Posted on 03/14/2005 9:08:52 PM PST by Hillary's Lovely Legs
Forget Friday the 13th. Ignore ladders, black cats, broken mirrors and spilt salt. Think instead of today, March 15, and beware.
As superstitions go, being wary of the ides of March is certainly more unusual. Yet the day does have a certain resonance.
In the complicated world of the Roman calender, there were 45 public festivals (not bad compared to the UK's eight bank holidays), as well as the ides of each month, days which were sacred to Jupiter.
In March, May, July and October, the ides fell on the 15th.
The Julian calendar, established by Julius Caesar, gave us the basis of our system of 365 days a year and 366 in a leap year. But for the most part, the Roman festivals of his time have had their day.
The ides of March, however, is one day that continues to appeal, marked because that was the date that Julius Caesar was assassinated in the senate, in 44BC.
Its modern-day memory is thanks, like so many things, to Shakespeare's way with words.
In act one, scene two of Julius Caesar, Caesar asks a soothsayer what the future holds.
Caesar: Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue, shriller than all the music Cry "Caesar!" Speak. Caesar is turn'd to hear. Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.
Although today the reference will not be understood by everybody, David Ewing Duncan, author of The Calendar, wrote that it was not always so.
A Roman saying "four ides" (meaning four days before the ides) would be just as clear to other Romans as someone saying March 11.
And furthermore, the system lasted 2,000 years, well into the Renaissance, he wrote. This meant Shakespeare could include the line, and expect his audience to know what he meant.
Test of time
However, just four hundred years later, the ides seems set only to survive as a literary and historical reference - in spite of it being the date by which debts (including Caesar's) were usually settled.
Professor Eileen Barker, of the London School of Economics, said it was a shame but the ides probably only had significance for schoolchildren reading Julius Caesar.
"I was thinking about this when I saw what date it was, and I thought no wonder I'm feeling awful," she said.
One significant historical event that fell on the ides of March is, perhaps, worth noting. It was on this day in 1876 that Test cricket was born.
Reason for anyone to beware? Perhaps for the English.
It was against Australia.
I want to run something by you guys on the Terri Schiavo saga. It looks like her time is about to run out. So here's what I propose:
Once the very last effort has been made and rebuffed, allow the nursing staff to place a stopperful of water in her mouth. If she swallows it, voila! The docs and judges will have been proved wrong and the tube goes back in. If she chokes and dies...well, at least it's over. And humanity can say at least we tried.
Is that cruel?
The whole thing makes me sick.
It's one of the best articles I've seen anywhere about how---as he says---international relations really work. Without saying it, he lays open the naivete at the heart of the Dems' "global test" diplomacy:
That was a well-written and thought-provoking piece. Thank goodness (for the zillionth time) the Dems aren't in the White House pushing their "please like us, please oh please oh please!" foreign policy. I'm hopeful that Wolfie and Bolton will spark at least some reform of their new environments.
Yes, but do they go with Ol' Crusty?
DEEP THOUGHTS from Ashton Kutcher (oxymoron alert):
'ALL THIS religious dogma, it's like this gigantic separation machine that divides people and causes more death than anything. Especially when the golden rule is supposed to be 'love thy neighbor' . . . I got out of religiosity and maintained spirituality."
That's Ashton Kutcher, talking with Brad Pitt in the April issue of Interview. This is a fascinating Q&A, between two men who — because they are actors — are assumed not to have any serious, spiritual or cogent thoughts. But they do! Brad and Ashton talk frankly about the search for meaning in religion and the price of fame ... (Liz Smith)
Just passin' thru.
I've been swamped this week and have no idea when your team plays next. Update please.
They play in 53 minutes!
ESPN?
CBS
thanks
You're going to laugh, but I don't know how to shut off my Dish, and then get the Network stuff running, so I'll wait for a report from you.
(Actually, I know how to shut the Dish off, I just don't know how to get the Networks up and running,, and getting back to the Dish is problematic, too) I guess I should have invited a grandchild to visit tonite so work the equipment for me.
You're missin' a great game. Really beautiful basketball. Both sides.
Who are you playing. Give me a half time score.
There's 8 and a half minutes left in the game; we're up by 13.
7:30 to go we're up by 13 and about to shoot two free throws. We're playing the U of WI, Milwaukee. There is a blood feud between their coach and our fans. Long story, but the jist of it is that 15 years ago while an asst coach at Iowa, he engineered a fabrication to the NCAA that IL illegally recruited Deon Thomas. No evidence that IL was guilty was ever found. Then Digger Phelps at Notre Dame comes out and says one of his players claims IL offered him money. Problem is, the Notre Dame player changes his story about every 10 minutes. Investigation reveals lots of phone calls going on behind the scene between this at the time Iowa ast coach and Digger Phelps. No evidence found that IL committed any illegalities at all. Everyone wonders if it was a set-up. NCAA decides where there's smoke, there's fire and dings IL by taking away some scholarships and I think put them on probation. Fans HATE this guy. He's a real schmuck. So there's NO love lost between the coach and the our fans.
We're now up 70-56 with 6:19 left.
WE WIN!!!
Way to go Illini!
What are the chances we'll see WVU and UI face one another? Yikes, whoda thunk them Mountaineers could do so well?
Barbara Bush Says Hillary Clinton Will Lose In 2008
Ex-First Lady Addressed Students
POSTED: 9:30 am EST March 25, 2005
MODESTO, Calif. (AP) -- One former first lady is offering predictions about another. Barbara Bush said former first lady, and current senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the Democratic candidate for president in 2008.
But Sen. Clinton won't be the nation's first female president, at least not according to Mrs. Bush.
Mrs. Bush, 79, said Clinton will lose in the next election.
Mrs. Bush also predicted Condoleezza Rice won't run for president in the next election.
Mrs. Bush spoke to high school and college students in Modesto, Calif. She told them she never dreamed she'd be the wife of one president and the mother of another.
As for the current chief executive, his mother jokes that when he was a boy, she "just hoped he'd grow up."
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