March 9th, Butter Lamp Festival and More Bad Politics.

March 9th, on this day the annual Butter Lamp Festival is held by Buddhist monks in Tibet to render demons powerless and to secure the favor of the gods.  Yak-Butter sculptures of Buddhist heroes are paraded through the streets as sacred chants are recited.  After the procession, the sculptures are then cast into the waters of a river.

On this day in history in 1979 the Japanese soldier Hiroo Onada, 51, finally gives up the fight after hiding out in the Philippines for 29 years after the end of World War II.  He did not know the war was over.  According to the book Bad Days in History, Onada's  a former commanding officer showed up to assure him that the war was really over.  "Suddenly everything went black," Onoda recalled in his book, No Surrender, "A storm raged inside me.  I felt like a fool for having been so tense and cautious on the way here (to meet the former commander)...worse than that, what had I been doing for all these years?"

Hiroo Onoda walks out of the Philippine jungle to surrender in 1974. Photograph: AFP/Getty

Finally, some good news from the Corona Virus that is sweeping American by the storm even though our fearless leader keeps telling us "everything is perfect!"  The good news is that the Texas Senator Ted Cruz is quarantining himself after he interacted briefly with a person who is infected at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland last month.  This means Ted Cruz won't be kissing any children for awhile.  Can I get an amen!

 

"I'm so glad Ted Cruz can't kiss my baby no more..."

"Kiss my baby Ted Cruz..."

"Someone register that guy before I forget to have him arrested."