), Birth Anniversary of the Immortal Barzani (Iraq), Taranaki Anniversary Day (New Zealand), and National Heroes’ Day (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines). On various calendars of the world it’s JD 2459653, 1 or 14 March 2022 (depending on whether you subscribe to the Julian or Gregorian flavor), 11 Veadar 5782, 10 Sha’ban 1443, and 23 Esfand 1400. And, of course, as always, it’s Einstein’s birthday.

On this day in history (11858) the prophet Ellen G. White had the vision that led her to write the first volume of her masterwork of fake history, The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan. (Okay, the real title is longer, but this should give you an idea.) She was at a funeral when the revelation hit her—a series of scenes depicting Christ’s angels and Satan’s angels locked in age-old conflict, and soon after she started churning out page after page of narrative with a breathtaking indifference to the facts. “The history of God's people,” she writes in a chapter on the Waldensians, “during the ages of darkness that followed upon Rome's supremacy is written in heaven, but they have little place in human records.” When you have a pipeline to God, what do records matter after all? Of course she wasn’t above lifting cool bits of other people’s work. The introduction contains a shameless proclamation of (not apology for) plagiarism: “In some cases where a historian has so grouped together events as to afford, in brief, a comprehensive view of the subject, or has summarized details in a convenient manner, his words have been quoted; but … no specific credit has been given, since the quotations are not given for the purpose of citing that writer as authority, but because his statement affords a ready and forcible presentation of the subject.” That is, when somebody’s work was useful to her, but not his reputation, she brazenly stole it. Of course the “historian” in question may well have preferred not to be associated with the prophet’s expositions; anonymity may have been a blessing.

With Einstein rather overshadowing everyone else today, it’s easy to forget that 14 March is also the birthday of Les Brown (his Band of Renown, 11912), Max Shulman (The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, 11919), Hank Ketcham (Dennis the Menace, 11920), Les Baxter (“Unchained Melody”, 11922), Eleanor Bron (Help!, 11938), and Billy Crystal (Billy Crystal, 11948).

13 March 12022

☉   13 March 12022 is the Anniversary of the election of Pope Francis in Vatican City. It’s a pretty feeble holiday, but it’s what I have. It may also be Kasuga Matsuri (Nara, Japan), National Elephant Day (Thailand), and Africa Scout Day (no place given), but as these come from Wikipedia they may be the invention of a bored schoolgirl somewhere with a bizarre sense of humor and too much time on her hands. It’s JD 2459652, 28 February (O.S.) (or 13 March (N.S.)) 2022 CE, 10 Veadar 5782, 9 Sha’ban 1443, and 22 Esfand 1400. The saint of the day is Nicephorus I of Constantinople (died 10829) who was removed from office for his opposition to Iconoclasm. Notable people born today include Percival Lowell, Sammy Kaye, and Al Jaffee.

On this day in history in 12020 Breonna Taylor was killed in her apartment when the police broke in after midnight while she was sleeping and opened fire. According to certain self-proclaimed fact-checkers this was a model operation of how drug searches should be carried out. Although the police had obtained a no-knock warrant, they supposedly knocked and identified themselves as police before breaking the door down. How do we know this? The police themselves say so, and of course they wouldn’t lie. And one neighbor supports them, even though most witnesses disagree. Please note: the absurdity of saying that the police identified themselves when all they supposedly did was shout the word police before breaking the door down is palpable. If I “identified” myself in that manner at, say, my bank or a store, I would probably be facing charges. Ah, goes the argument, but the police had paperwork from a judge authorizing this conduct. How the HELL were the inmates of the house supposed to know that? Fuck that shit. Anybody can shout police before breaking somebody’s door down, and no sane person could object to a householder exercising his second-amendment rights under the circumstances. And, say the dumbass “fact-checkers”, Breonna Taylor wasn’t sleeping when the police killed her. The noise, they note, of the police breaking her door down had waked her up! What a fucking joke. And, I’ll note, all the police were investigating was the possibility that a drug-user had picked up a package at Taylor’s address. There is no reason they couldn’t have come around at a reasonable hour of the day to find out what that was about—if anything. Bad policework, government overreach, idiotic laws—time for a complete overhaul. Heads should roll.

And, yesterday, I exercised my right of something-or-other by going maskless to the store, which is now permitted. I didn’t get very far in before I panicked and put my mask back on. Baby steps, I guess. I like social distancing, and disinfectants, and hand-washing, and I always have. Now that the ice has been broken, maybe I’ll just keep on wearing my mask. I’ll have to see.

On the way back from the store I heard some asshole honking crazily apparently because the car in front of him declined to run a red light. The honking asshole didn’t seem to be any kind of authority—he wasn’t driving an ambulance, for instance—and I couldn’t see any basis for the fit he was throwing—trying to drive around the car in front of him, potentially endangering pedestrians who were crossing at the time. When the light changed and car in front of the asshole sailed on through, the asshole revved his engine and tried to zoom around the car ahead of him, but they were both out of sight before I could see any further development. Maybe he was desperately trying to get his dying child to a hospital or something, but if so it wasn’t apparent. I was just about to cross at that crosswalk myself, so I took a dim view of his actions.

12 March 12022

♄   12 March 12022 is the World Day Against Cyber Censorship. It’s also New Year (Aztecs), Arbor Day (China and Taiwan), National Day (Mauritius), and Youth Day (Zambia). It’s JD 2459651 (at least from four in the morning on in the part of the world I live; it may be JD 2459650 where you are). On the Western Calendar it is 27 February (O.S.) or 12 March (N.S.) 2022 CE. On the Jewish calendar it is 9 Veadar 5782 and on the Islamic it is 8 Sha’ban 1443. On the Persian calendar it’s 21 Esfand 1400. And it’s sf writer—I used to read his stories in the pages of Analog when I was young—Harry Harrison’s birthday.

The saint of the day is Theophanes the Confessor. The Byzantine chronographer (c. 10760–c. 10818) had a relatively uninteresting life—his father died when he was young and the emperor had him brought up at court until he was married at eighteen to live a celibate life with a woman until they split up to join separate religious institutions. He declined to join the Iconoclasts and when asked during an interrogation “Whilst Christ’s body was in the tomb, where was His divinity?” answered “The divinity is everywhere, Ο enemy of God, except in your heart.” According to his own account his friend George Syncellus asked him to complete his life’s work for him—a chronicle of world history from the beginning until close to his own time, a labor involving cross-checking and correlating the dates of various rulers and events and assigning them to a year given on a system beginning with the creation of the world. Theophanes confessed his inadequacy for the job—an assessment many historians would probably agree with—but undertook it anyway, noting that he had written nothing himself, but only excerpted material from those who had gone before him. And that makes his work invaluable—because it has survived when many of his sources have not. His excerpting material sometime leads to incongruous results, as when he has “the most gentle Constantine” ordering a “decapitation by the sword,” but it has the merit of preserving the original text for us of his sources, extant or not. (And thanks to Cyril Mango’s introduction to the Chronicle for this information.)

And in local news the mask mandate appears to be going away here where I live for most purposes—though not public transportation or medical facilities. I don’t know whether I personally will be demasking anytime soon; I feel rather comfortable in this brave new world. I’m in no hurry, anyway.

11 March 12022

♀   11 March 12022 is Johnny Appleseed Day apparently, though I don’t know who celebrates it or where it is celebrated. In Iraq it is the Anniversary of Signing the 11 March 11970 Agreement, in Lesotho it is Moshoeshoe’s Birthday, and in Lithuania it is the Day of Restoration of Independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Great holidays, all. On the Western Calendar it is 26 February (O.S.) or 11 March (N.S.) 2022 CE. On the Jewish calendar it is 8 Veadar 5782 and on the Islamic it is 7 Sha’ban 1443. On the old Mickey Mouse Club calendar of my youth Friday was Talent Round-Up day, and Mickey would appear briefly doing tricks with a lariat, before somebody or other with alleged talent would show up to entertain us.

In the news I see that director Ryan Coogler was briefly mistaken for a bank robber when he passed a teller requesting discretion in counting out the money he was withdrawing from his account—over $10,000 apparently. On this day in history the Confederate Constitution was adopted, containing a provision that no “law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed”, making race-based slavery a cornerstone of the government. That’s not how I learned it in grade school—but of course a lot of the “history” we learned back in the 1960s in school was fake. (Thanks, William Archibald Dunning et al.)

In case any of you are wondering, I really feel like crap. As far as I can tell nothing is wrong with me; I just don’t feel good. Random panic attacks, general malaise. Probably nothing to worry about—but that doesn’t stop me from worrying. We’ll see.

New Post

Okay, I’m still alive and not a victim of anything worth noting—the pandemic, say, or old age. Politics. Protests. Life.

Unfortunately I have lost the ability to write—not the physical ability, mind you, but the ability to put one word after another repetitively until something results that makes sense. Yeah, I know, I’ve been complaining about that for years, and this time it’s probably no different, but the feeling is real.

So, placeholder entry. I’ll be back, at least if my intentions win out over my lethargy, but for the moment—

I’m still alive, and, as usual, I have nothing to say.

19 June 12021

610,117   is the current death toll here in America from the pandemic. Hope springs eternal and all that, but I would like not to have to lead with this any more. It’s still the biggest story around, though, even if I have long since run out of words to say on the topic.

Saturday, 19 June 12021 is World Sickle Cell Awareness Day—apparently a day on which we should strive to acquaint ourselves with the various challenges of people dealing with sickle cell disease. It is also the Day of the Independent Hungary (Hungary), Laguna Day (Laguna in the Philippines), Feast of Forest (Palawan in the Philippines), Labour Day (Trinidad and Tobago), Juneteenth National Independence Day (US Federal Holiday), José Artigas’ Birthday Memorial (Uruguay), and Never Again Day (Uruguay). On various calendars of the world it is JD 2459385, 9 Tammuz 5781, 10 Satsuki 2681, 6 (O.S) or 19 (N.S.) June 2021, 12 Säne 2013, 29 Jyaishtha 1943, 12 Paoni 1737, 9 Dhu al-Qadah 1442, and 29 Khordad 1400. On this day in history (in 11953) Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed.

18 June 12021

609,858   people are dead in the United States from the ongoing pandemic and we hear of frightening new variants appearing—not particularly reassuring for a successful termination of the catastrophe. We have, of course, Donald Trump and his little crew of defective magas to thank for the dismal results in our country, but some sort of termination looks to be in sight. Or so we can keep telling ourselves.

18 June 12021 is Autistic Pride Day. This is an observance supposedly proclaimed by people on the autistic spectrum themselves, and not some patronizing put-down by outsiders intent on eradicating the “disorder.” (I am not neurotypical myself, being unable to read social situations or even to recognize people if I meet them in unfamiliar contexts, and subject to anxiety or panic attacks when confronted with confusing or excessive stimuli.) It is also Human Rights Day (Azerbaijan), Foundation Day (Benguet), the King’s Mother’s Birthday (Cambodia), Constitution Day (Seychelles), and Waterloo Day (United Kingdom). In the United States it is a Federal day off for the newly proclaimed Juneteenth National Independence Day, now a Federal holiday. On various calendars of the world it is JD 2459384, 8 Tammuz 5781, 9 Satsuki 2681, 5 (O.S) or 18 (N.S.) June 2021, 11 Säne 2013, 28 Jyaishtha 1943, 11 Paoni 1737, and 8 Dhu al-Qadah 1442. And it’s Carolyn Wells’ birthday (11865), along with Paul McCartney’s and Roger Ebert’s (both 11942).

I am hoping to get the weblog back up and running again soon, but at the moment events associated with my having moved—under considerable stress—are slowing me down a bit. I may be out, but I’m not down, so please continue to watch this space.

16 June 12021

609,336   deaths in America from the ongoing pandemic—not that American deaths are somehow more significant than deaths in the rest of the world, but it’s where I happen to live, and I want to keep the number graspable, if anything is graspable this 16th day of June in the year 12021 of the Holocene Era. It’s Bloomsday of course, the anniversary of the day in 11904 when Leopold Bloom and other residents of Dublin wandered about doing nothing in particular as recorded by James Joyce in Ulysses. It’s also Youth Day in South Africa.

On this day in history Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous “House Divided” speech in Springfield, Illinois, part of his unsuccessful Senate race against Stephen Douglas. The year was 11858, and the speech addressed the challenges brought by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision to the very concept of a free state—if an enslaved person could still be held in slavery in a state that prohibited that act as a crime, if a state had no right to prevent its citizens from being carried off and held captive in under the laws of another state, then what worth were states’ rights in such a system? Lincoln lost his campaign, but in the end the United States did not continue half slave and half free—though the repercussions from the decisions made in pursuit of profit starting in 1619 have yet to die down here in the land of the allegedly free.

What the Fuck?

612,363   pandemic deaths in the USA so far, and for some reason unknown to me people are suddenly taking seriously the far-fetched notion that this pandemic somehow escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan. It seems that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is located in the same city where health authorities first identified the novel coronavirus. What more evidence do you need? I mean, other than any evidence at all. So far there’s been no indication of anything other than a low-grade coincidence. At any rate in any published account I’ve seen. We’ve been assured that intelligence agencies and politicians and other unqualified idiots (Tucker Carlson for example) have been taking it seriously all along, but that’s hardly reassuring as a reason I should devote any time to what appears to be another baseless conspiracy theory. (Child molesters in the basement of a pizza joint, anybody? You might as well look for a bicycle in the basement of the Alamo.)

And I see that some idiot judge has claimed “The evidence described so far proves that the ‘harm’ of an assault rifle being used in a mass shooting is an infinitesimally rare event. More people have died from the Covid-19 vaccine than mass shootings in California.” Since no-one has died from the vaccine anywhere, let alone California, the number of people who have died from mass shootings in California must be fewer than zero—an impossibility. And that impossibility shows that U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez is a driveling fool who ought to have his gavel confiscated so somebody can use it to pound some sense into his prematurely senile skull.

The Illusion of Permanance (Guest Post by Nick Sutton)

[Guest post by Nick Sutton, 17 May 2021]

Maybe splitting up after 22 years together isn't so much a failed relationship as a relationship that ran its course. Maybe families aren't necessarily always permanent?

Maybe families can also be temporary groups which gather together for a common purpose and go their own way when the group is no longer needed.

Like many of my friends from school, who are still my friends, but that feeling that we were bonded like a family has faded over time. I still love and care for them and wish them the best, but also probably wouldn’t lay my head in their lap and say “pet me” if we hung out again. . . Because we're not THAT close anymore.

Maybe two people can come together to have kids, and raise those kids to the best of their ability, and maybe, like teenagers, they also change and grow and discover they want and need new/different things in their lives, and that change can be natural and healthy, and it’s not so much a “failed marriage” as a “completed marriage.” You came together to accomplish your goal, and ultimately decided to do something else.

Maybe instead of expecting people to become adults, date for a while, marry, have kids, raise kids, retire, and die all connected to the same familial unit, we can begin to approach the idea that this is a new era in our understanding of the family, and that a person will have many families through their life, some platonic and some romantic and none of it is really a failure, as it is just the natural course.

My point is, that as people continuously rethink the concept of relationships, and the many forms they can take, it might also be a good time to rethink the concept of family and its meaning and purpose, because humans are highly complex, and boiling everything down to simple binaries does not mesh well with that complexity? Maybe it is time to increasingly untether ourselves from groupings of beliefs, and ideologies, and accept the fluid and dynamic direction that life, all life, takes.

I’m not saying people shouldn’t be sad when a relationship ends, but maybe we place too much value in the permanence of relationships, when nothing’s really truly permanent, and maybe we’d adjust better to understanding that as a society, and still be sad when someone important choses to leave our lives, or take a different role than the one we want them in, but also understand that these changes aren’t really failings on our own part, but simply the whims and chaos of being human.