June National Safety Month

June is National Safety Month (as well as many other observances—see last blog for more information on some observances). With Covid still going on, I wanted to post some information. Please read or forward this article on tips to stay safe during this time.

https://www.nsc.org/work-safety/get-involved/national-safety-month

June National Health Observance

Here are just a few of the National Health Observances:

Australia: Bowel Cancer Awareness Month

Canada: ALS Awareness Month, Brain Injury Awareness Month, National Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus Awareness Month, Stroke Awareness Month

United States: Myasthenia Gravis Awareness Month, National Aphasia Awareness Month, National Scleroderma Awareness Month

United Kingdom: National Osteoporosis Month

For more of a breakdown of weeks and individual organizations, please visit: http://www.whathealth.com/awareness/june.html

Lupus Awareness Month

May is a month of many awareness events. Lupus has touched someone close to me, so I wanted to focus on that, but encourage people to look at the list of other awareness organizations too.

Lupus Awareness Month is observed in May and aims to increase understanding amongst the general public – not just medical professionals – of what this disease can do and why it’s so key to know the facts.

To learn more visit this site: https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/lupus-awareness-month/

And as always, stay safe.

Memorial Day Sale

Today through Monday only, for every 5 tweezers you will get one free! Either buy on the website or email me at kjslivergripper@gmail.com and I will add the free tweezer(s). It will not show on the invoice upon purchase through the website, but I will automatically add the free tweezer weather you email me or not. Happy Memorial Day.

Camping?

With the mandatory shut-in hitting the globe and summer weather approaching on the western hemisphere, people are wondering when campgrounds will reopen. Some people are camping in their backyard! Don’t forget the greatest tool to camping—yep, tweezers! Stay safe!

Cinco de Mayo History

Did you all have a nice Cinco de Mayo or Taco Tuesday?

So what is Cinco de Mayo? Cinco de Mayo (Spanish: “Fifth of May”)also called Anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, holiday celebrated in parts of Mexico and the United States in honor of a military victory in 1862 over the French forces of Napoleon III.

When in 1861 Mexico declared a temporary moratorium on the repayment of foreign debts, English, Spanish, and French troops invaded the country. By April 1862 the English and Spanish had withdrawn, but the French, with the support of wealthy landowners, remained in an attempt to establish a monarchy under Maximilian of Austria and to curb U.S. power in North America. On May 5, 1862, a poorly equipped mestizo and Zapotec force under the command of General Ignacio Zaragoza defeated French troops at the Battle of Puebla, southeast of Mexico City; about 1,000 French troops were killed. Although the fighting continued and the French were not driven out for another five years, the victory at Puebla became a symbol of Mexican resistance to foreign domination. The city, which was later renamed Puebla de Zaragoza, is the site of a museum devoted to the battle, and the battlefield itself is maintained as a park.

The day is celebrated in the state of Puebla with parades, speeches, and reenactments of the 1862 battle, though it is not much noticed in most of the rest of the country. In the mid-20th-century United States, the celebration of Cinco de Mayo became among Mexican immigrants a way of encouraging pride in their Mexican heritage. Critics observed that enthusiasm for the holiday celebration did not take off with a broader demographic until it was explicitly linked with the promotion of Mexican alcoholic beverages and that many U.S. festivities tended to both perpetuate negative stereotypes of Mexicans and promote excessive drinking.

Cinco de Mayo is not to be confused with Mexican Independence Day, which falls on September 16. The latter holiday was established in 1810, some 50 years before the Battle of Puebla occurred.

May Health Awareness

With Covid-19 mandatory Shelter in Place extended in California (where I am) I wanted to give more health awareness. May is designated as Mental Health Awareness Month. 2020 marks the 71st anniversary of the observance, which is led each May by the Mental Health America (MHA). Check out this article to learn more.

https://mediatracks.com/resources/2020-health-wellness-awareness-calendar-infographic/

April Awareness #2

Today marks World Meningitis Day. I added a link to read if you would like to know more about what they are doing to support those this 2020. Be well.

https://www.meningitis.org/world-meningitis-day-2020

April Awareness

As we continue the fight against Covid-19, we also have a new month with other issues that also need awareness. Please check this link out:

http://www.whathealth.com/awareness/april.html

April 7th is World Health Day which is very fitting during this time. Take care.

CODVID 19 Prevention

Week one down of the shut-in in the California Bay Area and yet there are still many more cases. Hopefully we can all work together and turn this spread around. Here is a good article on how to prepare your house. Wishing you all well.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/get-your-household-ready-for-COVID-19.html

Remaining Open and Safe

I hope you are all well during this time. I’m in the California San Francisco Bay Area where we’ve been on a mandatory shut down due to the Coronavirus. Seeing the streets so empty is odd, but good that people are taking this seriously. Thankfully our tweezer company is able to continue online. Our manufacturer is taking the proper precautions while packaging and shipping; wearing gloves and masks. He has also prepackaged thousands of tweezers already making it a point that nothing will be touched for the three day period the virus is said to last. In addition he has also remained healthy through this. Stay safe and be well.

The Ides of March

This Sunday marks The Ides of March. What does that mean you ask? The Ides of March (/aɪdz/; Latin: Idus Martiae, Late Latin: Idus Martii) was a day in the Roman calendar that corresponds to 15 March. It was marked by several religious observances and was notable for the Romans as a deadline for settling debts. In 44 BC, it became notorious as the date of the assassination of Julius Caesar which made the Ides of March a turning point in Roman history.

Ides

The Romans did not number days of a month from the first to the last day. Instead, they counted back from three fixed points of the month: the Nones (the 5th or 7th, nine days inclusive before the Ides), the Ides (the 13th for most months, but the 15th in March, May, July, and October), and the Kalends (1st of the following month). Originally the Ides were supposed to be determined by the full moon, reflecting the lunar origin of the Roman calendar. In the earliest calendar, the Ides of March would have been the first full moon of the new year.

Panel thought to depict the Mamuralia, from a mosaic of the months in which March is positioned at the beginning of the year (first half of the 3rd century AD, from El Djem, Tunisia, in Roman Africa)

Religious observances

The Ides of each month were sacred to Jupiter, the Romans' supreme deity. The Flamen Dialis, Jupiter's high priest, led the "Ides sheep" (ovis Idulis) in procession along the Via Sacra to the arx, where it was sacrificed.

In addition to the monthly sacrifice, the Ides of March was also the occasion of the Feast of Anna Perenna, a goddess of the year (Latin annus) whose festival originally concluded the ceremonies of the new year. The day was enthusiastically celebrated among the common people with picnics, drinking, and revelry. One source from late antiquity also places the Mamuralia on the Ides of March. This observance, which has aspects of scapegoat or ancient Greek pharmakos ritual, involved beating an old man dressed in animal skins and perhaps driving him from the city. The ritual may have been a new year festival representing the expulsion of the old year.

In the later Imperial period, the Ides began a "holy week" of festivals celebrating Cybele and Attis, being the day Canna intrat ("The Reed enters"), when Attis was born and found among the reeds of a Phrygian river. He was discovered by shepherds or the goddess Cybele, who was also known as the Magna Mater ("Great Mother") (narratives differ). A week later, on 22 March, the solemn commemoration of Arbor intrat ("The Tree enters") commemorated the death of Attis under a pine tree. A college of priests, the dendrophoroi ("tree bearers") annually cut down a tree, hung from it an image of Attis, and carried it to the temple of the Magna Mater with lamentations. The day was formalized as part of the official Roman calendar under Claudius (d. 54 AD). A three-day period of mourning followed, culminating with celebrating the rebirth of Attis on 25 March, the date of the vernal equinox on the Julian calendar.

Assassination of Caesar

In modern times, the Ides of March is best known as the date on which Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 BC. Caesar was stabbed to death at a meeting of the Senate. As many as 60 conspirators, led by Brutus and Cassius, were involved. According to Plutarch, a seer had warned that harm would come to Caesar no later than the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey, where he would be assassinated, Caesar passed the seer and joked, "The Ides of March are come", implying that the prophecy had not been fulfilled, to which the seer replied "Aye, Caesar; but not gone." This meeting is famously dramatised in William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, when Caesar is warned by the soothsayer to "beware the Ides of March." The Roman biographer Suetonius identifies the "seer" as a haruspex named Spurinna.

Caesar's death was a closing event in the crisis of the Roman Republic, and triggered the civil war that would result in the rise to sole power of his adopted heir Octavian (later known as Augustus). Writing under Augustus, Ovid portrays the murder as a sacrilege, since Caesar was also the Pontifex Maximus of Rome and a priest of Vesta. On the fourth anniversary of Caesar's death in 40 BC, after achieving a victory at the siege of Perugia, Octavian executed 300 senators and knights who had fought against him under Lucius Antonius, the brother of Mark Antony. The executions were one of a series of actions taken by Octavian to avenge Caesar's death. Suetonius and the historian Cassius Dio characterised the slaughter as a religious sacrifice, noting that it occurred on the Ides of March at the new altar to the deified Julius.

Election Day History

In the United States, Election Day is the annual day set by law for the general elections of federal public officials. It is statutorily set as "the first Tuesday in the month of November" or "the first Tuesday after November 1". The earliest possible date is November 2, and the latest possible date is November 8.

For federal offices (President, Vice President, and United States Congress), Election Day occurs only in even-numbered years. Presidential elections are held every four years, in years divisible by four, in which electors for President and Vice President are chosen according to the method determined by each state. Elections to the US House of Representatives and the US Senate are held every two years; all Representatives are elected to serve two-year terms and are up for election every two years, while Senators serve six-year terms, staggered so that one third of Senators are elected in any given general election. General elections in which presidential candidates are not on the ballot are referred to as midterm elections. Terms for those elected begin in January the following year; the President and Vice President are inaugurated ("sworn in") on Inauguration Day, which is usually on January 20.

Many state and local government offices are also elected on Election Day as a matter of convenience and cost saving, although a handful of states hold elections for state offices (such as governor) during odd-numbered "off years", or during other even-numbered "midterm years", and may hold special elections for offices that have become vacant. Congress has mandated a uniform date for presidential (3 U.S.C. § 1) and congressional (2 U.S.C. § 1 and 2 U.S.C. § 7) elections, though early voting is nonetheless authorized in many states.

Election Day is a public holiday in some states, including Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Louisiana, Montana, New Jersey, New York, West Virginia, and the territory of Puerto Rico. Some other states require that workers be permitted to take time off with pay. California Elections Code section 14000 provides that employees otherwise unable to vote must be allowed two hours off with pay, at the beginning or end of a shift. A federal holiday, Democracy Day, to coincide with Election Day has been proposed. Other movements in the IT and automotive industries encourage employers to voluntarily give their employees paid time off on Election Day.

History

By 1792, Federal law permitted each state to choose Presidential electors any time within a 34-day period before the first Wednesday in December. A November election was convenient because the harvest would have been completed but the most severe winter weather, impeding transportation, would not yet have arrived, while the new election results also would roughly conform to a new year. Originally, states varied considerably in the method of choosing electors. Gradually, states converged on selection by some form of popular vote.

Development of the Morse electric telegraph, funded by Congress in 1843 and successfully tested in 1844, was a technological change that clearly augured an imminent future of instant communication nationwide. To prevent information from one state from influencing Presidential electoral outcomes in another, Congress responded in 1845 by mandating a uniform national date for choosing Presidential electors. Congress chose the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November to harmonize current electoral practice with the existing 34-day window in Federal law, as the span between Election Day and the first Wednesday in December is always 29 days. The effect is to constrain Election Day to the week between November 2 and November 8 inclusive. Beginning with Presidential elections, gradually all states brought nearly all elections into conformity with this date.

Criticism

Most voters have to work on Tuesdays. This has led activists to promote alternatives to improve voter turnout. Alternatives include making Election Day a Federal holiday or merging it with Veterans Day, allowing voting over multiple days, mandating paid time off to vote, encouraging voters to vote early or vote by mail, and encouraging states to promote flexible voting.

Holiday and paid leave

See also: Democracy Day (United States)

Delaware, Hawaii, Kentucky, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, and the territory of Puerto Rico have declared Election Day a civic holiday. Some other states require that workers be permitted to take time off from employment without loss of pay. California Elections Code Section 14000 and New York State Election Law provide that employees without sufficient time to vote must be allowed two hours off with pay, at the beginning or end of a shift. Democracy Day, a planned federal holiday to coincide with Election Day, was unsuccessfully proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in 2005. It was later reintroduced in the Senate in 2014 and has not been enacted.

Some employers allow their employees to come in late or leave early on Election Day to allow them an opportunity to get to their precinct and vote. The United Auto Workers union has negotiated making Election Day a holiday for workers of U.S. domestic auto manufacturers.[citation needed] In July 2016, venture capitalist Hunter Walk began encouraging tech companies to give their employees time off to vote on Election Day Walk's campaign evolved into a website, TakeOffElectionDay.com, which now highlights the 140+ tech companies (including Spotify, Wikimedia Foundation, Autodesk, and Square, Inc.) that are giving their employees time to vote on Election Day. In January 2019, Sandusky, Ohio became the first city in the country to make Election Day a paid holiday for city employees by eliminating Columbus Day.

Early and postal voting

Most states allow for early voting, allowing voters to cast ballots before the Election Day. Early voting periods vary from 4 to 50 days prior to Election Day. Unconditional early voting in person is allowed in 32 states and in D.C. Also, most states have some kind of absentee ballot system. Unconditional absentee voting by mail is allowed in 27 states and D.C., and with an excuse in another 21 states.  Unconditional permanent absentee voting is allowed in 7 states and in D.C.

In Colorado, Oregon and Washington State all major elections are by postal voting, with ballot papers sent to voters several weeks before Election Day. In Colorado and Oregon, all postal votes must be received by a set time on Election Day, as is common with absentee ballots in most states (except overseas military ballots, which receive more time by federal law). Washington State requires postal votes be postmarked by Election Day. For the 2008 presidential election, 32% of votes were early votes.

Black History Month Theme

2020 is an important general election year, and a landmark year for voting rights.

2020 marks the 150th anniversary of the Fifteenth Amendment (1870) which gave the right of black men to vote following the Civil War. It also marks the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment and the culmination of the women’s suffrage movement.

This year's theme for Black History month, "African Americans and the Vote", recognizes the struggle for voting rights among both black men AND women throughout American history.

It is an ongoing struggle for people of color that continues into the 21st century.


Black History & The Right to Vote

Even before the Civil War, free black men first petitioned state legislatures for the right to vote, but it wasn't until 1870 when the 15th Amendment was ratified providing that "the right to vote shall not be denied or abridged on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude."

Even so, southern state legislatures immediately began undermining the protections found in the new amendment. Years of lawsuits and protests followed, but it wasn't until the rise of the Civil Right Movement and Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the freedom to vote was enjoyed by a majority of southern blacks.

Today, these freedoms have eroded by 'gerrymandering' - or dividing voting districts to gain an unfair majority. Harsh voting restrictions by states have also been enacted to discourage voting among poor blacks.

The ongoing struggle may seem disheartening, but there are actions being taken for change. It may not change right away, but hopefully this means more change for the future. For example, the 2018 US midterm election, for example, saw a surprising record number of minority and women voted into state legislative power coast to coast. The voting tallies sparked new optimism that the historic pendulum was swinging back - again - to equal voting rights for all.

Black History Month Week 3

Vday History

Happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours. Keeping in the theme of history this month, I thought that I would post about the history of Valentine’s Day. It goes way back and wasn’t always the prettiest of pictures… read on!

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled.

A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine — one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.

Those Wild And Crazy Romans

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival — or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love."

Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike.

William Shakespeare helped romanticize Valentine's Day in his work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe.

Perry-Castañeda Library, University of Texas

Shakespeare In Love

As the years went on, the holiday grew sweeter. Chaucer and Shakespeare romanticized it in their work, and it gained popularity throughout Britain and the rest of Europe. Handmade paper cards became the tokens-du-jour in the Middle Ages.

Eventually, the tradition made its way to the New World. The industrial revolution ushered in factory-made cards in the 19th century. And in 1913, Hallmark Cards of Kansas City, Mo., began mass producing valentines. February has not been the same since.

Today, the holiday is big business: According to market research firm IBIS World, Valentine's Day sales reached $17.6 billion last year; this year's sales are expected to total $18.6 billion.

But that commercialization has spoiled the day for many. Helen Fisher, a sociologist at Rutgers University, says we have only ourselves to blame.

"This isn't a command performance," she says. "If people didn't want to buy Hallmark cards, they would not be bought, and Hallmark would go out of business."

And so the celebration of Valentine's Day goes on, in varied ways. Many will break the bank buying jewelry and flowers for their beloveds. Others will celebrate in a SAD (that's Single Awareness Day) way, dining alone and binging on self-gifted chocolates. A few may even be spending this day the same way the early Romans did. But let's not go there!

Black History Month 2020

Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the first celebration of Black History Month which occurred on Feb. 12, 1926. For many years, the second week of February was set aside for this celebration to coincide with the birthdays of abolitionist/editor Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. In 1976, as part of the nation’s bicentennial, the week was expanded to a month. Since then, U.S. presidents have proclaimed February as National African-American History Month.

Honor the month by learning more:

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/facts-for-features/2020/black-history-month.html