3-2-22 has a nice ring to it. Good morning, it’s Wednesday…Ash Wednesday, to be exact.
For the uninitiated, Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, and occurs six-and-a-half weeks from Easter, give or take, depending on the calendar. It is traditionally marked with fasting (only one full meal and no meat is supposed to be consumed), the wearing of ashes on the forehead, the confessing of sins, and of professing one’s devotion to God.
(Actually, the whole ash thing was at one time reserved only for grievous sinners, who started their public penitence prior to be reconnected with the community on Maundy Thursday – the Thursday before Easter. But that practice eventually fell into disuse and was replaced by the placing of ashes on the heads of an entire congregation).
The ashes, which are placed by a priest on the forehead of a congregant in the shape of a cross, are meant to symbolize both death and repentance. As such, Christians show repentance and mourning for their sins, because they believe Christ died for them.
When applying the cross of ashes, a priest traditionally says: ““Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” and also may say: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”
Traditionally, the ashes in question are made by burning the palms from the previous year’s Palm Sunday, which symbolize Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem on the Sunday before his crucifixion. The ashes are blessed before use.
Ash Wednesday is not, in fact, a day of holy obligation, but it is nevertheless one of the year’s most well-attended non-Sunday masses.
Lent is the period of self-sacrifice, prayer, and the giving of alms that leads up to Easter – the day of Jesus’ resurrection. It lasts 46 days, including 40 days of fasting and six Sundays on which fasting is not expected.
The number “40” has a lot of biblical significance. For example, Moses spent 40 days and nights with God on Mount Sinai before receiving the Ten Commandments, and Jesus was led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil for 40 days. (Apparently, there’s a lot more where this came from).
I don’t want to be too blasphemous here, but for those of us who aren’t Christian and/or don’t observe Ash Wednesday, it’s worth noting that today is the birthday of the iconic children’s book writer and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel, AKA Dr. Seuss, who was born on this day in 1904, in Spingfield, MA.
Seuss and his imagery has become increasingly controversial. And last year, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would no longer publish six of the celebrated author’s books due to racist and insensitive imagery.
Dr. Seuss was an integral part of my childhood – warts and all. I still love his books, even the ones that were discontinued.
It will be partly cloudy today with temperatures in the high 30s. Tomorrow, we’re heading back down into the 20s, so enjoy this reprieve while you can.
In the headlines…
President Joe Biden fulfilled a constitutional request by delivering his first State of the Union address to Congress, kicking off his speech strongly condemning Russia for its “unprovoked” invasion of Ukraine, including closing off U.S. airspace to Russia planes.
Biden used the State of the Union to attempt to rebrand his Build Back Better domestic agenda, which died in the Senate last year.
Confronting a war in Europe at the same moment he works to improve his political prospects, Biden sought to rally a divided and weary country behind a revamped domestic agenda and his attempt to isolate and punish Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Yet the limits of Biden’s approach were evident even as he was speaking. A 40-mile long Russian convoy was approaching Kyiv, and explosions were rocking major cities.
Russian forces, frustrated in plans for a quick victory, shifted to a new strategy of pummeling civilian areas in an attempt to demoralize Ukrainian resistance and reignite their slowing military advance.
At least 660,000 people, mostly women and children, fled Ukraine in the five days after Russia invaded — the most intense wave of European migration since at least the 1990s.
Biden announced the U.S. is banning Russian aircraft from its airspace and pledged to go after Russian oligarchs in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine.
Rep. Victoria Spartz, a Republican who is Ukrainian American, was one of the official escorts for Biden at the speech.
At least 11 states, including Oregon, North Carolina and West Virginia, have banned the sale of Russian-made alcohol to denounce Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Apple has stopped selling iPhones and other products in Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
The president asked all the lawmakers crowding the House chamber to stand and salute the Ukrainians as he began his speech. They stood and cheered.
On the domestic front, Biden addressed the economy and inflation, which is at its highest level in decades and has been cited by voters as a top concern — and a major reason for his weak approval ratings in polling.
The president made only a perfunctory mention of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Unsurprisingly, leaders of deep-blue New York praised the president’s speech. Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said on Twitter that the president had “outlined a unifying vision to build a stronger America as we recover from the pandemic.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Biden’s address for leaving out key issues to his voting base, such as the “crisis in education,” student loan debt, and immigration.
Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa delivered a scathing Republican rebuke the State of the Union, casting his presidency as an unwanted remake of “That ‘70s Show,” complete with “runaway inflation,” rampant crime and a rampaging “Soviet army.”
Biden also didn’t mention Afghanistan, former President Donald Trump, the looming midterm elections, or the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio boycotted the speech over the strict COVID-19 guidelines, while Gov. Ron DeSantis rejected a request to send members of the Florida National Guard to Washington for security support.
Looking to usher the U.S. out of the COVID crisis into a so-called “new normal,” Biden sketched out the next phase of his response, including a new “test to treat” initiative aimed at providing patients with medications as soon as they learn they’re infected.
As the United States emerges from the Omicron wave, Covid-19 testing has slowed to a fraction of what it was at the beginning of the year.
After two years of remote work, companies including American Express, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. and Wells Fargo & Co. plan broader office re-openings in March.
Five months after immunization, two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine appeared to offer virtually no defense against moderate illness caused by the Omicron variant among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years, according to data published by the CDC.
Be aware: That COVID-19 test kit in your home could contain a toxic substance that may be harmful to your children and you.
Queen Elizabeth is on the mend after testing positive for COVID-19. She was reportedly well enough for an outdoor family visit from some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren over the weekend.
The Queen also held two virtual audiences after more than a week of suffering cold-like symptoms from COVID-19.
New York City said it would end its main contact-tracing program for the coronavirus next month, in yet another sign that officials across the United States are shifting how they treat the threat of the coronavirus.
Children will be allowed to shed their masks today in some New York State day care and child care centers.
The state Office of Children and Family Services issued a letter to child care providers, noting that they would be free to set their own mask requirements.
Mayor Eric Adams’ health team is quietly launching a $1.9 million campaign to boost coronavirus vaccination rates in the mostly white neighborhoods of orthodox Jewish Brooklyn as well as parts of Staten Island.
Adams received early campaign cash from defendants in a lawsuit filed by GEICO, with the insurance company alleging they and other medical groups billed GEICO for more than $4.5 million in fraudulent claims. They’re close to his top aide, Frank Carone.
Federal CARES Act funding is on its way to help the Great Lakes fishing industries impacted by COVID-19. The funding is expected to total $2 million.
New Yorkers curious about where $26 billion in federal COVID dollars are going can now track the city’s spending through a database compiled by the NYC comptroller’s office.
New York State Republicans voted for Long Island Congressman Lee Zeldin as their designee for the Governor’s race this November. He received more than 85 percent of the vote.
However, a June primary is possible as Republicans continued to argue which candidate has the best chance to attract voters beyond the Republican Party to win the general election in November.
Financier Harry Wilson, former Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino and former Trump administration aide Andrew Giuliani will have to petition their way onto the ballot.
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani showed up to support his son Andrew’s gubernatorial bid, signing a petition for him at the New York Republican Party’s convention.
Andrew Giuliani, 36, who served as White House aide to Trump, was the only candidate to publicly stand by the former president at the state convention — or even mention his name.
The state GOP Convention gave party leaders a chance to test messages about crime, inflation and Democratic leadership.
Any Republican candidate faces tough odds in New York, where registered Democrats outnumber GOP voters by more than 2 to 1. New York hasn’t elected a Republican governor since former Gov. George Pataki in 2002.
Seizing on an opportunity to appeal to New York’s Asian American community — which has been beset by targeted violence amid an overall crime spike under city and state Democrats — the state Republican Party is creating a new Asian caucus within its ranks.
A number of activist groups claim that Hochul’s Penn Station development plan is a “secretive maneuver” to redirect an estimated $5 billion away from the city and into state coffers.
Hochul is warning New Yorkers of rising energy costs and announced the launch of an enhanced statewide campaign to provide assistance.
Members of the Central Park Five are putting legislative leaders on notice over a bill they believe could help free other innocent people from jail.
The head of the NYPD’s hate crimes unit has been reassigned by Adams after she blamed one victim for filming her attacker, as her division made arrests in fewer than half of all hate incidents that were reported.
A woman who was attacked in Queens in November died from her injuries last week, her family said, the latest death in a series of attacks in New York City against people of Asian descent.
Adams visited the New York City Housing Authority’s Emergency Operations Center in Long Island City for the first time since becoming mayor.
The husband of Assemblywoman Rodneyse Bichotte, who is Brooklyn’s Democratic Party boss and a top ally of Adams, has landed a plum gig at one of the city’s main social services agencies, city officials confirmed.
The Adams administration is asking the federal government to provide work permits and protection from deportation for Ukrainian non-citizens in the U.S. — including Ukrainian DACA recipients and F-1 international students — who cannot safely return home.
New York’s $280 billion pension fund includes nearly $111 million in investments from Russian companies that state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli said his office may divest from the pool as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.
The former treasurer at the union representing NYPD sergeants has been ousted from the board in another shakeup following the indictment of the ex-president on federal corruption charges.
An NYPD police officer faced a departmental trial yesterday for allegedly working as unpaid security for Trump adviser Roger Stone alongside members of the far right Oath Keepers militia.
Alpo Martinez, a former Harlem drug kingpin who became an informant, was killed not for snitching but because of a simmering feud over his erratic driving, a law enforcement official said.
A federal judge refuted Sarah Palin’s claims that The New York Times defamed her in a 2017 editorial, concluding that the case should be dismissed because she had “wholly failed to prove her case even to the minimum standard required by law.”
A long-awaited elementary-to-middle-school feeder plan intended to create more equity across three middle school buildings in Albany drew pushback from parents at a heated public meeting earlier this week.
Stewart’s Shops has withdrawn its controversial application to build homes on Snake Hill, saying that construction costs would be higher than anticipated.
Albany Nanotech founder Alain Kaloyeros has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review his 2018 conviction in a federal bid-rigging case as he prepares to turn himself in later this month to start serving a 42-month prison sentence.
Chick-fil-A is heading toward an April approval for its Clifton Park store.
Gov. Greg Abbott and former Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke easily won their respective primaries yesterday, setting up a high-profile race for Texas governor.
After the league and the players’ union failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement by M.L.B.’s self-imposed deadline yesterday evening, the league said the season would not start on March 31.
Ned Eisenberg, a character actor known for his work on popular shows including “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Mare of Easttown,” died at his home in the Jackson Heights section of Queens on Sunday. He was 65.
