BALLADEER’S BLOG
Today is January 13th, which also happens to be a Friday. On past instances of Friday the 13th, Balladeer’s Blog has done posts about the 1907 novel Friday the 13th, about the PRE-Jason Voorhees Friday the 13th horror movie, about one of the 50 Shades of Grey movies hitting theaters on Friday the 13th, and about the airing of Friday the 13th Part 3D on an old movie host show in the 1980s.
For today, I’ll take a look at noteworthy events on other January 13ths, most of which were not Fridays, but what the hell?
888 A.D. – Charles the Fat’s successor, Count Odo of Paris assumes the throne as King of West Francia.
1404 – The English Parliament passes the Act of Multipliers, making it illegal for alchemists to use their abilities to transmute lesser substances into precious metals. The outdated and buffoonish Paul Krugman probably believes that such legislation is still necessary.
1605 – The satirical comedy Eastward Ho!, by Ben Jonson and two co-authors, offends England’s King James, who has two of the authors imprisoned. Here in 2023 it is mostly emotional cripples on social media that want people imprisoned or worse for offending them. Continue reading
FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH (1907) – Written by Thomas William Lawson, a writer and stock manipulator who made a fortune from shady stock deals … in between advocating for cleaning up Wall Street to shut down those fleece jobs. The reforms Lawson campaigned for were taken up decades later when Franklin Roosevelt appointed future Supreme Court Justice William O Douglas to head the Securities Exchange Commission. 
Jim Randolph, one of the novel’s main characters, is in the T.R. mold: he may be a bloated rich pig but at least he’s a bloated rich pig with a sense of noblesse oblige. Jim shares Teddy Roosevelt’s disdain for the Trusts and for con men who use the stock market to rip off their clients. 
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