Friday the 13th

It’s Friday the 13th, so get out those broken mirrors…or not. From the Buffalo News:

Today is Friday the 13th, traditionally a day to avoid black cats, ladders and broken mirrors.

But in the year 2007, does anyone care?

Once, people feared bad luck when the 13th day of the month fell on a Friday. Now, for most people, Friday the 13th is no more remarkable than Friday the 8th or Friday the 21st. Some probably don’t even notice when the formerly chilling day-date combination dawns.

“I don’t find a whole lot of people are really worried about it anymore,” said Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist at the University of Delaware who knows enough about the number 13 to earn the unofficial title “Dr. 13.”

“I like to call it a historical superstition.”

The day was once imbued with great significance. Stories about how it arose range from the arrests and killings of the Knights Templar on a Friday the 13th in the 1300s to the hangings routinely carried out on Fridays and Jesus’ status as the 13th guest at the last supper.

But now, few will admit to harboring qualms about Friday the 13th. Amy Koban, owner and reader at Amy’s Mystick Boutique in Lewiston, said she encounters plenty of people who are inclined to be superstitious — and even they brush off the inauspicious date.
The Buffalo News: Lifestyle News: Friday, the 13th – not the ominous day it once was

This proves that God does play dice with the universe, I think: is it just a coincidence that this unlucky day falls less than a week after the “lucky” 07/07/07? I don’t think so.

I wonder what kind of business the wedding chapels are doing today.

Coincidentally, it’s Day 4 of the WSOP final, and there are plenty of people who will remember this as an lucky day, and plenty of people who’ll think it’s a lucky one: it’s all a matter of perspective. I was just down there, and I saw a guy go all-in on the first hand of the day and lose. He had a pair of jacks, but unfortunately, the other guy had stomach aces.