This day is called January 9, 2023. It is starting, for me, like any other. Writing this post is my daily ritual. I never know where I’m going to end up when I start. Let’s see where this takes us. Today is Balloon Ascension Day, International Choreographers Day, National Apricot Day, National Clean Off Your Desk Day, Play God Day, National Gluten-Free Day, National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day, and National Word Nerd Day. Now to the historical footnotes: On this day in 1349 the ‘Massacre of Basel” happened when 700 Jews were burned to death because they were thought to have poisoned the wells (Black Death). On a happier note, on this day in 1493 Columbus 1st sighted manatees. On this day in 1768 Philip Astley staged the world’s first modern circus in London. In 1793 on this day Jean Pierre Blanchard lifted off the ground in Philadelphia to begin the 1st hot-air balloon flight in the US. This is the day in 1861 that the Battle of Fort Sumter took place. It was the first battle of the Civil War. On this day in 1912 the US sent troops to Honduras. This wasn’t unusual. The US invaded Honduras in 1903, 1907, 1911, 1912, 1919, 1924, and 1925, usually at times of political turmoil. They were “protecting U.S. interests” like banana plantations, banks, and railroads. On this day in 1936 semi-automatic rifles were adopted by the US army. On this day in 1962 the NFL prohibited grabbing of the face mask. Today’s dead person is Zygmunt Bauman. He as a Polish sociologist and philosopher who died in 2017. He said, “you judge a society by the decency of living o f the weakest.” “We live in a globalizing world. That means that all of us, consciously or not, depend on each other. Whatever we do or refrain from doing affects the lives of people who live in places we’ll never visit.” “Power, in a nutshell, is the ability to get things done, and politics is the ability to decide which things need to be done.” Last one for today: “The so called ‘progress,’ ‘time marching on,’ is not a straight line, but a pendulum.” You’ll have to think about that one for a bit to get it. Enough. Abide.
