History of the Day: 10/15

It's Global Handwashing Day! Or, as it's known in public schools, Global Hand-Sanitizer Day! It's also White Cane Day, instituted to commemorate the accomplishments of the blind. I nominate Stick (the guy who trained Matt Murdock/Daredevil to fight) for patron saint.

Today is the ancient Roman festival of Equirria or October equus in which the right hand horse of the winning pair of a race was sacrificed to Mars. The tail was rushed to the regia to have its blood drip on the hearth there. There was a traditional fight over its head between the inhabitants of the Subura who wanted it for the Turris Mamilia, and those of the Via Sacra who wanted it for the regia. Sounds like a good time was had by all ... except the horse.

I Love Lucy premiered on this day in 1951, so sit back with a glass of Vitameatavegamin and listen to Weird Al serenade her.

Lot's of musians to celebrate today ...

• Barry McGuire is 73 today. He gained notoriety in the 60s for his protest song Eve of Destruction, although the lyrics almost sound like they could have been written yesterday. Although he is a Christian, part of the "Jesus People" movement, he hit a nerve with the Conservatives of the era who had to release a counter song called Dawn of Correction.
• Tito Jackson is 55. 'Nuff said.
• Erin McKeown, a singer-songwriter who no one knows but everyone should, is 31 today. Here is here song Float.
• Cole Porter died on this day in 1964. He wrote a bajillion songs, including Let's Do It.

Hermann Göring, the commander of the Luftwaffe (German air force) in WWII, committed suicide on this day in 1946. He was scheduled to be hung after the Nuremburg trials, although he had requestes to be shot as a soldier. Somehow, he got his hands on a cyanide pill (no one knows how), and avoided the "shame" of a hanging. He is easily hated, as is anyone who can say something like:

My measures will not be crippled by any bureaucracy. Here I don't have to worry about Justice; my mission is only to destroy and to exterminate; nothing more.

Yet, he had quite embarrassing things to say, for those who would listen. Regarding the Mexican-American "war" he said:

After the United States gobbled up California and half of Mexico, and we were stripped down to nothing, territorial expansion suddenly becomes a crime. It's been going on for centuries, and it will still go on.

Ouch! He also said something else which has been attributed to Hitler himself and even Caesar. Although they come from a less than sterling source, they are wise words, and should be heeded by Americans. We needed to listen to them after 9/11, we need to listen to them again in the midst of the collapse of our economy and especially before we elect a president (be it one for "change" or one for "experience"):

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

Speaking of Nazis, happy birthday to Friedrich Nietzsche. It's hard to know what to say about the man. On the one hand, his philosophy (though somewhat hijacked by his rabidly anti-Semitic sister) was the basis for Nazi thought and policies, especially the "will to power" and the "Übermensch." Yet, in a world that often equated Western culture with Christianity, he correctly pointed out the difference between master-morality as portrayed in the Iliad (where good = strength, health, wealth and power and bad = poor, weak, sick and pathetic) and slave-morality as portrayed in the Bible (where good = charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and subservience and evil = cruel, selfish, wealthy, indulgent, and aggressive). In other words, the heroes of the Iliad are the villains of the Bible (which applies to Christians as well as Jews). Of course, he sided with the earlier ideal of the Iliad.

Regardless, he ended his days in madness and despair, with the afore-mentioned sister using (and altering) his words to support the Nazis. Perhaps we should just remember him for his rockin' 'stache.

Speaking of slave-morality, today is the feastday of St. Theresa of Avila. She wrote a beautiful poem which encapsulates everything Nietzsche derided:

Christ has no body now but yours
No hands, no feet on earth but yours
Yours are the eyes through which He looks
compassion on this world
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good.
Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands,
Yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes,
You are His Body.

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