Opinions

When, as a young teenager, I noticed my birthday was on the same DATE every year, but not on the same DAY of the week, I began to wonder about the date of Easter. Easter was always on a Sunday, I knew, but sometimes it occurred before my birthday, and sometimes after. Sometimes Easter was in the month of March, sometimes not until fairly late in April. I couldn’t find any other holiday that couldn’t seem to make up its mind as to which month it belonged in. How were we supposed to plan for it when there seemed so little consistency about when it would arrive?

Cupid, as we visualize him, is a combination of gods from Roman and Greek mythologies. Before the Romans came in contact with the Greek culture, the Roman gods were thought of as powers and forces of nature rather than as having human form. It wasn’t until after the Romans conquered Greece in the third century before Christ was born that writers such as Virgil and Ovid began combining the Greek deities with the Roman ones, creating a hybrid mythology which survives to this day through writings, architecture and art.

The term “Mardi Gras” is French for “Fat Tuesday” and refers to the day before the beginning of Lent when Christians used up any rich foods before giving them up during the Lenten period, along with parties and other self-indulgences. The day was the last opportunity for merrymaking, revelry and indulgence in food and drink for the 40 days leading up to Easter.

As I’ve been following the accusations against powerful men over the past few months, a couple things have come clear to me regarding so-called sexual abuse. I’m no psychologist, but I’ve been observing the human race, and the behavior of the male of the species in particular, for most of my 83.8 years, and I’ve noticed there are two kinds of “abusers” in general. There are the losers who are abusive in order to gain control of women; these men seem to feel inadequate and use their superior strength, loud voices, and the threat of forced physical intimacy as weapons to stay in control.

Not being a tidy person (meaning I don’t put the groceries, the laundry or my creative projects away promptly and clean up as I go along in the kitchen), I nevertheless believe a few changes I’d like to suggest would make the world tidier and more efficient. Things that serve no seriously useful purpose and generally tend to cause more chaos than they prevent. Some of these, I’ve no doubt mentioned here before, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat them in the hope somebody may see the value of these suggested changes and start a movement to spread the word.